Underground landscape: The urbanism and infrastructure of Toronto’s downtown pedestrian network

Beneath the surface of the streets of Toronto lies a sprawling labyrinth that serves over 100,000 people every day and countless tourists and visitors. One of the city’s most under-valued urban spaces, Toronto’s underground is remarkably the largest underground shopping complex in the world according to the Guinness Book of World Records with more than 30 km of shopping tunnels and retail nodes. Since the 1970s, this underground system has grown and multiplied beneath the surface of the city with relatively little intervention from city planners. This article discusses the development pattern of the underground as a network and the future it holds as an important urban infrastructure.