About the indoor city

Definition

History

Definition of the indoor city

The indoor city is a set of buildings connected by interior walkways, belonging to distinct owners, offering a diversity of functions, namely public transportation, shopping malls, office space and leisure activities, where the use of public space has been settled by an agreement with the municipal authorities.

This new expression replaces the one used until recently of the 'underground city,' since the network of spaces is only partially underground. In Montreal for example, about half of this 'indoor city' network is actually on the ground level or above. In addition, the notion of 'underground' space conjures up negative connotations of being enclosed or stuffy, wheareas, in reality, the indoor city is very open to the outside and is made up not only of corridors but also of real public spaces.

Other cities

Montreal may be home to the most impressive indoor city in the world in terms of the number of hectares of downtown it occupies or the number of kilometres its passageways stretch, but it is certainly not the only city to have developed such a system around its transit stations. Toronto also boasts a well-developed indoor pedestrian network, known as PATH. In Paris, nascent networks are currently expanding in the vicinity of La Défense and of the Forum des Halles. That said, the most spectacular expansion can be observed in various Asian cities. Shanghai and Shenzhen are good Chinese examples, while several Japanese metropoles have played host to a massive expansion of multi-functional complexes around their train stations, all linked by impressive indoor pedestrian passages.