The visibility and invisibility of vulnerable individuals or groups in public space have been extensively used as a conceptual tool to assess the “public” character of space. This article analyses the case study of the Parkdale neighborhood in Toronto demonstrating how public space is constructed in a path-dependent territorial process where different layers play a dynamic constitutive role: a material, a discursive, and a policy dimension. It argues that urban visibilization and invisibilization in public spaces extensively affect the dynamics of urban inclusion and exclusion, particularly when they are used in specific territorial stigmatization and destigmatization processes. The investigation enables to better understand the socio-spatial conditions comprising the “denial” and “recognition” of certain groups and individuals at the neighborhood level by understanding how local policies and community-based practices influence the complex dynamic of “seeing and being seen” in an urban environment.

脆弱的个人或群体在公共空间中的可见性和隐形性已被广泛用作评估空间“公共”特征的概念工具。本文分析了多伦多帕克代尔社区的案例研究，展示了公共空间是如何在依赖路径的领土过程中构建的，其中不同的层在其中发挥着动态的构成作用：物质，话语和政策维度。它认为，公共空间中的城市视觉化和非视觉化在很大程度上影响了城市包容性和排斥性的动态，特别是当它们被用于特定的领土污名化和污名化过程中时。