The Politicization of a Private Infrastructure: Hong Kong’s Pedestrian Bridge Network

Abstract

The 2014 “Umbrella Protest’ and 2011-12 Occupy Central demonstrations in Hong Kong were sited along and under segments of the city’s well-known pedestrian bridge infrastructure. The walkways are often cited by critics as examples of a public realm compromised by private management and surveillance. But these recent events compel a reexamination of the bridge network, and whether these privatized connectors, through their appropriation as spaces of informal and unsanctioned activity, have evolved into a supporting armature for dissent and a kind of ‘infrastructure of inclusion’.