The difference a backyard makes? Governing pandemic structures in Toronto, Canada

This article examines how municipal regulators and local politicians navigated the ambiguous boundaries between property, shelter, and land during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in Toronto, Canada. By analyzing the governance of two small structures—the tolerance of Backyard Pods on private property and the removal of Tiny Shelters in public parks—this study highlights how distinctions between propertied and unpropertied residents are (re)produced through the discretionary practices of municipal actors operating within regulatory “grey areas.” Rather than treating ambiguity as confusion or exception, the paper conceptualizes it as a mode of governance through which property relations are enacted and spatial hierarchies of legitimacy are reproduced through responsibility and liability. In Toronto, regulators acted as the stewards of municipal ownership and risk, translating abstract legal categories into technical decisions about who may dwell where and under what conditions. Together, these cases reveal how local governance practices are imbricated in housing inequality through the micropolitics of regulation.