Ha, "Vertical suburbs" good one. I suppose the railways lands and surrounding downtwon area would better support semi-detached homes? I know everyone wants mixed use everything, but go into any residential area of Toronto away from the main streets and you don't have mixed use. Take Yonge/Eglinton for instance. Go North-West from that interesection and there and there's no more mixed-use until you hit Avenue road and Lawrence. It's all just residential homes and it's lovely. CityPlace is a residential area between Spadina and Bathurst (primarily) and the Gardiner and Front (it's surrounded by an incredibly vibrant downtown on every side so who cares if for that one small area there's no heavy retail presence. It might not fit the exact model of what they taught in planning school, but it's working out great. People walk to work and then come home to this community just south of Front. The only folks, who think it's 'cut off' from the rest of the city are people who've never lived there. If you asked any of hte 15,000 residents if they feel cut-off they wouldn't know what you were talking about. I'd take it over Liberty Village with it's densely packed ugly mishmash of condos and townhomes any day. Anyway, haters gonna hate. We can't all live in semis around Trinity Bellwoods and it's a hell of a lot better than commuting out to Oakville each day.