You can see a lot from the floor-to-ceiling windows in Jonathan Careless’ 39th story downtown condo: North York, Pearson airport, the Niagara Escarpment — and the mind-boggling number of people who live in a compact space in the sky just like his.

“I look right at my neighbours,” he said, motioning at the vertical city lit up in the night, row after row of tiny living rooms and kitchens visible in the CityPlace condos that surround him. “I can see them come home and make dinner.”

Thirteen thousand people call these soaring glass buildings along the waterfront near the Rogers Centre home. By 2018, 18,000 will live in 10,000 units in 25 buildings, making their homes and their lives on top of one another.

This is stacked living — where you have 850 square feet to your name and 700 neighbours in one building. Backyard? Try balcony. And the trip from your condo to the lobby can be a commute of its own, thanks to stop after stop at floors that reach 49 storeys.

“We have our own little rush hour,” said Kristina Yallin, a 24-year-old CityPlace resident who rents a two-room condo.

Between 2006 and 2011, Toronto’s numbers grew almost 10 per cent, a trend that will only increase. As the region’s population surges and new single-detached homes become the rarest of commodities, such density-rich places are where a growing number of GTA residents will live.

With that prospect on the horizon, the Toronto Star is launching an ongoing exploration of the opportunities and challenges posed by population growth and how increased density could affect life.

A team of Star reporters will explore what density could mean for regional transportation and how that lifestyle could affect public health and available green space. Should we be afraid of hyper-dense living? How will families and their pets fit into a world of smaller homes in more densely populated neighbourhoods? Can schools and emergency services cope?

And how about that gridlock?

Downtown, there’s simply nowhere to go but up. For a preview, look to CityPlace.

“We’re the benchmark for all city condo neighbourhoods,” said Dean Maher, 40, a resident since 2003 and president of the CityPlace residents’ association.

The area is not the absolute densest in Toronto — that’s St. James Town, where those sky-high towers add up to just under 42,000 people per square kilometer. But the population within this small square of land that contains much of CityPlace — from Bathurst St. to Spadina Ave., Front St. to the waterfront — surged from 1,106 to 5,911 between 2006 and 2011, according to the latest census data. The spike upped the overall density in the area by 434 per cent in just five years.

It’s a big part of why the waterfront area south of Front St. between Bathurst and the Don River grew more than any other of Toronto’s 140 official neighbourhoods in the past few years.

According to calculations by the city, population density rose by 66 per cent between 2006 and 2011, from 3,472 to 5,778 people per square kilometre — far surpassing the city’s average of 4,077.

The first adopters of the sky life were single young professionals wanting to live in the heart of the city. The latest census put the median age of the population at 30, and well over half were not married or living with a common-law partner. Just 320 of the tract’s 5,910 residents were 19 or younger.

For Yallin, who moved into her unit last May, the “feeling that there’s a lot of young people” was one of the biggest draws. She and her roommate wanted to live along the waterfront and close to the action.

But the young-and-single vibe is slowly giving way as families embrace life in the density lane.

Every weekday around 3:30 p.m., a yellow school bus releases a handful of school kids who happily greet their guardians waiting at a bus stop just steps from bustling Spadina Ave. and the Gardiner Expressway.

“We like (living near) a lot of people; we don’t like living in the suburbs,” said Martina Esguerra, 32, bouncing her 8-month-old son on her hip as she waited for her 6-year-old daughter to arrive from nearby St. Mary elementary school. Originally from Manila, Esguerra is used to busy city life and finds condo living is “better to meet other people, other moms with children.”

Larger units (some as large as 4,500 feet) are attracting families, and a newly opened Toronto Community Housing building with affordable rental units has brought a welcome increase in children in the neighbourhood, Maher said.

Esguerra and her husband moved into the area a few years ago. They walk to work, to church, to the TTC, and to a grocery store on Fort York Blvd. She doesn’t mind not having a backyard for the kids — there’s a nearby playground and green space.

The family’s two-bedroom unit might not work forever, she said, but living in a house isn’t even on their radar.

“Maybe once (my son) grows up we’ll have to move — to a three-bedroom (condo),” she said.

In April, Suzanne Singh, her husband and their four kids made a drastic transition from a five-bedroom house in Scarborough to a three-bedroom, 1,000-square-foot CityPlace condo.

The neighbourhood’s density prompted the move: Singh’s dream was to open up a pet supplies store and she saw opportunity in the highly populated area —there are approximately seven dogs for every floor. Her store is now open on Fort York Blvd.

Her kids, all under 13, double up in the bedrooms and attend St. Mary’s school. The family uses a car on Sundays to run errands and shop for groceries.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

While it’s a temporary arrangement, condo living has brought newfound proximity to the activities the family loves.

“We’ve been more active since moving to CityPlace,” Singh said. “Living here, we can go swimming, catch a Jays game, and go to the theatre at night, all in one day.”

It speaks to one of the biggest shifts living in smaller spaces brings: you tend to live more of your life outside your home.

“People who live in the suburbs might think 650 square feet is small. For me, it suits my needs because my neighbourhood is also my living space,” said Maher, who has lived in CityPlace since 2003. “I have restaurants, I have bars, I walk my dog, I just walk around the neighbourhood.”

One of the biggest criticisms of CityPlace has been that it isn’t a neighbourhood at all — just a clump of soulless skyscrapers. Adam Vaughan, the ward’s city councillor, agrees this was an issue during the first stages of the development.

But changes to the buildings — such as more retail space, including non-profit commercial space — as well as plans for two schools, a community centre, a library and a dog park will make the area a place to spend time, and attract people who don’t live in the neighbourhood.

The residents’ association has also brought about numerous community initiatives, including a September farmers’ market that was so successful it prompted another one, taking place Monday.

“The social part of the neighbourhood is the last part to arrive, and it’s arriving now,” Vaughan said.

The sheer number of people presents problems — traffic congestion along the main drag, Fort York Blvd., being one of them.

“I feel the density when the movement, the flow within the area, is not working,” said Maher, who has recently struck a traffic committee within the residents’ association. Among the concerns is that a newly opened westbound Fort York Blvd. could be seen by non-residents as a shortcut to Lake Shore Blvd.

Pedestrian access into and out of the neighbourhood has also been a concern. But that will be mitigated later this month, when a footbridge over the rail corridor between CityPlace and Front St. finally opens to the public.

It helps that it’s quiet, Careless said. Prior to living in CityPlace, he lived in a loft near High Park and could hear all his neighbours. Here, concrete walls provide a sound buffer.

Wide, suburban-style roads may feel less feel pedestrian-friendly, but they also create the feeling of openness, Vaughan said.

“You might have more density, but you suddenly feel like you have more breathing room simultaneously, which is kind of an interesting dynamic,” he said.

Ultimately, those who chose to live downtown were looking for an urban experience. For them, that’s synonymous with living alongside thousands of others.

“I go for drives out in the country, and I go cycling in the country all the time, and I think: It’s beautiful out here, but I don’t want to live here,” said Careless. “I like coming home to the city.”