We don’t think of condo dwellers as pioneers, but that’s what they are, some of them, anyway.

Moving into the urban wilderness, clearing the land and cleaning the soil, they have opened up the city in ways that would never have occurred to their forefathers.

More remarkable, they have accomplished all this in living units so small that breakfast in bed is a necessity, not a Sunday morning luxury. In a world of suburban sprawl, monster homes and walk-in closets, the 301-square-foot box-in-the-sky represents a new way of life, and beyond that, a repudiation of sorts, certainly a renunciation of all that’s familiar. Outside megacities such as Tokyo with its capsule architecture, this miniaturization of real estate is just starting. In a city like ours, obsessed with the price of housing, this is the new frontier.

These trailblazers, many young and unmarried, can be seen every morning, walking their dogs in parking lots, past loading docks, construction sites and under the Gardiner Expressway, where they and their pets can stroll for miles in the muddy shadow of the city. They’re also the ones trudging north to work instead of south, like the rest of us who live uptown.

Still, these brave souls remain strangely invisible to the larger Toronto. Perhaps that’s because they come with iPods and backpacks, not axes and oxen. Not only are they unafraid of heights, they embrace transparency and aren’t scared to walk. Some have bought condos in towers that have no parking, thereby severing one of their deepest connections to the Old Toronto they have left behind.

Thus liberated, these citified settlers are free to roam the urban landscape, exploring, charting, describing, naming all they see. They have no choice; when everyone else has gone home, they remain. Much of their time is spent searching for food, drink and companionship. They must delve into every corner of the city looking to fulfill needs that others take for granted.

Inevitably, they will change Toronto as much as it will change them. Already, attentive retailers and enterprising merchants are following them to the darkest recesses of the downtown core. Suddenly, coffee shops and supermarkets are the new downtown landmarks, some popping up on the ruins of monuments built long ago. Just think of Maple Leaf Gardens, a hallowed sports and entertainment hall from a distant age, now a supermarket.

Throughout the city, restaurants and cafes are now ubiquitous; art galleries and laundromats abound. Unlike their suburban forebears, these pioneers have escaped the tyranny of single-use zoning for the freedom of complexity. Boldly going where few have gone before, they make their homes in former industrial wastelands and vacant sites once occupied by the homeless.

By the time the rest of us catch up, the city will be a place transformed. The process started awhile ago, but has a long way to go still. Indeed, the story of Toronto in the decades ahead will be all about its efforts to deal with forces it has unleashed but which are barely acknowledged, let alone controlled.

It will be interesting to watch as city hall tries desperately to keep up with changes that come faster and faster. Official attitudes, like zoning regulations, tend to be out of date and focused on issues that no longer matter.

As always, things are seldom what they seem; leftover spaces are becoming parks, and parks are becoming leftover spaces. What is empty now will soon be full; what’s full now will soon be empty.

In an age when less is more, that box-in-the-sky is just another room with a view.

Christopher Hume can be reached at chume@thestar.ca