Get over it, Toronto. Despite your complaints, no city in the world has benefited more from the condo than this one.

Not every residential tower comes as a gift from the gods of architecture and planning, but because of the condo, Toronto has started to achieve the sort of critical mass — economic, cultural, social — needed to realize its long-awaited urban promise.

Because of the condo, whole swaths of formerly empty or underused land are now happily inhabited or about to be. That includes the waterfront and parts east.

Before the condo, Toronto was a big town; now it’s a city.

And though objections to height are a foregone conclusion, here in Megacity the tower has long been a fact of life. Tall buildings define Toronto. And now those towers are taller than ever. Some find that exciting; many do not. But instead of talking about why we like some towers and not others, about the differences between towers that succeed and those that fail, we condemn them out of hand, because they’re tall.

Concerns about whether the infrastructure can handle the onslaught largely miss the point. The infrastructure has been at capacity for decades; the Gardiner Expressway, for example, has carried its intended traffic flows since opening.

Transit is a scandal, of course. Our failure, though almost complete, is mitigated by the fact the subway is being extended and new LRT lines are under construction.

After 25 years of inaction, however, the need is great. Transit is Toronto and the region’s Achilles’ heel.

But even that’s no reason for hating the condo. As it turns out, many inhabitants of those despised structures help ease congestion by walking and biking to and from work. As they colonize the city, their vehicular needs have been cut to the point where they rent a car, like any other piece of equipment, by the hour.

At the same time, these new densities bring new priorities; streets can no longer remain the exclusive domain of cars and drivers. Yes, we need more public transit, bike lanes and wider sidewalks; we also need fewer cars on the road.

We prefer not to go too deeply into that just yet. One thing at a time. When the Toronto Board of Trade recently suggested we use parking levies and road charges to raise transit-building revenues, most Torontonians said no. A sales tax has public support, but not, it seems, measures that directly affect driving.

No one expects cars to disappear anytime soon. Still, there’s growing awareness that we have reached peak automobile, or at least a state where the biggest transit and economic gains lie beyond the car. The changing reality of the city has already altered attitudes. That can be seen daily on the streets of Toronto.

Regardless, the fear and loathing of density, indeed, of all things urban, is also palpable. The advent of Rob Ford makes that painfully clear. But when the mayor declared the war on the car was over, he might as well have decreed an end to time.

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The car may be here to stay, but not so the assumptions about its pre-eminence. The basic need to get around will force our hand.

Rob Ford notwithstanding, that process is under way. But the situation on the ground, and in the towers, is moving fast. Toronto can no longer keep up with itself. A backlash mayor was inevitable, perhaps, even understandable. But he’s not the only one who can’t see the city for the condos.