Toronto was reasonably spread out.
The Canadian economy is addicted to 'new construction' as a form of growth + plus mass-scale immigration. Without it, the GDP numbers would not be good. Granted - the GDP/capita numbers would be just fine, so the choice is ideological.
Toronto opened up it's downtown to residential construction and that has been most of the change: massive residential towers (or even smaller ones) closer to downtown.
Of course - the endless construction of identical looking homes for 100Km in all direction continues unabated.
Driving North out of Toronto now - it goes on forever: identical homes, a Timmies, a Starbucks, a Home Depot, a TD Bank, another batch of the same homes, a Timmies, a Starbucks, a TD Bank - reapeat ad nauseum.
I think the expansion has largely been a disaster and we'll look back on it mostly as an economic trick to fill as many homes as possible in a short period of time.