The author is using Toronto as a stand-in for a typical North American city, when in fact it's actually pretty bizarre and unique with respect to density-- I can't think of any American city structured similarly.
Dense downtown core, though Toronto has more people living there versus just offices. (Though that's been changing for a while now in Chicago). Similar scope of mass transit, where the trains don’t reach big chunks of what used to be suburbs and surrounding communities. Similar population. Great big ol’ lake right there.
