Around the downtown core there seems to be a reduction in density which is curious, and I’m not sure what drives that
Having lived both right on the subway line and in the some areas just outside the downtown core, I may be able to add some insight here.
Basically, that whole area of land feels car unfriendly. Hard to find parking close by and lots of congestion. But living on the subway line this never felt like an issue since there was a good alternative - one typically doesn’t need a car for day to day living in downtown Toronto in my experience. Also, for things like getting groceries or stuff from a corner shop, things are so clustered together that there’s usually something within walking distance of where you live.
Much further away in the GTA, you definitely need a car. But congestion is not so bad (at least until you finally need to head into the city proper) and parking nearby is quite more comfortable as well.
So the areas outside the core have the worst of both worlds - you get much of the lack of space and congestion that you get in downtown proper, but also a lack of viable public transportation alternatives.
I speculate that this is the fault of the United States. The scholar, a US citizen, is entering from the US, and as per the article CBSA has concerns regarding “national security” - we know that the CBSA and the US CBP work closely together, so if some top level US official ordered the CBP to pass the “national security threat” along, that’d explain CBSA’s behaviour.
Specifically, why they were concerned in the first place (because they had to take the tip from the US gov’t seriously for fear that they’d lose cooperation on actual important matters if they didn’t), why it took so long before the scholars were released (because they needed those four hours to make sure that they covered all their bases in case the CBP or another part of the US gov’t came knocking again and asking why the scholars weren’t arrested or detained), and also why CBSA can’t more clearly explain why the scholars were targeted in the first place (because the working arrangements between the CBP and the CBSA, and between the security departments of the governments of Canada and the US more generally, require a considerable level of secrecy).
The article also mentions,
I like to think though that this wasn’t strictly necessary and that CBSA are the good guys who would have still done the right thing in the end, after of course thoroughly documenting the obvious - why the US’s tip was off and there actually was no real threat.