Houston developers know how to build apartments

HOUSTON, where I am this week, is infamous for its sprawl. The city itself covers 1,554 square kilometres, and its suburbs keep expanding in almost all directions.

Yet here's something else Houston should probably be known for: apartment buildings. Apartments make up a higher percentage of housing units here than in almost any other big US city.

Dallas is also high on that list. In both cities, the apartment construction continues. Developers in the Dallas and Houston metropolitan areas have been building more multi-unit dwellings in recent years than their counterparts in any other metropolitan area except New York - far more than in the more-populous San Francisco-San Jose area and even slightly more than in much-bigger metropolitan Los Angeles.