Ironically, the bland suburbs that surround most cities are caused precisely by very strict zoning laws that mandate very low building density, large setbacks, large yards, high bathroom to bedroom ratios, low kitchen to bedroom ratios, etc.
This is the major factor that makes rents so insane in prewar parts of cities, where the few remaining dense old neighborhoods in city cores are targets for gentrification. People want to live there -- and demand is rising as large numbers of millenials reject the suburbs -- but there cannot be any new supply built due to zoning laws.
We don't have that problem in Houston - it's easy to get a zero lot line waiver and jam 5 stucco box townhomes into a few thousand sqft lot. Unfortunately the building codes around here aren't much more stringent than the zoning laws and the build materials and quality are quite low. See the recent reddit discussion https://www.reddit.com/r/houston/comments/4td1y7/found_this_... for a sample of anecdotes.
This is the major factor that makes rents so insane in prewar parts of cities, where the few remaining dense old neighborhoods in city cores are targets for gentrification. People want to live there -- and demand is rising as large numbers of millenials reject the suburbs -- but there cannot be any new supply built due to zoning laws.
For example, almost all of the expensive dense old Boston inner suburb of Somerville would be illegal to build today under its present zoning laws: http://cityobservatory.org/the-illegal-city-of-somerville/