What makes apartment living desirable and sustainable? It's a debate that is growing louder every day.

More than 400 people recently attended a forum on the topic, where they heard speakers claim the trend towards smaller, more densely packed apartments is delivering neither livable homes nor low-cost housing.

Leanne Hodyl, strategic planner with City of Melbourne Council, told the City In Crisis forum, held by the Inner Melbourne Planning Alliance, that 45,000 new dwellings would be created by 2031, housing an additional 80,000 people.

She said there was a shortage of affordable housing in the city, with just 6 per cent available for the 25 per cent of residents who needed it, and apartments were getting smaller and offering less choice, with half of them one-bedders and 40 per cent of all apartments in the city below 50 square metres.

The forum also heard from Victorian government architect Geoffrey London about new design benchmarks being prepared to improve the liveability of city apartments. He too noted that the impact on housing affordability had been minimal.

Meanwhile, the Australian Institute of Architects' Victorian president Peter Malatt told the Age last month that tough new design rules were crucial if inner Melbourne was to avoid "future slums".

The institute's submission to the government review includes minimum ceiling heights, apartment sizes, storage allocations and noise limits.

Predictably, developers say all these measures would increase the cost of apartments. However, it is not as simple as market forces dictating building standards.

More than 75 per cent of apartment residents in Melbourne are renters, so the vast majority of units are bought by people who have no intention of living in them.

But are we really building the slums of the future? People will gravitate to the best homes they can afford, while considering other factors besides comfort and liveability.

Technologies change and people do too. Not so long ago small cars were mocked and huge gas-guzzlers were the norm. 

When it comes to apartments, we've come a long way from Kingswood country, but we still haven't found the high-rise equivalent of the Toyota Corolla. There's more on this in flatchat-vic.com.