It's hard to compare to some cities in the north since a lot of what is now considered Houston were actually numerous different towns separated by open fields e

It's hard to compare to some cities in the north since a lot of what is now considered Houston were actually numerous different towns separated by open fields earlier in the 20th century, and now they've all been swallowed up. But the inner part of Houston has famously (infamously?) had minimal zoning restrictions and the inner 610 loop had quite a bit more affordable housing than comparably-sized cities such as Chicago. Nowadays people get pretty annoyed at large new apartment buildings (even luxury ones) being built in the inner loop, but that's just because Houstonians have been so used to having far more houses in the urban center than other large cities (I'm thinking of walking down shadowed streets in NYC where you don't see the sun because the residential buildings are several stories tall--something uncommon here). But the lack of zoning is making it easier to quickly fill in with denser housing such as 3-story or 4-story townhomes and large new apartment buildings, so I'm curious if it will be incredibly dense in the center a century from now.