But that's not necessarily all a good thing, says the head of planning at Melbourne City Council.

On Thursday, the council released data showing the apartment boom sparked by a flood of international money flowing into Melbourne has helped the city record the largest jump in apartment construction since data started being kept in 2002.

With more than 6300 new apartments completed in the first 10 months of the year, it is already triple the long-term average of 2100 a year and more than twice the amount finished last year.

"We have a spike at the moment and the question is whether the spike is sustainable," said Ken Ong, the council's chair of planning.

"Whether we grow too fast in the short term, that's the question. We would prefer a steady managed growth rather than a sharp growth."

Still, Cr Ong and others at the council aren't necessarily complaining, because the boom, given a kick-along by former planning minister and now Opposition leader Matthew Guy's many tower approvals, has led to a huge growth in jobs in the construction sector.

With a total of 59 residential developments comprising 13,500 homes under construction and due for completion over the next three years, the employment is a big lift for the city, says Lord Mayor Robert Doyle.

He points to an additional 76,000 jobs generated in the council's areas in the past six years by the building frenzy.

It has made Melbourne the fastest growing council area in Australia, with 11,000 extra people coming to live there in the previous year.

City real estate salesman Mark Wizel, from agents CBRE, said the past year has seen the city become "truly international" as money flows out of Asia in particular into Melbourne.

"A one-bedroom, $350,000 investment to a $50 or $60 million one, a lot of these investors are seeing Melbourne as a safe haven, underwritten by the fact we're the world's most liveable city, and have a stable political environment compared to what many countries have," Mr Wizel said.

But the apartment boom has also sparked concerns among planners and architects about the small size of many of the apartments being sold, the quality of their design, and the lack of homes being built for families who might consider living in the CBD.

Less than five percent of the apartments being built are three bedroom - all but a tiny number are one or two-bedroom units.

"We would like to have more families in the city," said Cr Ong.

For a family with a couple of children to "comfortable", he said, a three-bedroom apartment starting at 130 to 150 square metres is needed.

"And you are looking at $1.3 million to $2 million for one of those, and not many people can afford that - especially not many young families," he said.

He said more focus is needed on how to build apartments that people can afford, although he questions whether there is a problem with the size of places being built.

"Some people say they don't mind small apartments. Personally if I was going to live in the city, I would want something much bigger," he said.

Peter Malatt, president of Victorian chapter of the Australian Institute of Architects, said he was pro-development and that Melbourne needed more housing to cope with expected population growth but wanted better quality control around residential development in the CBD and inner suburbs.

"There are developments going up that we believe are substandard," he said

"We are very supportive of there being an apartment code," he said. "Melbourne is very largely unregulated at the moment."

"There are very few developments in Melbourne that would meet the Sydney apartment guidelines," Mr Malatt said. "That's the quality deficiency we have down here."

"There is a danger there is a boom that won't be sustained and we will be left with a lot of poor quality development."

He said there was a danger the boom would not be sustained, leading to the new developments becoming "the ghettos of the future".

"Some of these developments have over 1000 apartments in them - that's the size of a small country town - and they are doing them with no consideration of the public infrastructure required to service that population," he said.

University of Melbourne urban planning associate professor Alan March said the city's residential growth was unsustainable.

"We have created an increasingly unpleasant place for people to live," he said. "There isn't much scope for families, people with larger households, people with low income or people who want different sorts of housing choice."

Current housing options were bad for community building, he said, as people could not expect to remain in the high-density inner city and would have to move further out when they started families.

Associate professor March said developments were also plagued by a lack of open space, wind tunnels and overshadowing, as well as a reliance on air conditioning and artificial light.

"We should really be thinking about building at a little higher density across Melbourne and spread the gains and investments around overall to make the city more livable and fairer," he said.