"Apartments are uniquely qualified to solve a long list of housing-related problems facing our country--problems like the growing affordable housing crisis, urban decay and suburban sprawl," NMHC President Douglas M. Bibby says. "We need to get people to understand that if they erect barriers to apartments, they will lose because their housing and economic development problems will remain unsolved."

Among the negative perceptions the report addresses is the belief that apartments breed higher crime rates and lower property values. Pointing to the results of an Urban Land Institute report, the booklet notes that the difference in average annual appreciation rate for single-family houses near apartments and those that are not near apartments was .07% between 1987 and 1995. As for crime the booklet points out that often when individual apartment units are compared to individual single-family homes, apartment units generate fewer calls for police assistance.

Creating Successful Communities also challenges the notion that only lower-income residents choose to live in multi-family structures. Taking numbers from four annual supplements of the US Census Bureau's Current Population Survey, NMHC and NAA note that from 1997 through 2001, residents with an annual household income of $50,000 or more have been the "fastest growing segment of the apartment market," currently totaling 3.6 million. In addition, the booklet indicates that, contrary to popular beliefs, apartment complexes play a part in reducing traffic, not increasing it. This is the case partially because the average number of automobiles for apartment residents is one, while the average automobile per single-family house is two.