Amy Wolff Sorter is a contributor to Real Estate Southern California, from which this article was excerpted.

Southern California is, on paper, the last place one might find residential high rises. Given the area's proximity to the San Andreas fault and its longstanding history of earthquakes, many high rises can come tumbling down like a house of cards. Additionally, high-rise residences are not exactly cheap living.

Such matters haven't deterred high-rise developers or investors, however. Building codes ensure safety, they point out. And a growing demand for luxury high-rise residences--especially in infill and urban areas--are spurring developers to meet that demand, despite mounting construction costs and niche demographics.

"Relative to historic levels of construction in Southern California, we're seeing unprecedented amounts of high-rise residential buildings in the region," says Marc Renard, executive director of Cushman & Wakefield of California Inc. One exception to the rule is Los Angeles, where very few of these projects have dotted the sky as of late. That doesn't mean, however, that Los Angeles isn't still in the high-rise business; it simply means that these projects, especially in Downtown, don't start from the ground up.