The rapid growth of apartment-living in Birmingham city centre shows no sign of slowing, with the rush to snap up new flats dominated by buy-to-let investors and young single people with money to burn.

But attempts to persuade families to join the trend and move back inside the inner ring road have failed and are unlikely to succeed in the forseeable future, according to new city council research.

Almost 20,000 apartments have been built or given planning permission in the past six years - more than twice the rate of construction initially envisaged - with a further 5,000 expected by the end of the decade.

Clive Dutton, Birmingham's Director of Planning and Regeneration, blamed ingrained views about the unsuitability of city centres as places to bring up children for the failure to attract families.

Mr Dutton added: "Certainly the vision of sustainable, mixed communities envisaged for Birmingham and other city centres has not thus far materialised.

"Birmingham city centre, like other major British city centres, contains very few families with children and there is little evidence to suggest families would move to the city centre given the deep-rooted attitudes that exist in Britain with regard to families and city centres as places to live."

Mr Dutton said it was unlikely attitudes would change, but if they did the council would have to provide more schools, child-care, healthcare and parks before the market would deliver family dwellings in the city centre. Developers would need to be satisfied it would be at least as viable to build family-size homes as apartments.

He said Birmingham's city-living population was a mainly transient gathering of young people who would move on and leave the city centre relatively quickly.

The short-term nature of city living is a blow to the council, which has identified as a major policy aim the need to persuade students to seek work and base themselves in Birmingham for life once they graduate from university. The brain drain, with students typically living in the city centre for three or four years before moving away from Birmingham to find a job, removes millions of pounds in earnings potential from the city economy each year.

Mr Dutton added: "City centre living tends to be a short-term lifestyle choice. Younger people want to experience the buzz that comes with living in the city centre but they do not plan to stay in the city centre as they get older."

The research was undertaken following concerns by the council planning committee that too many one bedroom apartments are being built in the area bounded by the inner ring road, at the expense of family accommodation. About 60 per cent of all new planning permissions are for single bedroom accommodation.

The influx of one-bedroom flats has been particularly high at Eastside and in the Jewellery Quarter, driven by demand for student accommodation and by employment growth in the well-paid professional services sector.

The latest household projections for Birmingham predict a continuing decline in the average household size. The number of single person households is likely to rise by 51,000 creating a significant increase in demand for smaller dwellings, Mr Dutton said.

He added: "Given that demand for housing within British city centre currently comes largely from younger, single people and that the projections anticipate a significant increase in single person households it could be potentially difficult to develop a policy which resists, in a blanket fashion, the development of dwelling sizes which appear appropriate to meet needs."