In reply to Paul Udstrand.

"The more people you have to provide services and amenities to the more it costs, it’s a question of scale."

This is non-responsive because we're talking about per capita costs. Why does it costs more per person to provide the same services to the same people because they live closer together?

The answer is that it does not. It costs more in the city because there are more services and amenities and there is greater poverty. The first is a policy choice and the second the result of historical policy choices. Neither is inherently about density.

"As for visitors and workers they bring money into the city, they aren’t just an expense, and as I’ve already pointed out, MPLS ges a lost of state, county, and federal aid to help with those expenses."

Visitors certainly wind up on both sides, that's true.

Someday I'm going to have to dig further into the numbers (or maybe Alex's post will cover it) but my understanding is that the city gets nowhere close to what is collected in sales and income tax within the city back from the state.

"I’m not ignoring any of these, they are ALL reflected in the city budget."

When you divide the a city budget by the number of residents and draw conclusions about the costs or benefits of density, you're doing exactly that. Most obviously, you're not controlling for differences in income and level of services/amenities. You're comparing apples to oranges and declaring the oranges inherently inferior.

"I don’t any city in US has that ability so this no more of a liability for MPLS than any other city or suburb."

All cities are in the same boat, but that doesn't mean you can look at one and say "see, it can't pay for itself."