In reply to mplsjaromir.

"Going by overall budget numbers to compare the two cities is lazy and does not answer the question to whether or not dense cities are more efficient. "

The problem is you're not actually trying to answer the question at all, you just keep saying that your position is common sense. Yet the numbers show that for a variety of reasons, your density is not yielding more efficiency in the real world.

You can tell us what MPLS spends its money on (and you haven't even scratched the surface), but prove it's more efficient. You can complain about where we get our water etc. but it doesn't change cost of running the city. All you can do is describe the costs of running a big city with a lot of people, but then you want to deny that it costs a lot of money to run a big city with a lot of people.