In reply to Paul Udstrand.

You suppose that the cities do the exact same things. The water delivery is germane to the argument because while Minneapolis provides water to its residents and more numerous industrial customers it also provides water to other cities. It does not do that a zero cost, but the other cities have decided that Minneapolis providing the water is a better deal than providing their own. No one is buying SLP's water, it would not be any more efficient than a city doing it for themselves. Minneapolis runs a convention center, you can argue whether or not that is a good idea, but the fact is that they have a staff and other costs associated, but it also generates revenue. It makes the budget look bigger per capita. That does not mean infrastructure costs are more per resident.

You have not shown anything other than SLP is a small city government that does not do much. They basically run a Police and Fire Department, build streets and water mains. Run a few wildlife refuges. Outside of that SLP city government does do much. Minneapolis does all of things while also administering thousands of parking spots a day, convention center, 16,000 seat arena, selling water to other municipalities, maintaining the most visited parks in the state etc. It is a much bigger operation. The fact is you cannot find anyone who actually studies this type of thing critically who will agree with you. A few libertarians at Koch Brother think tanks might, but in the world of serious academia you will not.