In reply to Paul Udstrand.

The argument you're making is that total budget is higher per capita because we're a central/core city. Not because we are a city with high population or because our density is higher. As has been pointed out, SLP is nearly identical to most of Minneapolis in built-form and density (mostly single family homes, mostly on a walkable grid, with some apartments and commercial strips thrown in). Yet your total budget is lower. Because you don't have regional amenities that serve a much higher share of non-residents the way Minneapolis does, and they cost money to provide/maintain.

City services like police and fire departments don't scale up in cost per capita as population goes up. They slightly decline.

Stadiums and universities and convention centers and Theodore Wirth Parks all cost money (direct: to operate/maintain like parks/CC, indirect: stadiums that don't pay property taxes but have roads/sewers in front of them). This has nothing to do with density, simply the fact that we have those things in our city. Put them in SLP and watch our budget drop and yours increase while nothing else really changes. So yes, no one is arguing our total budget per capita is higher. We are saying that direct city services like roads and sewers and police cost less to provide per capita than less dense places like Bloomington or Eden Prairie (especially if you fast forward to when every street is in a cycle of reconstruction as our 80-100 year old streets and pipes are). I would expect places like Edina, St Louis Park, Golden Valley, etc to have nearly identical costs when looking at those core division costs per capita.

Example: do you think the cost per capita on this Brooklyn Park street reconstruction/utility project is higher or lower than one on your block? Higher or lower than one in the Wedge?