In reply to Alex Cecchini.

"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. "

Actually no, I'm not trying to explain why your per capita costs are higher, I'm simply pointing out the fact that they are, and they wouldn't be if your density delivered more efficiency than my reduced density in SLP.

Yes, you have regional amenities, but you also get tens of millions of dollars to pay or help pay for them (did't I point that out already). For instance you get money from the Three Rivers Park District, (in fact the north and south Cedar lake bike trails go through both cities and it's paid for the TRPD). I mean look, we can itemize this stuff if you want but it's not going to do you any good, your amenities for other people are never going to add up to 80% of your budget, which is what they'd have to do to bring you into just parity with SLP, and your claiming you density is putting below per capta spending in SLP. Look, Adam keeps going on about water, well every city sells water, you think I get my water for free? Sure MPLS sells more water than SLP... I'll give you three guesses why (hint: 400+k customers vs. 47k customers). Whatever, it doesn't change your per capita budget calculation. The water budget for MPLS doesn't just "look" bigger, it IS bigger because it's serving more people.

" Are you trying to make the case that, holding things like household income constant between all MSP municipalities, Minneapolis would still spend more per capita on roads and sewers and police/fire departments simply because there are more people?"

Again, I'm not telling you why your per capita spending is higher, I'm simply pointing out the fact that it is. Your density efficiency theory predicts the opposite, therefore the theory fails. Your higher costs aren't simply because there's more people, but that number of people costs more to service, and the environment they live in costs more to service and maintain. Again, I'm not making a value judgement about the city, I'm just looks the costs.

I'm sorry I don't have time to look at the streets your pointing to but I can tell you a little about rebuilding a street in different locations. My street is much less disruptive (and less expensive) to rebuild for instance than a street among the uptown apartment complexes. Why? Just come look at my street and the water, sewer, and storm lines. My lines are smaller because they don't have to deliver service to as many people. there's no water main anywhere in burbs as large at that one that blew out downtown last years. Building the road in theory can take less times because we don't have to worry about moving so many cars off the street, we all have off street parking. This means we can do 6-8 blocks at a time. The street itself is probably less problematic in that we don't have any old street car rails, or cobblestone, or other surprises hidden underneath. It's just blacktop and all they do is chop it up and haul it away to make more blacktop somewhere else. Also, the street width doesn't have to change so they just build it inside the footprint of the old street, curbs and all.