I believe your parent post was referring to household usage (which determines infrastructure needs in a city), while you are referring to economy-wide usage. E

I believe your parent post was referring to household usage (which determines infrastructure needs in a city), while you are referring to economy-wide usage. Energy usage per household seems to be essentially flat for the past 40 years according to Residential Energy Consumption Survey[1]. As for water, I can’t find any links at the moment, but I would guess that per capita indoor residential water use is also flat or slowly declining as appliances become more efficient. [1] http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=6570 http://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.cfm?id=6570