The problems that you are talking about can be fairly linear, though. For example, for things like water, a city can increase the price of water, to reduce dem

The problems that you are talking about can be fairly linear, though. For example, for things like water, a city can increase the price of water, to reduce demand, especially for commercial usage. > However there are still limits that you may not to run up against. The limits are much further out than you'd think. And systems are often build with a large buffer, to handle spikes and increases anyway. By the time you get close to hitting the true limit, you would have enough pent up demand that you can just spend the money to upgrade the system. And the people who are building the new buildings, can also just find it as well. This stuff happens all the time. Cities run up against limits all the time, and the world does not fall apart. Instead, they implement stop cap measures, that work, and builders fund upgrading the system as they build new things. Stuff is also often planned out for a long time.