> The problem with suburbs is that the maintenance is more expensive per capita This is the kind of thing people parrot because it sounds nice. But unfortunat

> The problem with suburbs is that the maintenance is more expensive per capita This is the kind of thing people parrot because it sounds nice. But unfortunatly, this isn't actually true. Suburban maintenance is usually cheaper per capita than urban ones, in the real world. Cities tend to need higher-quality infrastructure, which drives up costs. (Cities bury power lines in conduit underground which is expensive, suburbs string them from sticks in the air, which is cheap. Cities bury storm water drainage which is expensive, in suburbs a ditch in your yard is all the stormwater infrastructure needed which costs almost nothing, etc). So even though suburbs have less people-per-foot, the infrastructure costs are drastically cheaper despite the per-foot distances being higher. The electric company can string up a neighborhood of 50 single-family homes (trunk and individual line replacement) without much fuss or trouble, just two guys and a truck. But the logistics to run a brand new power line for a brand-new apartment building with 50 units in it in Midtown Manhattan is way more complicated, time and labour intensive. (They might have to close down a sidewalk or entire street, they have to dig up chunks of the road, check for a dozen other things buried underground, the buildings are so close together they need to know the foundational stability of every other thing nearby, etc)