I think you're (and Ericson2314) confusing/conflating two different ideas. Big cities obviously have economies of scale, so, say, the chicken lo mein is freshe

I think you're (and Ericson2314) confusing/conflating two different ideas. Big cities obviously have economies of scale, so, say, the chicken lo mein is fresher and hotter due to higher volume. Or, the first time I had a cup of plain coffee at a random cafe in NYC, it was stunningly good. Any reasonably successful business has much higher volume than in a less populated area and is pressured by competition more too. They can and must do better. But people make more money on average in a big city, and that means they spend more. If the exact grade of hamburger available everywhere is 20% cheaper, that doesn't in any way prevent your meals from being much more expensive. The whole point of being in a city is so you can get stuff you can't otherwise. If you are living and working in NYC, are you going to just have the same fast food you could get in Albany, that's incrementally better? Don't mix up "city dwellers use less resources for a unit of a given thing" with "city dwellers use less resources period".