Some interesting data from urban planning expert Wendell Cox and Joshua Utt of the Heritage Foundation in The Costs of Sprawl Reconsidered: What the Data Really Show.

The analysis was spurred by the cost arguments of the 'Smart Growth" movement. As they summarize,

Much of the justification for the current campaign against the low-density (sprawling) urban development that Americans and Western Europeans1 prefer is based upon assumptions that it is more costly than the more dense development of central cities.

Variously described as "smart growth," "growth management," or "New Urbanism," the movement would force people to live at higher densities, in multi-family units, townhouses, or clustered single-family developments--while placing significant restrictions on the expansion of suburban commercial development

The rationales offered for limiting suburban housing choices are many, various, and of questionable validity. At one point or another over the past half-decade, critics of suburban development have cited its adverse impact on "food security," wildlife, and air and water quality. Critics of suburban expansion even contend that suburbs contribute to serial killings, teenage angst, social alienation, low wages, obesity, asthma, and higher taxes. This last item, the belief that lower-density, "more sprawling" development fuels higher government expenditures, is the most common reason elected officials in many municipalities adopt measures to limit housing growth in their communities.

Typical of the concern that low-density development raises municipal costs--and therefore local taxes--is a contention in a recent, federally funded study of sprawl and costs that claims the United States "no longer can pay for the infrastructure necessary to develop farther and farther out in metropolitan areas."

The analysts therefore take a good hard look at the data that have been used to advance the argument that "uncontrolled growth" will cost about $227.4 billion between 2000 and 2025 (about $9.1 billion gross annually).

Cox and Utt find that sprawl costs households about $80 annually -- $4.41 for sewer and water, $38.38 in road building, and $36.77 in expanded public services.

Cox and Utt also question whether increasing housing density saves a significant amount of money. According to their findings, a 10 percent increase in population density in a city decreases the annual cost of municipal expenditures per capita by only $1.46. They did find significant changes in wastewater costs, but only the reduction amounts to only about $4 per person annually for each additional 1,000 people per square mile.

Their conclusion is:

Our analysis indicates that the Current Urban Planning Assumptions are of virtually no value in predicting local government expenditures per capita. The lowest local government expenditures per capita are not in the higher density, slower growing, and older municipalities.

On the contrary, the actual data indicate that the lowest expenditures per capita tend to be in medium- and lower-density municipalities (though not the lowest density); medium- and faster-growing municipalities; and newer municipalities. This is after 50 years of unprecedented urban decentralization, which seems to be more than enough time to have developed the purported urban sprawl-related higher local government expenditures. It seems unlikely that the higher expenditures that did not develop due to sprawl in the last 50 years will evolve in the next 20--despite predictions to the contrary in The Costs of Sprawl--2000 research.

It seems much more likely that the differences in municipal expenditures per capita are the result of political, rather than economic factors, especially the influence of special interests.

If there is an argument against suburban sprawl as currently practised, it doesn't look like the municipal cost element of it holds much water.