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It's a cute graphic, but it's meaningless without data to back any of it up. Picture books might be easy to understand, but it doesn't mean they're right. San Francisco, for example, has the highest per capita city budget in the nation. The fact is it costs tax payers less to live anywhere else, which includes many suburbs. Really, that has more to do with affluence. Affluent places usually spend more than poor ones. But not always. Detroit, for example, is hopelessly poor but it still collects about twice as much in tax revenue per capita as its suburbs. And it's going bankrupt.
That's just single data points. But it does call into question the accuracy of your picture book.
It doesn't look directly at density, the data isn't geospecific enough to do that. But you can see based on area that there's no greater obesity in the East Side than in Downtown seattle. Central Seattle (south of downtown, fairly high density) had a very high rate of obesity. Income and poverty was weakly correlated (r2 of .05), but home values had a r2 of .46. Those of Hispanic origin were moderately more likely to be obese, blacks weren't really at all more likely. Again, limited study in one area but at least in Seattle there's no correlation between sprawl and obesity. The correlation is between home prices and obesity. High home prices in Queen Anne or Capitol Hill = less obesity; high home prices in Redmond or Issaquah = low obesity. Maybe it's vanity.
It's a cute graphic, but it's meaningless without data to back any of it up. Picture books might be easy to understand, but it doesn't mean they're right. San Francisco, for example, has the highest per capita city budget in the nation. The fact is it costs tax payers less to live anywhere else, which includes many suburbs. Really, that has more to do with affluence. Affluent places usually spend more than poor ones. But not always. Detroit, for example, is hopelessly poor but it still collects about twice as much in tax revenue per capita as its suburbs. And it's going bankrupt.
That's just single data points. But it does call into question the accuracy of your picture book.
It doesn't look directly at density, the data isn't geospecific enough to do that. But you can see based on area that there's no greater obesity in the East Side than in Downtown seattle. Central Seattle (south of downtown, fairly high density) had a very high rate of obesity. Income and poverty was weakly correlated (r2 of .05), but home values had a r2 of .46. Those of Hispanic origin were moderately more likely to be obese, blacks weren't really at all more likely. Again, limited study in one area but at least in Seattle there's no correlation between sprawl and obesity. The correlation is between home prices and obesity. High home prices in Queen Anne or Capitol Hill = less obesity; high home prices in Redmond or Issaquah = low obesity. Maybe it's vanity.
When you're building endless super-sized roads, parking lots and highways everywhere then naturally the costs of infrastructure, maintenance and energy consumption are going to be much greater in autosprawl suburbia than in more compact denser cities that rely less on private automobiles.
It's a cute graphic, but it's meaningless without data to back any of it up. Picture books might be easy to understand, but it doesn't mean they're right. San Francisco, for example, has the highest per capita city budget in the nation. The fact is it costs tax payers less to live anywhere else, which includes many suburbs. Really, that has more to do with affluence. Affluent places usually spend more than poor ones. But not always. Detroit, for example, is hopelessly poor but it still collects about twice as much in tax revenue per capita as its suburbs. And it's going bankrupt.
That's just single data points. But it does call into question the accuracy of your picture book.
There's a few factors that influence how high taxes have to be in order to balance the books. In most cities, a square mile of land near the centre will have higher property values than a square mile in the center. In Detroit, it's the opposite. Maybe around $250k/acre for privately owned land (including vacant lots)? In typical suburbs of large American cities it's probably around $1-3mil/acre, in Canadian and California suburbs it's probably more like $3-10mil/acre, and in city cores of the desirable urban cities it might be $20mil/acre or more for privately owned land.
If a suburb's tax base is growing fast, it can avoid high taxes because the increase in infrastructure that needs to be replaced is less than the increase in tax base. It can also avoid high taxes if it has an unusually large employment base. Generally in the US, the suburbs with less employment are on the fringe and growing fast, so, for now, a lot of suburbs are able to avoid revenue issues.
Here in Canada I'd be worried about Brampton. The city has a lot more workers than jobs, and although it's growing explosively now (fastest growing suburb in US/Can ever in net growth) with virtually no infill and it will probably start running low on greenfields in less than a decade and run out in maybe 30 years. Property values are on the low side compared to other suburbs. Mississauga is starting to have issues balancing its budget now, and it's denser, wealthier and has substantially more jobs than workers compared to Brampton, and it hasn't even stopped growing, it's just slowing down as most of its growth now is infill. Mississauga seems more capable of support infill than Brampton since it is better located by jobs and transportation (including highways).
There's a few factors that influence how high taxes have to be in order to balance the books. In most cities, a square mile of land near the centre will have higher property values than a square mile in the center. In Detroit, it's the opposite. Maybe around $250k/acre for privately owned land (including vacant lots)? In typical suburbs of large American cities it's probably around $1-3mil/acre, in Canadian and California suburbs it's probably more like $3-10mil/acre, and in city cores of the desirable urban cities it might be $20mil/acre or more for privately owned land.
If a suburb's tax base is growing fast, it can avoid high taxes because the increase in infrastructure that needs to be replaced is less than the increase in tax base. It can also avoid high taxes if it has an unusually large employment base. Generally in the US, the suburbs with less employment are on the fringe and growing fast, so, for now, a lot of suburbs are able to avoid revenue issues.
Many Northeast suburbs have had little growth in the last several decades and much of their infrastructure is 40-50+ years old, so they don't have any advantage of tax base is growing faster than maintenance costs.
For Detroit, likely part of the issue is a smaller tax base while the costs haven't shrunk relative to the population.
Many Northeast suburbs have had little growth in the last several decades and much of their infrastructure is 40-50+ years old, so they don't have any advantage of tax base is growing faster than maintenance costs.
Are there any for which none of these apply?
A) More jobs than workers
B) Considerably above average incomes
C) High taxes
D) Difficulty affording maintenance of infrastructure
A) More jobs than workers
B) Considerably above average incomes
C) High taxes
D) Difficulty affording maintenance of infrastructure
for Long Island: Yes to both B and C. No for A, not sure for D.
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Actually, the many studies on obesity show the same. In fact, suburbanites tend to be healthier, overall. 
