[icegreentea2]

Is well water available at sufficient quantity and distribution for this to work? Lots of large population centers get their water from lakes or large rivers. If you disperse the population to the surrounding areas, is there enough ground water or small rivers nearby to sustain an ultra dispersed model? Or would you still need small scale infrastructure?

Similar question with dirt road - how long is the dirt road before it reaches a non-dirt road? How much traffic is on it? If you dispersed a major population center this way and still needed to deliver groceries and ship out garbage and septic, how quickly would any given segment go between needing to be regraded?

The 10k amount doesn't come about because they built a large community and infrastructure. It came because they built their large community in an unwise manner resulting in high infrastructure cost. While moving to individual or smaller communities reduces to possible scope of screwing up your planning, it doesn't reduce your ability to screw it up.