I get that America is big, but the amortized per-person cost is what's relevant. If something costs $10 M per mile, but there are a million people per mile,
suddenly that's not all that expensive. I'd pay more than $10 to not have my power go out for a week after a big storm that's likely to happen again in a few weeks and next year and the year after. A backup generator costs way more than $10.
The amortized per person cost is obviously not going to be constant when the demographic density and line mileage changes. That’s why it’s a foolish standard
There’s NEVER 1M customers per mile in a distribution system. There’s only going to be a few thousand per substation. Half of the line miles will have customer counts in the tens or ones.
