I'm slowly collecting projects of some condos, homes and shed, along with their docs about resources needed to build them. From the little I've examined just the common areas (elevators, stairs, hallways etc consume more than single family homes roofs and perimeter walls. If they are more than 7-8 stories they consume more ALSO to sustain their own structure.
AFAIK very little literature exists on that topic, you can find things like https://archive.is/jIr8J or https://www.helsinkitimes.fi/finland/finland-news/domestic/2... etc but nothing more. And that's anyway is just the "building" part alone; aqueduct in cities and wastewater treatments also demand much more resources than small spread aqueducts exploiting from little local sources. Large covered areas means soil consumption due to watertight cover who suffocate the humus of the soil making the soil evolving in sand, creating liquefaction problems like sinkholes and the mere mass subsidence.
> Flying via eVTOL to the neighbor or to the store, compared to walking down the street or down the hall, seems a lot less efficient.
The fly yes. The energy and resources to build a road, keep it up, evolve it when the climate change makes people move does consume much more. Useful life of the vehicle itself change much (beside the battery) also keep in mind that food is not produced in the store, it need to be moved there and the higher density the greater distance need to be covered moving goods. Making efficient the last mile ignoring the rest of the supply chain is not really green.
We are in a changing world, we can't keep up ground infra, a flying vehicle means just ability to move in a certain radius, a ship similarly means ability to move on water for a certain range maximum, roads and rails means being tied to their design or spending immense amount of resources to build new ones.
