It's the underlying infrastructure that's key - together with intelligent land use planning. Unfortunately, water, sewers and electricity aren't sexy, so they're easily ignored or done on the cheap. The City of Ottawa, for example, was amalgamated, and at least one former suburb (Nepean) was notoriously cheap, so their electric grid is fragile and prone to failure, and even the water main failed prematurely.
(Sidebar: there are similar issues manifesting at CFBs now as well, where new construction is curtailed by the lack of service capacity.)