Everything else being equal, yes. But everything else is not equal. It's not like those in charge are not aware of the differences between above ground and below ground. There is a cost, and potential problems, with underground lines everywhere.
Then you start with where's it's easy and cheap, and go from there.
My last two single family dwelling homes have had buried utilities. One in a sub-division, where the whole place had buried lines, and the other was alone on its street inside the loop in having buried utilities (the lines came down the pole and underground to the building). What's great about that is that, even when the service lines are downed by trees, the power comes on straight away once they're fixed.
If you recall during Ike, HL&P teams had to go street-by-street, house-by-house to clear to repair
all downed power lines in that neighbourhood before they could turn the power on to any of it. If the lines to individual properties were underground, they'd just have to fix the main lines and, bingo! Everyone's lights come on. It's be so much faster to get power back to more people too. There's a start: make buried utilities on all new construction mandatory.
Then, where you're replacing the storm drains in older neighbourhoods - bury the utilities at the same time. There's an incremental cost, but I bet it's cheaper than an emergency repair after a hurricane.
Just take it on when and where you can, and see what's left. The big trunk lines will mostly have to be above ground; but there's no reason why the local lines can't be underground.
