I think the breakdown should roughly be: developers must wire out to the property line (and if they're building a subdivision, out to the main road). The county should wire anywhere a public road is being built and bring glass to some reasonably convenient place (because otherwise developers would have nothing to connect the other end of the line to). Private companies should handle everything that's not dumb glass.

I think counties are reasonably capable of burying fiber in the ground as they build and repair roads, but that's about all I trust them to do. I live in the DC metro area. Our public sewers dump raw sewage into the Anacostia river every time it rains. The city has an extensive network of old lead pipes that are poisoning kids. The Metro was almost unusable last year because tracks were catching fire. These problems exist all over the country, and are all caused because by prices for services being set too low, because they are set by elected officials and not the market.

Meanwhile, we have had FiOS in MD/VA since 2006-ish. In that time the top speed has gone from 50 mbps to 750 mbps as Verizon upgraded OLTs, backhaul, etc. Yeah, I pay $100 per month for 300/300 service, while my water/sewer bill is so small I don't even know what I pay. But I don't see that as evidence my internet bill should be lower, I see it as evidence that my utility bill is too low.

>These problems exist all over the country, and are all caused because by prices for services being set too low, because they are set by elected officials and not the market.

They exist because the US continues to insist on spreading responsibility out of thousands of local governments instead of having a single set of rules and standards for everyone.

Why are we even building suburban subdivisions and strip malls still? Maybe if we utilized the infrastructure in urban areas (and even existing suburbs) we wouldn't have the need to keep investing in new infrastructure while our old infrastructure crumbles.

> Why are we even building suburban subdivisions and strip malls still

Not everyone wants to live in an apartment building.

A "radical" idea I'm advocating for, is that all of the following is concidered nessesary for the society, and thus should be done by the government, or heavyly regulared (non profit, enduser owned type of companies):

- Roads

- Water

- Sewer

- Community heat

- Healthcare

- Education

- Pension

- Internet connectivity

- Banking (including loans for 1 family houses) and card payment

Off the top of my head, you're also missing electricity, food, shelter, clothing, and entertainment. Those are more necessary than some of the things you've listed here.

So I guess we'll have the government own or heavily regulate 90% of the economy. Gee, that's historically worked so well in the past... :)

Banking as a utility? I love it. Credit unions are already a thing, and we have the National Credit Union Association, it's a small jump to the idea of a National Credit Union.

And we need single payer healthcare yesterday.

You just covered a significant fraction of all economic activity (maybe a majority).

Perhaps that was your intent?

All utilities should be owned, funded and built by the Government. Roads, sewers, water mains, power mains, data mains, etc.