In Milwaukee there just isn’t enough tax dollars to pay to fix the roads, replace lead pipes, upkeep for museums, parks, police, fire etc. Some of this is pension problems, so of it is likely government spending more than they had in the 50s for large public projects that now need complete rebuilds with no funds to do so.

Infrastructure spending in Milwaukee is $70M/year, when fire department is $120M/year and police is $300M/year. That's where the real costs are, not where Strong Towns say they are.

I think the overall Strong Towns message doesn’t only speak about infrastructure. It’s generally an argument against spending large amounts of money today on projects that benefit the town of the future that will of course never stop growing; or that this fancy, expensive new project will stimulate the growth we need to pay for it later.

Milwaukee in the 50s and 60s is an example of this. They built a lot of amenities and expanded infrastructure with public funds.

The growth stopped or reversed and there is no money to maintain the same level of services and amenities today. Thus underfunded parks, roads, pipes and museums. Aka, not a strong town but one struggling along.

This entire article and every comment can be summed up with the following sentence:

"Women need to have more babies because our entire economic model is built on growth and doesn't function without it and one of the best ways to grow is increase the population so you increase the taxable base."

You can slice it up however you want. You can bitch and moan about feminism if you're a woman, you can bitch and moan about men's rights if you're a man, but the bottom line is we need a lot more people to pay for all the tab we've run up.