In most places like that, the undeveloped land is exactly the problem. The road that goes from a little neighborhood to the town center, and the water line under it, and the power line beside it, all cost a lot more to maintain than the handful of homes along the road pay. But that infrastructure serves nearly no one else. It should probably be a gravel road, and they should be on solar power and well-and-septic. Then the local taxes would cover the maintenance of the gravel road with a few bucks left over.

But that's not what happens. Generally the town center area (which is more developed) pays quite a lot more in taxes than the outlying areas, and the surplus generated there is used to cover the cost of all the infrastructure that enables the people who live on the outskirts to have town infrastructure and town prices with a rural lifestyle. And that transfer of money to sustain the rural area is why the town doesn't have the money to build a new library or school, and needs state and federal grant programs to fix the water tower.

If you want to know why just about every American small town was building beautiful city halls, schools, libraries, etc. before WW2, and afterwards they mostly bombed out, it has a lot to do with deciding to spend their money maintaining roads to scattered residential developments on the outskirts instead of investing that money in other things. That's not the only reason, but it's a major factor.

All of the outlying neighborhoods where I live developed off of existing roadways (mainly rural highways between towns) that serve many people more than the ones who live along the way. Yes it is true that those subdivisions have roads and cul-de-sacs and whatever; those are built by the developer of the subdivision, and since they see only light passenger car traffic they don't require a lot of upkeep. The main roads in and out of town were already there.

The little cul de sac streets and the water lines underneath them and power lines beside them all cost a lot more to maintain than you think.

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/1/27/how-much-does-...

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2019/2/5/suburban-infras...

Municipalities pay for their infrastructure {1} from land taxes. The per-unit costs of suburban maintenance {2} vastly outweigh the per-unit taxes colleected.

The inverse is true for dense urban units: per-unit costs for urban units are far lower than the per-unit taxes.

{1} (roads, sewers, water treatment and distribution, waste collection...)

{2} (repaving once every 20 years, repainting once a year, repairing sewer pipes every 40-60 years, water pipes every 80 (unless they were installed in the 50s-80s, in which case every 30), etc)

1/2 of US local government spending is education and healthcare, infrastructure is a long way down the list.

That almost completely destroys the small town argument because cities don’t need to pay for the education or healthcare of their suburban workers. An office building is a net gain where a the same space devoted to housing often costs the local government more in services.

? 0 percent of education is municipally funded (it's all provincially funded). Healthcare too is all provincially funded (though actually mostly funded by transfers from the federal government). Obviously I'm only speaking for all of Canada here, and can't speak for the US where it's likely more varied.

Do you have some stats or links for municipal (or equivalent) tax raising/spending?

This discussion doesn’t really work in a global context as funding choices vary so much. Here is the US breakdown.

https://usgovernmentspending.com/year_spending_2021USbl_22bc...

His electricity rates are the same for his house than for the nearest town center, even though it takes a lot more money to build and maintain power lines to his home than it does to pay for wiring town centers.

Just one example.

It requires and reinforces the dependence on cars in American cities. Parking especially is a huge space drain taking up land in expensive urban areas. Shopping areas are surrounded by huge amounts of land dedicated to parking, a requirement enforced by local ordinances. Then there's the uncaptured externalities like the damage to the environment and people's health. There's a lot of articles that cover this idea.

https://www.dmagazine.com/frontburner/2020/01/you-will-never...

Exactly. Routing infrastructure into the boonies is not cheap or efficient, nor are subsidies like the “6000lb vehicle weight tax deduction” which leads to people driving tractors around town.

The lack of tax on fossil fuels to offset fossil fuels’ externalities is the biggest subsidy.

No, the biggest subsidy is the $1,000,000/year I'm not charging them for reading my comment. After all, the null policy is not the reference policy. ;)

Subsidized in terms of externalities, because single-family homes a drive away from everything are ecological catastrophes that all of us have to live with.

Subsidized in terms of infrastructure, because running power and water and sewer and roads out to each individual house is way more expensive than doing it for condo or apartment buildings in urban centers.

Subsidized in terms of infrastructure again, because when he inevitably wants to drive into the city, there has to be parking waiting for him, which is land that could otherwise be put to better use.

Subsidized in terms of direct payments, because federal tax law provides huge benefits to homeowners via mortgage deductions and depreciation rules, which disproportionately means middle-class or higher people living in single-family homes.