Yeah, my research shows me the same. Strong Towns is contributing to what I think is an important conversation about responsible planning, but the budgets I've read are unambiguously clear: the costs balloons are public sector labor, not infrastructure. My local county population has been unchanged in almost 40 years and though we've had a growing debt that needs to be taken more seriously, it's not a crisis, building had been stagnant, and despite us having the first or second highest property taxes in the nation, home prices keep going up.

I wanna give Strong Towns the benefit of the doubt, but there seems to be a palpable sub rosa hatred of the suburbs by urban planning blogs and academics, despite their intense desirability if you look at demand vs. supply.