For places with sales tax, a big box moving in can easily double a small towns tax revenue overnight.

I don't dispute that small business suffers, but its far from zero-sum. The increased revenue benefits the town far more than the town pays for any infrastructure upkeep.

Especially since most cities require the developer to pay for all the initial upgrades in the first place, including their own utilities tie-ins and improvements to extant public roads (eg traffic studies, adding lanes, installing signals).