The argument is that suburban residents should carry the true cost of their infrastructure, not that they shouldn't exist.

Question really is the mechanism of pay. Maybe those costs on outside should be included in price of products and materials they buy. So for food the cost that goes to farmers and via them to local taxes should increase. As that would reflect what it really costs to produce for example food.

The average farm needs a single, nearby access road and power; water and septic is local (that's changing).

A suburb needs that nearby road, lots of streets, water lines, sewage, significant power, often street lights, etc. etc.

And the city needs transport networks and power grids that reach far beyond the city limits.

The only logical difference is a matter of scale and limits.

The same rules apply to any region that has dependencies outside of its own borders.

The only way to not be subsidized in some fashion is to live directly off of the land in the form of some nomadic tribe.

We’re talking suburbs. My city block contains literally thousands of homes and commercial properties in a zone that would contain, at most a few hundred McMansions. The cost to deliver services needed are within an order of magnitude of a suburb but the tax base is significantly higher.

It cost more to maintain infrastructure that experiences an order of magnitude more usage than an infrequently used set of infrastructure.

The hinges of a door used once a day will last longer than the hinges of a door used one thousand.

A road that sees one delivery truck a month will last longer than one that sees thousands.

I'm trying to figure out if you are agreeing with me or arguing with me.

Rural: Low usage, low maintenance low services (road,power,internet), low tax base

Urban: High usage, high maintenance, high services (water, sewer, road, power, internet, transit), high tax base

Suburban: High usage, high maintenance, high services (water, sewer, road, power, internet, transit), low tax base

Only one of these, by necessity needs subsidizing ...

I was under the (perhaps mistaken) impression that property tax on suburban property is quite high.

Yes, but it's still not close to the total aggregated costs of delivery of services. Suburbs are REALLY inefficient and expensive.

Infrastructure outside the city is normally paid by a combination of County Taxes and State Taxes, and roads are also financed by the Federal Gas Tax, tolls and other forms of government income.

Of course we should pay for infrastructure outside the city, but if you expect to live outside city centers and have costly infrastructure such as a sewage system, high speed fiber internet and so on, you should pay accordingly.

What happens now is that this infrastructure is either financed by those living in city centers or by debt.

So I don't buy your Straw Man argument that people believe that dense urban cores are better. What was explicitly discussed is that people who live in the suburbs don't pay what they should.

My town pays for sewer (which I don't have) and water (which I do) out of property taxes, assessments, and a quarterly water bill. I pay Comcast for my own Internet and I pay for private trash. Property taxes also pay for education (a big chunk), snow plowing, police/fire/library, etc. There's some money to roads but, yes, that's mostly from the state and gas taxes which residents also pay of course. So it's not like cities are picking up the whole bill; while they have more people paying taxes, a lot of costs are much higher as well.