[msteffen]

Honestly the biggest reason I became a pro-density advocate is because low-density communities are almost always tax-revenue-negative[1], given that the cost of things like roads, water and sewer infrastructure scale with land area. What NIMBYs often seem to want are the amenities of city living (like a sewer instead of a septic tank in your yard) without the people, and that just doesn’t work.

[1]: https://youtu.be/7Nw6qyyrTeI

[ndriscoll]

The suburbs I've lived in have spent far more on things that scale with population (primarily education) than things that scale with area. You also can't split revenue from downtown commercial areas out from surrounding residential like that. Are businesses "subsidizing" residents? Of course not. That doesn't even make sense as a question.

[bpt3]

Posting a video from a highly biased source is not very convincing.

Almost every household with a child is tax revenue negative, and I don't think you're suggesting we reform education funding to correct that.

[msteffen]

Look, the people making this argument all come from a fairly aligned political unit. If you start hearing this perspective from a broad coalition of ideologically diverse groups, it would mean the thesis has become consensus. I agree with you that the guy's tone is not great, so here's a slightly different framing: https://archive.strongtowns.org/journal/2016/4/17/sprawl-is-... (strong towns' emphasis is on ending federal infrastructure loans that leave cities and suburbs with infrastructure they don't have the tax base to maintain over a generation. Which I think leads to similar conclusions but they're careful not to say that).

Their framing also highlights the important financial difference between children and sewers, though: the former get less expensive and more productive over time, and the latter do the opposite, which is how the problems happen.