[bradgessler]

    The prices have skyrocketed due to regulation 
    and now the government can't pay for all that 
    regulated work.

This would be really interesting to understand in more detail. Does anybody know if attempts have been made at quantifying these costs specifically for infrastructure?

[StudentStuff]

Basically, in suburban sprawl areas where a 3 story building is a rare site, we generally have a lot of infrastructure for a small population. This costs money to maintain, and the tax base is nowhere near large enough to fund such upkeep.

Part of this is caused by parking minimums requiring half or more of any commercial lot be paved (forcing buildings further apart and causing excess parking to be built, and in residential settings this is caused by zoning and minimum lot and building size regulations.

All this causes a magnitude more infrastructure to be built to service this sprawl, from roadways to water, gas, power and sewer pipes.

[rocqua]

Strong towns has a whole section dedicated to this issue [0]. Sadly I couldn't find a decent summary. I think this article of the site [1] is the closest thing.

[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/infrastructure/

[1] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/