[lenerdenator]

I should specify: it's more expensive for the developers and their home-buying customers to build up instead of out.

All of that stuff you listed comes from tax dollars, and people ultimately care less about that than what's coming out of their pockets for a home purchase. Well, until it's unsustainable, anyways.

[tstrimple]

Yes exactly. Building is cheap in the US relatively speaking. There are tons of grants and government money to help move things along. Those avenues don't really exist for maintaining things that were built with grants and outside funds. So we see TONS of expansion followed up with almost no maintenance and suburbs and less populated places literally cannot afford to maintain the services that they utilize. The burden is almost entirely shifted onto renters in urban areas instead.

In this country we have this ideal of a rugged individualist whose out there living off the land and making his own way. Never will this rugged individualist acknowledge that he's dependent on 10x as many miles of roads as his urban counterpart. Never will this rugged individualist acknowledge that providing him with internet access on the state's dollar costs orders of magnitude more than someone living in a sustainable location. Same with delivery costs and literally every other thing this person consumes. They get to pretend to be a self-reliant individualist while leaching off of the tax dollars of urban residents who cost a fraction of the amount to support.

[robertlagrant]

> Never will this rugged individualist acknowledge that providing him with internet access on the state's dollar costs orders of magnitude more than someone living in a sustainable location

Thankfully we have Starlink to replace pork consumption with actual services.