Indeed, many people prefer living in the suburbs, but a big reason for this is the hidden subsidies the US provides for suburban development.
When housing units are close together (town-homes, multi-unit buildings) the cost of infrastructure (sewer, water, roads, sidewalks, etc.) are shared by more units, and thus by more taxpayers. If the houses are farther apart, the cost per unit goes up.
So its fine if you want to live in the suburbs, be we should have an honest accounting of the costs so suburban households are paying the full price of their spacious lifestyle.
Many suburbs are accounting for this in other ways already, by foisting ownership of that local infrastructure onto the HOA instead of handling them centrally through taxes or direct billing.
I'm grateful that I was able to afford a home for my family. I am the sole provider and it costs half my income per month to live in a townhouse in the suburbs an hour away from a major city. It's hard enough as is.
The trouble is that if suburbs weren't subsidized, there would be little reason to live there, seeing its residents move further out into more rural areas. The cities are willing to subsidize them as it is net beneficial to the city to have people who won't live in the city proper to still be nearby, improving economic activity in the "downtown" with access to more workers and consumers.
This comes up a lot but infrastructure is not the expensive part of government. It's schools, criminal justice, and other labor intensive services. All of which are more expensive per capita in cities than suburbs.
When housing units are close together (town-homes, multi-unit buildings) the cost of infrastructure (sewer, water, roads, sidewalks, etc.) are shared by more units, and thus by more taxpayers. If the houses are farther apart, the cost per unit goes up.
So its fine if you want to live in the suburbs, be we should have an honest accounting of the costs so suburban households are paying the full price of their spacious lifestyle.
See this StrongTowns post about this issue: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2023/7/6/stop-subsidizin...