Thank you for responding! I'm not super familiar with Strong Towns, but I really appreciate the work that's gone into it and I'm definitely going to read more.

Thank you for responding! I'm not super familiar with Strong Towns, but I really appreciate the work that's gone into it and I'm definitely going to read more. As for the hidden costs, it reminds me of assessments in HOAs and condo associations. Once infrastructure starts to age, it can become unbelievably expensive to perform even basic maintenance, as you mention. In instances where the people who live in a place are responsible for way more of the costs themselves, the picture starts to look a lot less rosy! I guess my issue with the free market vs not free market framing is that, while I agree completely with you that the system in not a functioning free market at all, the title of the series implies that we need to move away from a free market? But then, as you say, the system is already not that. I don't have much of an opinion one way or another, besides believing that this sort of financial analysis is very important. Thank you for taking the time to respond!