It's worth reading the Strong Towns book that goes into this in more detail. We haven't always afforded paving streets in cities. Many cities started with dirt

It's worth reading the Strong Towns book that goes into this in more detail. We haven't always afforded paving streets in cities. Many cities started with dirt roads in a small settlement. As the settlement grows, the investment in roads (sometimes) begins to make sense. As that investment happens, you can see over time an increase in the quality of buildings and population density. Perhaps you still disagree with it, but the point is that towns routinely make infrastructure improvements for which there is no cost socialization that makes the improvement worthwhile over the improvement's lifetime. You're right to suggest there is some benefit. In the example from the article, however, another street is used as the through street, so the benefit to people in other parts of the town from this road being improved is vanishingly small. It would not be worth however much their taxes would go up. You can also socialize across time through borrowing money, but in this case you would get 30 years worth of road for 35 years worth of money. It's an interesting book, because it does not even suggest that socialized costs or central government planning are bad in themselves, only that the way we're socializing costs is setting up our towns for bankruptcy.