> Cities are incredibly expensive to maintain The whole thesis of the strongtowns.org website, with lots of data and references to back it up, is that medium d

> Cities are incredibly expensive to maintain The whole thesis of the strongtowns.org website, with lots of data and references to back it up, is that medium dense city centers and town centers are the only parts of a city/town that are revenue positive. Commercial strip mall areas and suburbs do not generate enough sales tax and property tax revenue (and often require tax breaks) to pay for the infrastructure: miles of roads and streets, sewers, utilities, etc. Density, when you have lots of people and economic activity in a smaller area, can pay for its infrastructure, even if it might be more expensive than a country road. Otherwise, I do agree, it is cyclical, cities were over-hyped for a while, with the tech boom in many east and west coast cities, but now remote work might reverse that. However, as Europe has shown, with a few precautions and some sacrifice such as concerts and night-clubs, a lot of city activities can go on, and with less rent pressure, we might be headed toward a good balance.