In most places like that, the undeveloped land is exactly the problem. The road that goes from a little neighborhood to the town center, and the water line unde

In most places like that, the undeveloped land is exactly the problem. The road that goes from a little neighborhood to the town center, and the water line under it, and the power line beside it, all cost a lot more to maintain than the handful of homes along the road pay. But that infrastructure serves nearly no one else. It should probably be a gravel road, and they should be on solar power and well-and-septic. Then the local taxes would cover the maintenance of the gravel road with a few bucks left over. But that's not what happens. Generally the town center area (which is more developed) pays quite a lot more in taxes than the outlying areas, and the surplus generated there is used to cover the cost of all the infrastructure that enables the people who live on the outskirts to have town infrastructure and town prices with a rural lifestyle. And that transfer of money to sustain the rural area is why the town doesn't have the money to build a new library or school, and needs state and federal grant programs to fix the water tower. If you want to know why just about every American small town was building beautiful city halls, schools, libraries, etc. before WW2, and afterwards they mostly bombed out, it has a lot to do with deciding to spend their money maintaining roads to scattered residential developments on the outskirts instead of investing that money in other things. That's not the only reason, but it's a major factor.