The "bedroom community built on inexpensive rural land some distance outside of city boundaries" in my area was actually connected to the city by electric railw

The "bedroom community built on inexpensive rural land some distance outside of city boundaries" in my area was actually connected to the city by electric railway lines (whose right-of-ways still largely exist, as bike paths). This was before the big mid-century paradigm that GP describes, which absolutely was a(n open) conspiracy to create racially-segregated communities. There were a lot of amenities that these communities went out of their way to fund, so expense was a concern only inasmuch as the money that would have gone to sidewalks instead went to a community pool or bike paths or water/trash services.