That isn't especially surprising, given that there's no point in raising (or using) the capital to build urban infrastructure where none exists. It's a flywheel

That isn't especially surprising, given that there's no point in raising (or using) the capital to build urban infrastructure where none exists. It's a flywheel-shaped problem; the fact that the average American lives in a local optima of suburban sprawl doesn't itself indicate the absence of a better optima.