The poorer denser city centers (in America) subsidise the wealthier, less dense suburbs. "Suburbia is Subsidized: Here's the Math [ST07]" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw6qyyrTeI
I knew before watching it that it was Strong Towns propaganda.
They keep ignoring that without those suburbs you won't have rural farms. Without those suburbs those "productive" cities will have nothing to eat, and nothing to buy.
They measure productivity in terms of dollars - but all cities do is services, they don't produce goods. That's left to those places Strong Towns hates.
If people actually implemented what Strong Towns wants, people would starve.
Try the math again, but completely exclude services and let's see where you end up.
The video points out cities which aren't bankrupt, do you think the people in them are starving and the farms near them are gone?
The video says that Canada has laws which stop cities paying more than 25% of revenue on debt payments, so they are much less bakrupt than USA cities. Do you think all Canadian cities have starving people with nothing to buy, and failed farms?
What about European cities which aren't suburban car dependent sprawl and still have food?
What about the explanations in the video (and the related ones on the channel) on why the suburbs are so expensive - you can't handwave away thirty six billion dollars of due road maintenance in a single city with "rural farms need it", even if true it's unsustainable.
> "all cities do is services, they don't produce goods."
Yes, fintech nonsense has eaten London, and services are its most profitable sectors these days, but that's not /because it's a city/, it was a major manufacturing center and a city.
