You're wrong. People want to live in walkable cities. Property prices prove this.
It's true there are also other, superior, options, but that's a bonus!
The reason donuts cost more at your local walkable place is because real estate prices are higher in walkable places, because walkable places are so in-demand that as a nation we've bid the prices of those places to the moon. So we ought to change our zoning rules so that the market can build more of them. That's the whole point of Strong Towns idea.
Yes, Strong towns loves to say this too despite it being obviously not true.
Infrastructure stuff like roads and pipes and so on is cheap. Usually 10-15% of the budget. The real cost of government is in providing services to people. And those are invariably more expensive in the cities than the suburbs.
Show me even one city in the US that has lower taxes and spends less per Capita than the surrounding suburbs.
For one, suburbs are pretty economically difficult for low-earning households. Low earners are more likely to live in cities, therefore cities tend to have more social services.
You need to do an apples-to-apples comparison, which unfortunately is not easy.
Of course property tax rates are inversely correlated with property values so it's a bit tricky to compare, but the point is it's not always true that suburbs have lower taxes than the central city. Transportation costs are also typically much lower in cities (transit fares/passes are typically significantly cheaper than car ownership).
Notice how the second statement doesn't disprove the first.
edit: here it is - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWsGBRdK2N0
The law mandates that everyone drive everywhere whether they want to or not.
It's easy to see why people choose the suburbs.
If people in the suburbs had to pay enough property tax to recoup their share for the cost of roads, water, sewage, electric, telecoms, mail and other ancillary services to their large, non-productive plot of land, they'd likely consider other options.
Suburbs look nice in the short term, before the roads need repaving and the utilities need major overhauls; but the total lifetime cost to the public far exceeds how much tax they bring in.
With single-family zoning being the norm in the U.S, it would be unfair to call this a choice. The supply of other types of housing is severely constrained.