> It would significantly expand taxes
How exactly? Do you have any examples? Also, have you ever seen the price of car infrastructure? I would be willing to bet that denser walkable urban infrastructure projects are waaaaay cheaper than building and maintaining sprawling road, sewage, and power transmission networks. Sprawl is seriously draining the finances of many small cities and towns in the US. There's a whole book about it: https://www.google.com/search?q=strong+towns
You could also just watch this smug video https://youtu.be/7IsMeKl-Sv0