But towns that manage their own utilities do exist. That suggests that suburbs are not fundamentally unsustainable, they just need to adjust their calculations and expectations.
I suspect there are bad suburbs somewhere, but here ain't it.
Are you in a net contributor state as well? I live in a similar town, but it's in Wyoming, a state which benefits from federal transfers from urban centers.
Yup [1].
> ignore the other methods of "contributing"
Nobody is arguing we write off New Mexico, Mississippi or West Virginia. But their lifestyles are subsidized by Delaware (special case), Minnesota, New Jersey, Illinois, Connecticut and New York. (Scaling the net contribution to GDP removes much of the partisan slant introduced by urban centers having more people, and thus bigger numbers, as well as leaning blue.)
[1] https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2011/08/01/the-red-...
I have yet to see anything that points to them being fundamentally worse than towns: if you just treat them as Towns Next To Cities, it seems like you solve the vast majority of the problems.