'Letting them pay' for sprawl implies that it is already priced in, which it is not. Rather, it's often opposite: A few years back back Strong Towns did a case study of their Growth Ponzi scheme hypothesis on a town in Louisiana and found that under the current tax regime, higher density poorer neighborhoods were actually subsidizing lower density and richer sprawl areas:

https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/1/9/the-real-reason...

Of course, a major reason why the neighborhood will become low income is precisely because of the aging infrastructure. Middle income home buyers expect brand-new everything. It creates a cycle of sprawl. On the other hand, it does leave in its wake alot of affordable housing.

I will say though, from having seen a lot of these projects, the examples this author gave are actually pretty low cost. I’ve seen examples where the density was lower, and even though the streets were lower quality, the “unpaid cost” per homeowner was in the thousands of dollars per year. It’s just a wide range depending on the circumstances.

The important thing is not that cities try to force anyone to a particular lifestyle, just that they do the math and balance their books.

Above and beyond that, there’s enormous opportunity for wealth creation in communities by adopting more of the traditional Main Street pattern for neighborhood development, and ST definitely encourages that for anyone who is interested / wants it. But it should definitely be voluntary. Strong Towns is generally opposed to zoning, parking restrictions, etc. which are forms of coercion that badly distort the market.

That’s the problem with low density housing. If all externalities were accounted for, nobody would want it.

Oh and that includes paying taxes to the local city you’re commuting to for your job.