It's not a hard choice when suburbs have been subsidized like hell for about 70 years while money has been drained out of cities to pay for said suburbs. Here in Ohio there is this garbage designation for "rural farming areas" called townships that get huge infrastructures subsidies/grants, even though they are all just suburbs/exurbs.
Look at any of the areas around Cincinnati, Columbus, or Cleveland and check out how many of them have township in their name. It's pretty incredible and absolutely disgustingly dishonest.
Drained out of the cities? Nearly all of Texas is what most people would consider "suburb". Even the "urban" areas are mostly sprawl. Very little of Texas is walkable by any stretch.
Yes, a significant amount of tax dollars come from cities and are funneled to suburbs/exurba via "grants" and other subsidized funding methods, which urban areas don't get the benefit of receiving.
There are pockets of walkabality here and there but it's a drop in the ocean. Those locations are sparse, job and home location specific, and EXPENSIVE.
I live in San Antonio. Low COL right? Ehhh, not where I live haha. The desirable areas near town are not cheap. Alamo Heights is super expense and not walkable at all. A 1 bedroom near the Pearl is over 2k/mo now essentially. Actually, I've seen effeciencies for about that much and there are not really grocery stores around within walking distance.
Texas has a 1.9t GDP and it's almost entirely generated by people living in urban sprawl and rural areas. Austin is no exception as someone has pointed out.
Most of the people who work in the smallish Texas high density centers live in the sprawl. We have no income tax so of court that's made up with prop tax. School quality is highly dependent on quality of the neighborhoods they are located near. It's not fantastic but the idea that the sprawl is "draining" the cities is off base since the vast majority of workers producing the value live in the sprawl.
Austin is a giant suburban sprawl that's better than most Texan cities because it has a reasonable bus line. It's all low density, all of it, with massive parking lots everywhere.
Look at any of the areas around Cincinnati, Columbus, or Cleveland and check out how many of them have township in their name. It's pretty incredible and absolutely disgustingly dishonest.