> Density increases property taxes per sqft.

The trouble is that it decreases them per capita, and now you need more teachers and firefighters to cover the additional residents.

This is the dark side of funding services through taxation. The people with little money pay little in taxes but still consume services, so they're a net loss to the government which then has a powerful incentive to push them out of the jurisdiction.

One way to solve this is with a UBI. That would allow local governments to charge actual cost for local services rather than tying them to property values, without imposing an impossible burden on low income people, because then they could pay the cost from the UBI. Which would in turn remove the perverse incentives local governments have to inflate local housing costs or push out "unprofitable" residents.

> The trouble is that it decreases them per capita, and now you need more teachers and firefighters to cover the additional residents.

That doesn't sound right. Average incomes in urban areas are higher. The economies are stronger. Then there's the economies of scale in providing infrastructure.

Wish I could find numbers on it one way or another.

> That doesn't sound right. Average incomes in urban areas are higher. The economies are stronger.

Average incomes in urban areas are higher because it requires a higher income to afford to live there. What do you expect to happen if you increase the housing supply, allowing lower income people to be able to afford to move in?

> Then there's the economies of scale in providing infrastructure.

The biggest cost centers don't really have these -- it's why they're the biggest cost centers. If you want to add ten new classrooms full of students then you need ten new teachers. If you want to add twenty new classrooms then you need twenty new teachers. You don't need twenty new superintendents, but the cost of the superintendent was already a rounding error to begin with.

They're higher because they have more productivity. Business don't preferentially open locations in the places with the most expensive real estate just because they have too much money burning a hole in their pocket, they do it because they make more money by having locations there.

The answer is not UBI, if you want to give people more money, stop having the government take it. The government is only good at 3 things, killing people, locking people in cages, and wasting money. People with needs they can't take care of themselves should be helped by charities. People would give more to charity if they had more money and they didn't believe the government was taking care of the problem.

The answer to this problem is to get rid of zoning laws and allow land owners to use the land in a way that maximizes its value. You will end up with natural zones.

And simplistic concepts of what makes for good urban planning. I think there are people who actually think separating commercial from residential zoning is a critical thing to do. Maybe a little makes sense, but it just speaks to a simplistic mentality regarding how people live.