If anything, single-family has worse externalities than high density does. Single-family homes have to be subsidized because they don’t generate enough tax revenue per acre to pay for the amount of infrastructure they require. (Concrete example: if you have a single-family lot with 100’ of street frontage, that one family basically needs to pay enough taxes to maintain 100’ of road. But if you have a 10-plex on the same lot, each household only has to pay enough taxes to maintain 10’ of road.) Single-family is also inherently the least sustainable in terms of both HVAC costs (because every side of the habitable unit is exposed to the environment) and transportation costs (because low density minimizes walkability).
If anything, single-family has worse externalities than high density does. Single-family homes have to be subsidized because they don’t generate enough tax revenue per acre to pay for the amount of infrastructure they require. (Concrete example: if you have a single-family lot with 100’ of street frontage, that one family basically needs to pay enough taxes to maintain 100’ of road. But if you have a 10-plex on the same lot, each household only has to pay enough taxes to maintain 10’ of road.) Single-family is also inherently the least sustainable in terms of both HVAC costs (because every side of the habitable unit is exposed to the environment) and transportation costs (because low density minimizes walkability).
Yeah I think pretty much everyone either forgets or doesn’t know that the suburbs are subsidized by the city for exactly the reasons you mentioned.