This isn't even moving the goalposts, this is switching to water polo. You don't get to tally every cost of suburbia and then say that's the cost of people driving cars. The argument doesn't apply to someone who lives in a city and drives a car nor someone who lives in a rural town who drives a car.

You're really just arguing that suburbia is a drain on city budgets and I can agree with that, it's a drain on a lot of things. I think the reason it persists and gets special treatment is because a significant number of people consider it the goal and see themselves moving out of the city eventually.

But more generally people get so stuck in the idea that tax dollars will be spent on things that aren't for you. Am I the weird one that's unbothered by this? If your vegan you're paying for meat and dairy subsidies you don't use, if you don't have kids you're paying for schools you don't use, if your house is all electric you're paying for gas subsidies you don't use, if you're not outdoorsy you're paying for parks you don't use, if you're acab you're paying for police you don't want, if you believe that caging people is immoral you're paying for whole prison systems you don't want.