Property taxes are based on the value of the property. A bunch of people living together in a shared building provide much less property taxes than the same number of households living in multiple more expensive houses individually.
Also, higher income households want less hassle in their lives, and will pay to improve their lot. They don't want to hear neighbor's stereos blasting through the walls, or the drunk next door watching porn at 2am and masturbating to it, or being kept up all night by someone's party, or worry if they're fucking too loudly and the neighbors might hear it and knock on the door complaining. If you want to attract and retain higher income households, you have to make housing available to them that meets their standards --which is almost always single family housing. Or else they move away. And take their income tax revenue with them.
But it's not just the property and income tax revenue. As Plato pointed out in The Republic, City structure has a large effect on social structure. Better cities produce better people. Poorly constructed cities raise poor, maladapted people.
The focus on parks, schools, libraries, recreation programs, improvements in housing stock quality (including private garden space ie back yards), are all because of the long standing recognition that The City makes The Man.
Also, higher income households want less hassle in their lives, and will pay to improve their lot. They don't want to hear neighbor's stereos blasting through the walls, or the drunk next door watching porn at 2am and masturbating to it, or being kept up all night by someone's party, or worry if they're fucking too loudly and the neighbors might hear it and knock on the door complaining. If you want to attract and retain higher income households, you have to make housing available to them that meets their standards --which is almost always single family housing. Or else they move away. And take their income tax revenue with them.
But it's not just the property and income tax revenue. As Plato pointed out in The Republic, City structure has a large effect on social structure. Better cities produce better people. Poorly constructed cities raise poor, maladapted people.
The focus on parks, schools, libraries, recreation programs, improvements in housing stock quality (including private garden space ie back yards), are all because of the long standing recognition that The City makes The Man.
"Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they're so frightfully clever. I'm awfully glad I'm a Beta, because I don't work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don't want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They're too stupid to be able to read or write. Besides they wear black, which is such a beastly color. I'm so glad I'm a Beta."
--Aldous Huxley, Brave New World