Suburbanization was heavily subsidized in the US for a variety of political reasons.  That just happened to line politically connected peoples pockets.  It&#x27;s actually terrible from an economic standpoint.<p>The US also focuses on extremely local school funding which promotes heavy economic segregation and is extremely harmful for the overall economy.<p>PS: Early on post WWII it was assumed to be a good defense from the at the time low yield nuclear weapons.  But, this is hard to trace back and might not have had significant impact.