>>1711568Quick analysis would suggest that at least for public transportation, everyone pays into it somehow, but only a few (mostly urbanites) get the benefits. Better analysis would be taking several American cities (since this argument is usually in regards to America), clearly delineating what is "suburban" and "urban" (a slow but moving target due to sprawl), and looking at where the money goes.
In Googling "suburbs are subsidized" and looking at the top articles, an article from "The American Conservative" suggest that homeowners get subsidies, but that's not exclusively suburban (after all, plenty of homes exist in the urban areas) and is more of a macroeconomic problem; nor does it compare other benefits that are subsidized that may benefit a more urban population (public transport, programs for the poor, etc.). Even the next article I could find, from the decidedly more left-wing "Grist" has the same idea, blaming the FHA, but it doesn't actually come up with any numbers beyond that.
Not only is the conclusion of "we're subsidizing suburbs" is a broad and somewhat inaccurate brush (again, American taxpayers as a whole subsidize home ownership, but that doesn't take into account other subsidies), that has mutated turned into "the urban areas subsidize suburbs" which is even less accurate.
