For many years in Orange county, CA the housing construction industry was booming. Demand was high, and contractors built out housing tract after housing tract. Almost all were single family homes, five per acre. This looked like a sweet deal for the cities and counties involved. They collected builder fees and taxes from the newly developed properties, and they lived the dream for about twenty years.
The builder fees disappeared after a year, and the taxes looked good for a while.
In California, due to proposition 13, property taxes can only be increased at 2% per year, and this was sufficient for a time. Then maintenance started to be necessary. The roads needed resurfacing, the street trees needed trimming, the sewer and water piping needed repair and replacement. All of a sudden the benefits disappeared and the expenses started to pile up. The only recourse was to stick all the rest of the tax base with the increased costs, which was not appreciated.
The collapse in 2008 in the larger housing industry was the killing stroke. Nowadays the only construction I see is multi-story office and apartment buildings. These will yield more in taxes than the cost of services. The cities and counties did not attain this wisdom honestly, they were forced to it by economic circumstances. The larger tax base will be paying the deficit in perpetuity.
This all seems to be the result of government allowing big money people have their way regardless of the long term consequences. These facts stated above were known at least by 1978, but ignored, and the persons responsible timed it right. They are almost all dead now, but they left behind the wreckage to learn from.
Let us hope future leaders will have a longer term perspective.