Suburbs can’t be a ponzi scheme

Genuine question: Why not?

While the article indeed barely touched on its headline, the way I’ve seen the “suburb infrastructure upkeep problem” described seems indeed reminiscent of a ponzi scheme.

The way I understand it:

Suburbs have a relatively low initial cost (for the city) compared to the taxes they generate. However, their maintenance cost is relatively high because Suburbs are huge.

Thus, US cities have long had a policy of paying the rising cost of their older Suburbs by creating new Suburbs - which is pretty analogous to a Ponzi scheme.