What are you talking about? Which towns?

For instance Natick, Framingham, Wayland and many other metrowest burbs have just had MASSIVE water main/roadway/sidewalk improvements. Like multi-year projects. Huge money spent.

Also, many burbs see shit tons of one-off development from tear-down homes where the builder is going to cut into the roadway to increase the size or replace the service to the houses for water or gas. That leads to asphalt patches that can look like shit over time until the roadway is resurfaced.

All those big box stores in the burbs? They are filled up by huge trucks that do a number on the roadways.

Any town that has permanently crappy main roads is likely doing poorly in terms of real estate tax revenue/income per capita. That’s not a suburb/city thing, it’s an income thing. And if you want to see some janky-ass sidewalks…go wander around Harvard and Back Bay/Beacon hill. There are some brick sidewalks that are so root-heaved in those neighborhoods they are nearly un-walkable.

I think you might be familiar with a struggling town you frequent or live in and thinking all suburbs look like that. They don’t. And not all sidewalks in Boston are 10/10. (Beyond the brick sidewalks that are lumpy as shot…go Google the number of gas main leaks under sidewalks as well as the electrified manhole covers that kill dogs in the city).