All municipalities must balance their budgets by law, so Mississauga hasn't done anything unusual. What Hazel did is finance the growth-related capital infrastructure such as sewers and roads by getting new greenfield developments to build it at their cost.  Now, Mississauga is facing the same problems that Toronto did (as will all municipalities eventually) of how to finance replacement of that existing aging infrastructure without driving property taxes through the roof. This, coupled with fast growth rates in demand for new services like transit, is what creates the budget crunches we hear so much about. Mississauga is just at the beginning of their crunch.