Paying several thousand dollars a year in property taxes is nothing particularly exceptional for someone who owns a home. I own only a small house in a relatively low cost of living part of the country and even I can honestly claim to pay several thousand dollars a year in property taxes.
The ironic thing is that I live in a LCOL area as far as home prices, but the property taxes are among the highest compared to the home value, which makes it a little more exceptional. But the other point to the property tax comment is that a family of four living in my home would pay the same property tax. It's not just about the parks, a large amount goes toward the schools as well. Divide the property tax per home resident, and factor in who takes advantage of those taxpayer funded resources that most, and you should see where I'm coming from. I'm not saying I shouldn't pay any property taxes, but this was just one piece of the total tax pie.
EDIT: Corrected "owner" to "resident".
Some math, as it applies to my location.
Current $ spent to educate a child per year in our school district: $7500 (it's below median)
Multiply that times 13 years = $97,500
So that's a good baseline, on today's dollars, on how much was spent educating the typical adult today.
Now, let's assume that you own a home and pay property tax for 40 years.
That comes to $2437.50 per year, approximately - that would go towards repaying your K-12 education.
Now, approximately 48% of property taxes actually go to the schools (the rest are used elsewhere). Therefore, a single individual, in order to fully repay society for their education, would need to pay property taxes of $5078 per year, for 40 years.
(for the record, our property taxes are between $6500-8500 a year, depending on how the market is doing).
Another way of looking at it locally is that the typical older homeowner, thanks to prop 13, pays much less than that. So they would only repay society after about 50 years. I suppose I'm happy to give them a discount after.
In general, I'm pretty fascinated by the "I got mine fuck you" attitude that some people have. As long as you don't expect my children to subsidize your retirement (Medicare, SS)...