@quixoticgeek Various writers have put in all kinds of programs he uses Wayne money to run, so it's established that he's trying to buy solutions. Of course, the real answer is that DC America is capitalist, and one specific capitalist can't actually buy all the fixes, but the DC writers aren't commies, so they invented an ancient curse instead.

Also, part of the disconnect is that when he started, Bruce Wayne had trust-fund kid money, not industrial tycoon money, which is why back in the day he fought crime in a costume: money for fancy cars isn't the same level as money to renovate a whole city. Modern iterations don't make nearly as much sense

@quixoticgeek That's undoubtedly part of it, but it's also narrative necessity: in order for Batman to exist, Gotham needs to be a shadowy dystopia. If he actually fixes anything in the long term, the comics are over. Since he's super competent and also super rich (Wayne's wealth has grown considerably over the decades), there must be an external factor stopping him from ever fixing anything, otherwise he'd have won by now.

@quixoticgeek Apparently this has actually been addressed in the comics at some point; it transpires that Gotham is literally cursed and thus unfixable, and it takes all Bruce Wayne's wealth and Batman's badassery just to keep it at the current level of dystopia