Seems the higher end neighborhoods make the daycare cost go up higher. Maybe the daycare has to keep liabilty insurance and attorneys on retainer.

We had a daycare in our house decades ago and it was busier than all get out but there were less regulations back then, now if we had to open up a day care today the regulations would probably make that impossible unless we were in a more rural community where the government regulations aren't as overdone so to speak. Today we might need to have surveilance cams for all the parents to use on their phones among other kinds of regulatory monitoring.

About 9 years ago or so we had a grandkid in a nearby daycare for 2-3 year and it was a lot cheaper than your reported costs. They were great at that daycare too. Why does everything have to be so complicated and yeah, where is that money going, as in for what?