> Since all of the jobs are in the city, they are optimizing commute times
I find that funny, because in Texas, the jobs are all in the suburbs and are rapidly moving farther out into the suburbs and even the exurbs.
I live in the suburbs of Dallas, and of the four jobs I've had, I've commuted further out into the suburbs for three of them. Only one of my jobs was in the city. And the number of jobs in the suburbs are growing: we've had some big-name companies relocate their headquarters from other states to Dallas suburbs like Plano and Frisco, and one big-name company that used to be headquartered in Downtown Dallas just moved their headquarters to Irving, another suburb of Dallas.
Also, my current employer is based in an inner-ring suburb (Plano) and there's been talk of how we're probably going to outgrow our office in a couple of years, and from what I've heard we're very likely to relocate to an exurb.
> The burbs housing stock are all 40+ year old homes that need significant system updates
This doesn't apply to Texas either. Most of the suburbs, and especially the exurbs, were built in the last 30 years or so, and a good amount of them were built in the last 10-20 years (e.g. everything in Prosper and Celina is very new development). Most of what's now suburb and exurb was farmland when I was a kid, and I'm only 32.