> I am saddened that the dream we all shared of allowing small towns to once again flourish, because knowledge workers could be located anywhere on the planet, are being quickly forgotten in favor of ultra-dense citiscapes.

It was always a futile dream, mostly propagated by people who themselves enjoy small towns and certainly not "shared by all". It turns out that many knowledge workers actually like big cities for the leisure options, health services, people and neighbourhood diversity, much bigger selection of potential life partners, and high availability of jobs.