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Comment by keiferski | Hacker News Reader

At some point, I really hope the trend of massive centralization reverses. There are hundreds, even thousands, of smaller towns in Europe and America where one can buy a house for a reasonable amount of money.

Remote work might be the panacea...hopefully.

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Remote work might bring relief to the larger cities, but it also opens up smaller, often blue-collar industry towns up for gentrification, out-pricing the existing residents in a place where there wouldn't normally be "office jobs".

Remote workers who previously worked in Seattle have done this to where I live now - which has only displaced their housing affordability crisis to a different location, and on to a different demographic.

Well, why are all of those remote workers moving to your town? If you live anywhere remotely desirable, I think it's only to be expected that housing prices are going to go up over time until we start to see an overall decline in population.

Furthermore, why has the movement of people to your town created an affordability crisis in the first place? If the existing residents are opposing increased building, then it's not really the newcomers fault. If you're building to meet demand, why are prices going up?

Yeah, I also hope for the same. It's hard though. Major jobs are around the big cities so a lot of people migrate from smaller towns.

In addition to remote work, there is better/faster/cheaper transportation possibilities as well!

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