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That is doubtful. Consider scale. While there are a few dozen really densely packed cities, there are a couple orders of magnitude more small cities. There simply aren't enough people to 'fill up' the small cities in the US. There will of course always be regional places that are more in-demand than others, but overall it's like moving from a puddle to the ocean. It's just not going to make a dent.

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I think you're missing the point that many of those moving out of the really big cities are going to the same smaller cities. Taking Austin as an example, it's growing by leaps and bounds. The gentrification is indeed happening.

If the outflow from the really big cities was equally distributed (say, as percentage of city's population), then your view would be accurate. But that's not what's happening.

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