Remote work will simultaneously be our salvation, and the downfall of overpriced lawless dumps all over the world
I know it's the exact opposite of what everyone was told would happen, but it turns a lot of places are expensive because people want to live there. Letting everyone cut physical ties to their jobs means everyone who wants to live there can now rush in and do it.
In many places, such as East TN (Knoxville) remote workers are moving in with CA salaries. HN thinks that someone remote working from Knoxville, TN should be paid Bay Area salaries. However, Bay Area salaries are high for a reason. There are many Knoxville companies that can't compete with those salaries, which is why they set up Knoxville offices in the first place.
But now their employees are suddenly priced out - and no one is happy about it.
Their company had a simple CoL compensation adjustment that only accounts for zip code. Move to a more expensive zip code, get a raise.
It was always the dream. I have no regrets. Yes I could have retired to somewhere cheap but I'm only 34 and my skills are in high demand seeing salaries in the 200k+ range.
They are building housing here but so many people want to live here that no matter how much they build it will just all be absorbed immediately.
It made one thing perfectly clear to me though. Building wealth is more about investing than saving.
There is nothing special about Seattle (or anywhere else) that made it's descent into an overpriced lawless dump inevitable. It was the people who live(d) there. Not all of them, and probably not even a majority of them. But enough of them.