The end result will be a huge equalization in pay. People in low cost of living areas will become a lot richer and those in high cost of living places will become a lot poorer.
Likely those high cost of living places will quickly drop in cost as most people spread out.
It's interesting because that equalization would only affect people in certain industries which are already fairly well compensated. If people making tech salaries move to overlooked parts of the country, I wonder to what extent their wealth would trickle down to benefit their new communities?
It would be interesting if a bunch of people leaving the Bay Area ended up congregating in certain low-COL communities. I wouldn't be surprised if a sort of rural gentrification occurs in the handful of Midwestern towns that have gigabit fiber. Would those areas remain low COL? Would the existing inhabitants become a sort of underclass?
> I wouldn't be surprised if a sort of rural gentrification occurs in the handful of Midwestern towns that have gigabit fiber. Would those areas remain low COL? Would the existing inhabitants become a sort of underclass?
You'd see something like that, but keep in mind that outside of dense urban cores, you mostly don't have the same constraints on available real estate that drive existing residents out by rising prices (and the SF Bay Area's lack of housing inventory is largely self-inflicted, unlike, say, Manhattan).
So, yes, some competition from well-heeled newcomers will drive prices up a bit (encouraging new construction), but without a constraint on housing inventory that drives the newcomers to compete with each other, what you get is just a bit of urbanization, rather than gentrification per-se.
Likely those high cost of living places will quickly drop in cost as most people spread out.