> ... smart people are leaving the cities ... they can work from home ...

For at least the last 30 years, people with any perception have been trying to put a little distance between the cities and themselves. There has always been a desire to stay near the cities because of the amenities: plays, sports, museums, music ...

Only, now, they know that they can live without physical proximity to those things.

In the 1980s or maybe 1990s, I read a book where the author talked about places called "exburbs". Exburbs are smaller communities far enough outside of large cities that most people would not regularly commute, but close enough that if there was an occasional need to go to the city, one could do so. Exburbs, according to that author, all those years ago, are the places where smart people should have been moving from the time the book was written. (I think it presupposes that "smart people" have jobs where they did not have to be present in $COMPANY's big city building for work each day.)

NOTE: Here in #SoCal, places that fit that description in the 1980s or 1990s are considered (long) commuting areas now.