And the housing in those cities scales terribly when you have kids. What might’ve been doable with 1 or 2 people traps you into very high rent or mortgage (+ even worse commute) to have room for a family. I moved out of the west coast - which I really liked as a place - to be closer to family and to pay 1/3 to 1/2 for the housing

This is one of the reasons I've stayed remote, in spite of being OK in an office environment (and sometimes preferring it).

I'm moving out to a town 3 hours away, which is not really commutable into London. It's a better quality of life, and the housing options are much better. Selfishly, I don't much care about the housing pressure in London, but I do care about whether I can spend my downtime going places and doing things I enjoy, and remote working makes that MUCH easier.