I wasn't really thinking in terms of politics -- There's still a few hub cities in conservative land that are the main places people live, right? More people li

I wasn't really thinking in terms of politics -- There's still a few hub cities in conservative land that are the main places people live, right? More people live in just the Houston metro area than in all of Missouri, despite rural MO being cheaper and just as conservative. I guess the point i'm trying to make is in regards to the original poster -- They posited that if people don't have to care about job locations and as much about cost, real estate values in concentrated places would drop. I'm arguing that if people could move anywhere they preferred, concentrated places would get _more_ popular, because the gains you get living in currently desirable places get more valuable the more time and money you have. Obviously you have some people who's preference is to live somewhere isolated, but most of those people don't currently live in expensive places. There are some people who are holed up in San Diego and waiting until the day they can leave, but that number is probably swamped by the people who'd move there in a heartbeat if they could find a job that payed well enough. Maybe my sample is skewed, but I'm from a small city in MO, most of my friends are early 30s and starting to settle down and start families, and I know a lot more people who would rather live in NYC/Boulder/Nashville/Dallas than either where they live now, or somewhere more rural.