I feel like this analysis is missing the forest for the trees a little bit. The main premise is that exodus of tech brain to smaller hubs like Austin, Denver an

I feel like this analysis is missing the forest for the trees a little bit. The main premise is that exodus of tech brain to smaller hubs like Austin, Denver and Miami will help them grow. But if the assessment of the downsides to SF is merely that "cities don't die, they languish", that ignores the dynamic aspect of an economy, namely that it is the centralization aspect that made places like SF and NY the powerhouses in their respective flagship industries in the first place. I saw a video recently about the Ogallala Aquifer (a large body of water that feeds the agricultural belt in central US). It argued that because state lines were drawn in a nearly arbitrary fashion, states are incentivized to compete against each other to develop/maintain their agricultural industries, even if that means draining the water unsustainably. It argues that a hypothetical megastate whose area encompasses the entirety of the aquifer would see that it's in its own interest to manage the aquifer efficiently and sustainably, rather than fight against neighbouring states in a tragedy of the commons. `s/water/VC money + talent/` and I think you can see where we're going with this. Could the next Apple be born in Denver? Could the next Google be born in Miami? You could arguably look at Toronto, Canada as an example of what sort of level of innovation one could reasonably expect from a local growing hub. But if hypothetically, the SF tech scene were to actually die (or be irreparably crippled by the tech exodus), I'd think the US as a whole would lose a major economic/technological edge, especially compared to places like China. Is that "good for the US"? Perhaps so for the folks that can ride the growth in the local hubs. Perhaps their locals will also come to loathe techies. But alas, perhaps it won't be so good after all, if it means the existing tech giants will never again see worthy competition/disruption, and if it means that the US starts seeing technological advances originating from other countries while no longer able to sprout them at the scale that today's tech giants have been able to in the past.