There are smart people that live in rust belt cities, there's just fewer of them in any given city than in all of the Bay Area. For a company it'll be harder to

There are smart people that live in rust belt cities, there's just fewer of them in any given city than in all of the Bay Area. For a company it'll be harder to keep that rust belt city staffed. It's also unattractive for employees to move there since there's fewer tech employers. In the Bay Area someone can walk out of Google and find a job pretty quickly with the same length commute. If someone relocated to Cleveland they can't necessarily do the same thing and face a prospect of relocating again. Remote work is one way rust belt cities can revitalize themselves. There's a lot those cities can do to attract remote workers even if they're not attracting the companies themselves. Their states need to help by harmonizing some employment and tax laws with the states where tech companies are based. No one is moving to Cleveland if a "no working for competition" clause in an employment contract is legal in Ohio. Side note: I don't mean to pick on Cleveland but it's sort of the rust belt poster child.