Most small towns are not thriving despite the lack of legal barriers to their development. Usually the reason is a lack of reasons to locate there. Even in the

Most small towns are not thriving despite the lack of legal barriers to their development. Usually the reason is a lack of reasons to locate there. Even in the WFH era there are reasons to locate where existing good services and amenities are; a lot of amenities (niche business or cultural stuff, etc.) needs a critical mass of people to support it, and small towns generally don't have the mass. It is really hard to start up brand new septic or water delivery or whatnot in the middle of nowhere. Also, consider that it doesn't take that many people to overwhelm a small town's population. What I hear in the Western states where remote WFH is becoming popular, is now WFH workers are pricing out existing residents, because rural salaries cannot compete with WFH wages. So WFH has mostly just resulted in exporting the housing crisis without significant easing in the places that had this problem pre-WFH.