Ah, if it was just jobs. Imagine you have a very smart kid that goes faster than grade level. In a rural area, your option is home schooling. In a small metro,

Ah, if it was just jobs. Imagine you have a very smart kid that goes faster than grade level. In a rural area, your option is home schooling. In a small metro, there might be enough kids to have some sort of gifted program that works. In a really large metro, there will be many specialized schools, where people that are used to not just random gifted children, but those that share very similar strengths and weaknesses. You'll also have more medical specialists, a far wider variety of quality entertainment options, and more people sharing whatever weird hobbies you have. The advantages of having more people living in your metro are are massive even if one is a remote worker. The advantages might not be needed for one's special case, and you might prefer to, say, live near a beach with great surfing opportunities in Portugal, but you'll still be accepting significant tradeoffs for not living near more people.