[seasoup]

People don't move to a place because that place has cheap housing, otherwise people would be piling into the countryside. People move places with better economic opportunities for them and their families, generally that means jobs but it also means low crime, good schools, entertainment options and more.

As for companies moving, there is good and bad about your hq being located close to other hqs and good and bad locating away, but there is generally far more good in locating together. Shared talent, shared training...

[kitsunesoba]

Exactly this.

It’s also worth noting that this is true for people who are well past the “foot in the door” segment of their careers — even if one is able to move to a low CoL area thanks to remote-friendly policy at their current company, by doing so they’ll likely be locking themselves to said company for an indefinite period and greatly diminishing their chances at getting raises. Of course that doesn’t matter to everybody, but generally speaking it’s against one’s best interest to move away from the city despite savings on housing, commute, etc.

[aeternum]

Many employees cannot or are unwilling to up and move so it is quite difficult for a company to relocate a headquarters. Companies can open a regional office elsewhere but that has its own problems with communication and distributed teams. Problems which are manageable but can require new processes and training.