[ghaff]

And it's an even bigger issue once professional specialists have partners and families. Even elite schools in relatively remote from major population center areas have long had some trouble attracting faculty whose partners may well be inevitably underemployed if they move to the small town/city where the school is.

[dekhn]

this is called "the two body problem" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-body_problem_(career) in reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-body_problem and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem

[ghaff]

I didn't know it had a name. But having been associated with both Dartmouth and Cornell, I've definitely heard complaints about the issue.

[robwwilliams]

Disagree again. Here are some towns and smaller cities that more than rival DC.

Ann Arbor, Davis, Durham, Urbana, Princeton, New Haven, Memphis, Madison, Portland, Eugene, Nashville, Kansas City…

[svnt]

The data for much of this list of cities has changed substantially in the past two to three years. Many of these are now unaffordable for someone on $45k/year, and they do not have the employment robustness of the larger metros.