[throwaway1982]

Of interest to me is if this trend will or even is still continuing now that we don't rely on the slow communication and transportation methods of the past. I'm currently working for a company slightly past "startup stage" with a bunch of smart people in as rural a location as you can get in the North East and we constantly fly out and teleconference with big partners and clients in San Francisco without much or any net price/hassle if you factor in all the cost/time/stress savings of our location.

[Swizec]

I'm no historical figure, but I can't feel productive in a location where I can't just randomly decide one night that I've had it with work, want to throw my laptop out hte window, and should just go out for a pint. So you get up, walk outside, and voila, full bars on any random night of the week.

Sometimes you run into people from your field, sometimes from other fields, sometimes nobody at all. But it's a good way to recharge your brain, increase productivity, and merge disparate ideas.

Your mileage may vary, but I really really need that.

[Amezarak]

> I'm no historical figure, but I can't feel productive in a location where I can't just randomly decide one night that I've had it with work, want to throw my laptop out hte window, and should just go out for a pint. So you get up, walk outside, and voila, full bars on any random night of the week.

That doesn't seem to be a really high bar. For example, the county I live in has approximately 140k people and a population density of 128 / square mile. I think that most people would regard it as pretty rural, and it is in flyover country.

Yet I can still go out any day of the week to any one of a sizable number of bars and expect them to be decently full. I've run into all kinds of interesting people...though I don't expect to ever run into anybody famous.

I've traveled a lot and I don't mind big cities, but I've never really understood what they have to offer that I don't already have, barring certain kinds of professional network effects (e.g. Silicon Valley for startups, LA for the movie industry.)

[Swizec]

> Yet I can still go out any day of the week to any one of a sizable number of bars and expect them to be decently full. I've run into all kinds of interesting people...though I don't expect to ever run into anybody famous.

In my experience there is a big difference between "sizable number of bars ... decently full" and "a lot of bars/clubs/places ... full".

In my home town (300k people) you get many of bars that are pretty full a lot of the time, some bars that are full-ish some of the time, and a lot of bars that are mostly empty most of the time. And nightclubs, god help you if your taste in music is not mainstream. You will go to a club on a super duper full night and there will be 20 people there.

Compare that to SF. More bars than I could visit in my lifetime. Most of them decently full most of the time. Most of them packed on party nights. No matter what music I decide to listen to, the club will be packed. As obscure as I can bear, club will still be packed.

And SF is not even a giant city. It's got less than 3x the population of my home town.

[XaspR8d]

I appreciate the way you worded it, and I agree 100% for myself. I'm hardly a strong extrovert, but something about the assurance of being able to go and find activity at any time really makes me less stressed and more effective at working.

But I accept that this may not be a helpful environment for everyone. I know I have to balance this need with the needs of my SO, who feels similarly about having forests and lakes nearby (which certainly soothe me, but don't rank as high as having humans about).

[Swizec]

Solution: Move to a small city in Europe.

Back home[1] I live in downtown area so there's plenty of people at all times, but at the same time you can see the Alps from almost anywhere in the city on most days. And they're just an hour's drive away.

I imagine a lot of the smaller cities in Europe fulfill these criteria.

[1] Ljubljana - population about 300k, during workdays swells up to about 500k people. Small, but still lively.

[ams6110]

I think it will continue. There are still significant economic efficiencies in high population densities. Remote video conferences only address a very small slice of those.

[bergie]

Yep. Moving a place like San Francisco or Berlin might not be required for the "actual work", but it certainly provides other benefits in available services, cultural activities, etc.