The ability to create tools to allow more remote work and a distributed workforce can radically  help lower housing costs.  Just think if you could live in Tucson but work in Silicon Valley, San Francisco, or Los Angeles or New York .  Three trends work against remote work and a distributed work force:

1.  Agglomeration Economies:  the efficiency gained from an industry coalescing into a few locations.  Employees go where the workers are, and the workers go where the employees are.  Dense infrastructures form to support the specialized industry. Think San Francisco/Silicon Valley for technology, Los Angeles for entertainment, and New York for finance.
2.  Non-digital collaboration:  the belief that in person collaboration is stronger than digital collaboration.
3. The movement of millennials into the large urban areas.

Now the cost of these trends have reached a point for business leaders to explore alternative strategies.The current Coronavirus outbreak is also causing businesses and institutions to explore and innovate digital and remote work, and this exploration could lead to wider adaption in the future.

The article below discusses how San Francisco firms are exploring such alternatives.  The above trends have caused housing costs in these urban centers to explode.  Technologies that advance remote work and a distributed work force can put people where housing costs are much less.

Source: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey San Francisco comments a warning sign