This is such an important point. In Australia and we have so many beautiful places to live but anyone tied into white collar work like mine basically has 2 cities that have good employment options and a few more with limited opportunity.

I suspect many would head to sea/tree change if ensuring your earnings was not such an important factor.

government subsidies cause distortions. Somehow providing basic income to incentivize people to live more in rural areas would only cause those currently living in rural areas to be more costly. The salaries of farmers, oil rig workers, truck drivers, miners, lumberjacks, etc... would rise.

Plug one hole in the dike and others will pop up. Just let the free market work and people choose where they want to live and work.

There are many villages and towns where a significant portion of the properties is uninhabited, so an increase in population wouldn't necessarily increase the cost of living there (up to a point). This is a real problem for rural areas at least in Europe, and many places are offering various incentives to try and lure some younger people, since otherwise they will be completely empty in a few decades.