There has been an effort to attract technology business to small cities and rural areas since the mid-1990s. I recall driving through West Virginia around 2000 and seeing a sign labeling a stretch of highway as "West Virginia's Tech Corridor." Knowing West Virginia, any company that built along there would have zero taxes, heck they probably wouldn't have to pay for the land.

Purely monetary incentives don't work. You have to look at the full range of what incentives people to move to a place. And companies are still run by people who are swayed by those same incentives.

Even in the Bay Area, companies with large campuses and competitive pay are opening offices in San Francisco because their talent is demanding it.