Long ago I made the decision to live in a smaller house close to work. My company's office is 15 minutes by bike from my house. Riding through the cool air every morning was a great start to my day. The office is perched above a canal. As I worked, I'd watch the boats go by and the bascule bridge go up and down. It was a great life.

Now I'm working in windowless cinderblock closet in my basement. I live near family and friends so just uprooting to a mini-mansion in the country isn't really a workable option. Companies clearly valued nice offices as a quality of life benefit to their employees, but now providing that nice office experience is squarely on my shoulders.

If my partner and I are going to be working remotely for the long term we'll probably need to move to a bigger house that can give us both better work spaces, which will probably cost $200K-$300K more than our current home. $250K financed at 3% interest over 30 years is $1200/mo plus things like heat, maintenance, furnishings, etc.

I don't expect my company to pony up a $15K/year remote work stipend, but also I see this a WFH future as a net downgrade from my old way of life.

True, but if you were remote only, you could live in a low cost place and afford a bigger space.

The place is chosen not only for the cost. Some people like to live near the park, or downtown, because theaters museums movies bars dancehalls are all there.

Those of us who genuinely prefer city living and amenities seem to be relatively few among the crowd on HN.

I used to work full-time remote, and had the choice to go anywhere I wanted in the world. I still landed in NYC, and stayed because I loved a diverse, walkable community with amazing nightlife, culture, and parks all around.

I eventually took a job in an office in the city because I liked having an occasional social environment with coworkers, both in the office and outside of it. Working at home full-time as a person without a family and more social needs than I was willing to admit for a long time was extremely isolating, but I don't want a family yet.

I'm eager to go back to the office as soon as it is safe at scale for all the same reasons I was eager to leave my remote job and go into an office again most days originally. Moving somewhere cheap and more isolated to have more space to work at home is about the lowest thing on my priority list.

(But I recognize that I'm fortunate to work at a place which always had pretty good tolerance for remote work, even pre-pandemic, even if I didn't take advantage of it... and also lucky to have coworkers who I generally enjoy being around and working with.)

I could but I just do not want to. This pandemic definitely stacked the cards against my living preferences

If that fits the rest of the family. Moving around is easier if you are alone.