I live in a tiny, crappy, pre-war apartment that gets cold in the wintertime, next to loud, obnoxious neighbors, and I prefer working at my company’s spacious, modern Manhattan office.
But presumably you live in that apartment because you needed to be within commuting distance of the Manhattan office? If you don't need to be so close to Manhattan I would guess (not really knowing anything about your situation) that you could afford a mansion in a town or village instead.
Some people like living in big cities, and are ok trading off a bigger living space to make that happen. I love being able to walk out to a bunch of different restaurants, having easy access to entertainment venues, etc. The idea of having a giant house in the middle of nowhere has very little appeal to me. This is especially common for younger people and those with no kids.
There's a whole world between big city and the middle of nowhere. You can live in a small town with restaurants, culture, coffee-shops, a theatre, social life.
I suspect if WFH becomes the norm, then people will flock to big cities even more, because suddenly you live in a massive suburban house but can go days without ever seeing a new face.
At least when you had a central office there was a place where you would meet some people and be in the middle of some sort of hustle and bustle.
Big cities might become even more attractive in a WFH future .
Don't you have towns and villages? Like a sub-urban area but only a few miles across and then you have shops and community in the middle within a walkable distance? I live in a town and I work from home but there's a coffee shop, a sandwich bar, a pub, a little club, a theatre, a gym, and I meet people from the community here. I'm married but I'm sure people date here as well. I thought 'small town America' was a big part of the culture?
If you don’t need to be near Manhattan you don’t need to live there. Or maybe your loud neighbors won’t need to live there. Ceteris paribus working from home kinda sucks, but if you think about how many systems will change, I think it’s gonna get better.
I used to do something similar when I had to go into an office. Then I started working from home and moved to a quiet neighborhood with a high walkability and bikeablility score (sadly, our transit score is still terrible, I wish I could have gotten all three; this according to https://www.walkscore.com/). I wouldn't have had this option if I had to live near the office.
