It is pretty maddening the way about two dozen cities in the US have become the main employment centers, leaving lots of great smaller cities and towns behind to rot. This is why real estate prices are so ridiculous. I live in Houston and bought a 1000 sq ft bungalow in a gentrifying neighborhood in 2010 for $279k. It is now worth $550k and most of the houses in the neighborhood are either new construction or old houses with big additions. Most everything for sale is between $800k and $1.2 mil. Meanwhile, in Corpus Christi, $550k will get you a 4,500 sq ft house on a quarter acre in the nicest neighborhood in Corpus with about a 5 min commute to downtown and a 5 min walk to the park on the bay. If you polled 2020 grads from UT and TAMU and asked them which city they planned to look for work, I doubt more than 2% would say Corpus Christi. If you polled every business that was looking at locating in Texas in 2020 and asked which cities they looked at, I doubt more than 2% would say Corpus Christi. Yes, Houston, Austin, Dallas and SA have pro sports teams, museum, fancy restaurants, etc. But CC is right on the ocean. You can go sailing or fish just about year round and the beach is just a 20 min drive over the causeway. Everything is cheap. But this city gets left behind while everyone crams into the big cities and real estate prices go through the roof.
This same story plays out all over the US. Philly is crazy expensive. But Wilke-Barre and Scranton are as cheap as can be. Seattle is crazy expensive, but Tacoma is about half price. Denver/Pueblo. San Fran/Stockton, Modesto. It is just insane the groupthink in this country that keeps companies going time and time again to the same cities with extremely high cost of living while completely ignoring smaller, cheaper and for all practical purposes more livable cities.