I would put WFH at the top of my list but only because it is the only reasonable way to have 1,2 and 3 above. If I have to live in SFO or ATX, the pay would have to be so absurdly better than remoting in from small-town Michigan, that likely no one will pay it. Same for hours -- I'm not commuting 1.5 hours each way to the affordable housing in these areas. Same for PTO: I effectively have tons more living near family since I don't have to hoard it to use for family reunions, Thanksgiving, etc. I can do all these things without using PTO, and therefore am able to go on real vacations instead.
Sure, I'll come into your office every day if you
1) let me work 5 hours a day instead of 8 (to account for the commute)
2) give me double the vacation so I can spend Thanksgiving/Christmas/4th of July/Super Bowl Sunday/Labor Day/etc with family, never miss a wedding, and also have enough left for a week on Lake Huron in the summer and a winter-time jaunt somewhere warm
3) increase my pay to account for the housing cost difference in whatever post-industrial NIMBY hellscape your office is in and my current home.
There's also corporate culture. I find that I don't want to work with a team that has difficulty connecting via email/chat/videocon and feel they require constant meatspace contact. Usually this means a lot of "alpha" type personalities that need to press the flesh to get their half-baked agendas pushed through on others' backs. On the other hand, if you are disciplined enough to be able to collaborate via email and the occasional quick call, then you probably aren't a ripoff artist.
You'd be surprised how far people push commutes in the Midwest. I know at least one person that lives near Saginaw and works in Detroit. I have a relative that commutes nearly two hours each way in northern Wisconsin -- and they bought this house /because/ of the location of the job, so this wasn't an accident of history.
I can maybe see this, but I have had several kinds of long commutes in my life: long distances by country road, by interstate, by train, by bus. Rush hour driving in Austin is hellish compared to the same length of commute by country road in Michigan (at least when there isn't a blizzard) but they are still driving. It's not downtime. Commuting by coach-style (think Greyhound) bus in central Europe is probably the easiest hour+ commute I've had, but you are still trapped in a metal box: you might be able to answer some email or listen to an audiobook but it's not downtime.
When I had a job in Boston, I could commute mostly by train with about a five minute drive on one end and a 10 minute walk on the other. Much better than driving unless I was doing something in the evening. But it was still three hours out of my day. Fortunately didn't need to do it every day but it was still not sustainable.
I envy a good grid. Here on the east coast, in many cities only the very center core is gridded, with the rest being most of a hub-and-sprawly-spoke model. The only corridor through my 40-mile wide, 2M+ person metro area is a single Interstate that's basically a parking lot at rush hour, and also carries our bus-only transit system.
Yeah, as a native who recently returned because of remote work - it's insane that people think austin is worth what it costs to live here now. Even if austin was 50% cheaper than NYC its by no means 50% as interesting / provides 50% as much opportunity as NYC.
Sure, I'll come into your office every day if you
1) let me work 5 hours a day instead of 8 (to account for the commute)
2) give me double the vacation so I can spend Thanksgiving/Christmas/4th of July/Super Bowl Sunday/Labor Day/etc with family, never miss a wedding, and also have enough left for a week on Lake Huron in the summer and a winter-time jaunt somewhere warm
3) increase my pay to account for the housing cost difference in whatever post-industrial NIMBY hellscape your office is in and my current home.
There's also corporate culture. I find that I don't want to work with a team that has difficulty connecting via email/chat/videocon and feel they require constant meatspace contact. Usually this means a lot of "alpha" type personalities that need to press the flesh to get their half-baked agendas pushed through on others' backs. On the other hand, if you are disciplined enough to be able to collaborate via email and the occasional quick call, then you probably aren't a ripoff artist.