Cycles of Urbanization and Deurbanization

I think this remote working thing will continue in corporate America. Late to the party in saying so, but I've long thought privately that the internet was a means for urban depopulation. If people can work from home, they can kind of work from anywhere, which means they can live anywhere.

Some people like the city for the people. Some people would rather be on the edge of yellowstone. I think the cumulative effect is de urbanization.

Which is of course just another cycle. We urbanized in the us in the late 1800s to early 1900s on. England had mostly cottage industry, which is to say working from home, before industrial revolution made it necessary for people to populate cities like Birmingham.

Cities are important for progress, undoubtedly. Can the internet be a proxy for a city in the free exchange of ideas?