It took only a few months of pandemic life for Emily Caruso and her now-husband to clear out of their Hayes Valley apartment and relocate to Lake Tahoe. Why stick around the city when work is remote, shops and restaurants are shuttered, and most of their friends had already fled, they thought. By September 2020, they were full-time Tahoe residents. Three years later, they became first-time homeowners, fixing up an Incline Village property with panoramic lake views and breathing the fresh mountain air.
The years went by, and they have a 2-year-old daughter and a close cohort made up mostly of fellow young families who also left cities to enjoy Tahoe’s outdoor lifestyle and lower cost of living. Caruso works as a consultant, which allows her to work remotely, as do many of her mountainside friends, even as their companies disallow such arrangements for their new recruits. Then there are the less fortunate friends who’ve turned into super commuters, staying at hotels or studio apartments three days a week to fulfill obligations at their San Francisco offices before booking it back to their homes in Tahoe.
By last fall, however, the alpine lifestyle had begun to lose its luster. Caruso, her husband, and many of their friends found that childcare options, the dining scene, and cultural offerings were lacking. Remote work, frankly, hinders career growth, they sensed. Caruso’s husband, especially, wanted his next job to be in person, and with his expertise in advanced robotics, there’s really only one place to be…