Worked in the U.K. Milton Keynes is 250k population which was under 50k 50 years ago.

UK has the feature that you can bootstrap new towns because from the new town you are probably within 1000s of jobs in neigbouring towns. I used to joke to myself you could get a C# job in commuting distance (car may be needed) from anywhere in the UK even in the sticks. (Before remote working boom)

	▲	hdgvhicv an hour ago \| parent [-]
		It’s a half hour drive to the nearest station and I don’t exactly live in the middle of nowhere. US could build a new town 50 miles out of San Francisco with 4tph. Holster-Gilroy looks potential. Petaluma-SantaRosa too, or Fairfield. From a Quick Look on the map Those could all massively increase in size and be easily commutable to the entire SF area