Unfortunately, North America suffers from terrible city planning. It never ceases to amaze me that it's practically impossible to get around without a car in so many places in US and Canada. I grew up in USSR, and everything was organized using microdistricts which were designed so that you had everything you needed within walking distance, and most of the time you didn't even need to use public transit to get around. It's one of the things I miss the most living in Canada nowadays.

And I agree that in person collab can be smoother, but zoom is a decent trade off. also find you get interrupted less with remote work. When people are in the office it's really easy to just pop up somebody's cubicle.

I do miss the collaboration aspect, but I can charge my social batteries on weekly lunch zoom calls with my friends

IMO this is a big part of why companies are pushing return to work, even if employees hate it. They want the lunch conversation and collaboration to be with other company employees. They want to make sure that if someone has a really cool new idea, that the idea is owned by the company. They don't want the employee to leave to start a company with their friends instead.

If your entire social life is on the Google / Facebook / Apple campus, then any ideas you have are likely to be owned by the company too.

If you work from home, take breaks IRL or online with your friends, etc. then you're less tied to the company. You don't even necessarily need to quit to form a new company. You could even start one while working at your day job, as long as your performance doesn't suffer.