As far as the Bay goes, it feels like decisions about office placement are made with things like management or prestige in mind, rather than the average worker. For all the growth in the East Bay and Tri-Valley area, it seems like most office buildings continue to be built on the peninsula. Hayward is one of the most central locations in the bay and is largely used for... logistics and distribution?
I miss the office, but there's no way I'd give my current remote lifestyle for the way things were before (average 1.5 hours of commute time per day). Mind you, this is _after_ optimizing my home buying process to shorten my commute as much as possible. I have a neighbor that bought a Tesla mainly for the tag that lets you use it in carpool lanes. Everyone has better things to do than sit in cars (or other transport) for hours a day, and its a sad thing that more effort hasn't been expended to improve this before now.