For you and I to imagine it, not hard at all.
But there are many, including some on this forum, that can not. They can not envision a world where people make decisions about where to live based on financial or quality of life considerations.
But as you noted, it is happening. Wealthy are moving from high tax states to low tax states and leaving budget holes in their wake. They are leaving crime-ridden cities for places where QoL is higher. Where they can go to the store, pick things off the shelf (ie not locked up) and go out to their car which hasn't been broken into and go home.
COVID has exacerbated this trend as more and more people can WFH. So they are now deciding where home is going to be. I am having dinner tonight with a buddy from college. He is originally from NJ and went back there after college to work. He now is WFH and he and his wife sold their home in NJ and are traveling around the country checking out places they may want to live. They stay a month or so and move on. So his taxes are no longer going to NJ.
People who thought they had to be in a certain city for their career are now free to move away.
I don't know whether some people either don't want to believe it is happening because they can't envision it, or they know deep down it is happening but will assign 100 reasons in their minds because they don't want the real ones to be true.
