The American provincial city of Tulsa has a special business development program. She lures new residents with a welcome fee of $10,000 – hoping for a very specific audience.
Cynthia Rollins loved living in San Francisco. But in 2019, she started considering a change of scenery. She might imagine a lot, maybe even moving to Bali. Then she came across an article regarding a city that made a tempting offer. Tulsa, one of the largest rural cities State of Oklahoma, still small by American standards, recently had an unusual economic development program to attract new residents. Those who move here have been promised a reward of $10,000. Rollins complied and made Tulsa, home to just over 400,000, their new home. She and many other newcomers in recent years are on the South by Southwest in neighboring Texas. The organizers of the relocation program have specially converted the pub “Augustine” into a “Tulsa House”.
The initiative is called “Tulsa Remote” and is aimed at a specific audience: people who work for companies out of state, but do so from anywhere and therefore can move anywhere. It is an action that fits into a changing world of work, but was started in 2018 before the corona virus spread. Justin Harlan, head of the organization, said in Austin that it was the first program of its kind in the United States. There are now imitators in other regions. The state of West Virginia, for example, promises newcomers $12,000. According to Harlan, however, Tulsa has mobilized the largest wave of relocations to date. Around 2,300 people have moved in as part of the initiative, and by the end of the year there should be 3,000.
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