Remote Workers Can Get a Cushy Apartment, Free Office Space, and $10K If They Move To Tulsa (nextgov.com)

Tulsa, Oklahoma is offering full-time remote workers in the U.S. free office space, a subsidized furnished apartment, and $10,000 cash if you move there and stay for at least one year. The city wants to attract so-called "digital nomads," who would, presumably, start paying taxes, launch businesses, and otherwise contribute to the economy of wherever they're drawn to. Nextgov reports: Tulsa Remote is one of several revitalization projects in the region funded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation. The Tulsa-based philanthropic organization was started by George B. Kaiser, an oil and banking billionaire who has signed on to Warren Buffett and Bill and Melinda Gates' "Giving Pledge," whose wealthy signees promise to give away at least half their fortunes to charity.

The organization has budgeted for 20 new remote workers in the program's first year, says Ken Levit, GKFF's executive director. Applicants must be at least 18, eligible to work in the U.S., already working full-time for an employer based outside the boundaries of Tulsa County, and prepared to move to Tulsa within six months. Applications opened Tuesday at the website TulsaRemote.com; the city hopes to settle the first new residents within the next three months, Levit said.

Comments

Not the stupidest idea

[Qbertino]

Sound like a smart and potentially effective programm to Kickstart local economy to me. If digital natives are what you're looking for this could work way better than throwing obscene amounts of tax cuts in Amazons direction.

Someone has been thinking outside of the box. That alone makes this program and it's proposal intriguing.

If I were an USian, I'd check this out.

Re:Not the stupidest idea

[elrous0]

It's just a PR stunt. If you read the article, you'll see they only have 20 "slots" available for this program. That's not a serious effort, it's just a PR stunt designed to grab headlines (and it seems to have worked). If this were a serious program, they would be budgeting for hundreds, or even thousands, of workers to participate, not 20.

Re: Not the stupidest idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe there is a plan for more people and they are just starting small. Ya know, testing it out...instesd of investing in hundreds of thousands of dollars without knowing the type of interest it has.

Remind me not to hire you for any sort of planning and rollout strategies. Thanks!

Re:Not the stupidest idea

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, this! If you need to "have a look" at the 2016 election results before deciding to move here, then, most assuredly, do not move here! Please stay on the coasts or wherever you currently reside!

Why? Shouldn't I want to know whether my potential neighbors are ill-educated, knuckle-dragging, bigoted assholes that would vote for an unqualified, racist, misogynist, asshole autocrat with delusions of grandeur like Trump?

Feds should set the example

[MikeRT]

Feds could easily snap their fingers and send several thousand new knowledge worker jobs to Tulsa within the next 1-3 years just by giving marching orders to a few agencies to move out of metro DC and set up jobs in that general region. It would also save the taxpayers probably on the order of 25-40% on contract costs.

I have never understood why the other 48 states, particularly California with all of its collective bitching about paying more than it receives, has allowed MD and VA to grow fat on all of these jobs. Metro DC could easily be forcibly disassembled by the other 48 states legislatively if they chose to cooperate.