According to City Lab, Tulsa Oklahoma is offering $10,000 cash incentives and affordable housing options to lure in new residents. The Tulsa Remote program was launched in 2018 and targets new residents who can work from anywhere. There's a competitive application process where successful candidates are promised $10,000 paid in installments over the course of a year, cheap housing and an upgraded social infrastructure. Similar programs are underway in Vermont, Alabama, and Topeka, Kansas. The program is being funded by the George Kaiser Family Foundation, an influential Tulsa-based philanthropy,
Tulsa Remote is designed to put the small city on the national map, and shock it with a jolt of new energy, pulled from the outside in. It’s yet another step in Tulsa’s recent quest for self-improvement, as the erstwhile oil boomtown tries to boost its population and plant the seeds of a new generation.
Some of Tulsa’s most prominent updates are visible in the city’s aesthetics and infrastructure: In the past 10 years, a mix of public and private dollars has helped build the sprawling $465 million Gathering Place park, a new Bank of Oklahoma convention center, and a revitalized Arts District. There’s a plan to build out more parks on the banks of the Arkansas River. A sprinkling of new breweries has appeared, emboldened by a recent relaxing of strict state liquor laws.
Much of this new development seems engineered to look like a Millennial playground. The problem, says Tulsa Mayor G.T. Bynum, is there just aren’t enough people to play in it. After peaking in 2016, recent census data showed Tulsa lost population in 2017 and 2018, evening out at about 400,000 residents today.
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