Should St. Louis pay remote workers $10k to move downtown?

This article first appeared in the Solutions newsletter. Click here to learn more about the newsletter and sign up.

Imagine downtown sidewalks abuzz with thousands more souls: people hustling, chatting, or gripping coffee, laptop bags slung over their shoulders. Imagine they’re well-paid, well-educated remote workers from the coasts. They’ve been persuaded to move downtown and are swelling the city’s tax base—a tax base without which an ambitious city government can’t do much (especially after that sweet ARPA and Rams-settlement sugar runs out). Imagine feeling safer on Wash. Ave. with more people around.

I imagined this the other day when I noticed that Greater St. Louis Inc. had floated the general idea in its 2030 Jobs Plan. The authors suggested that “an attraction strategy” aimed at professionals could seize on the post-pandemic prevalence of work-from-anywhere arrangements:

One possibility: provide cash incentives for talented workers living elsewhere to move to the city, with the requirement that they reside in an innovation district for a certain period of time after they arrive.”

Which led me to wonder: What if St. Louis deemed downtown an innovation district and offered remote workers $10,000 to move there?

At least 60 cities, counties, and regions in the U.S. already offer cash incentives to transplants, according to the site MakeMyMove. They’re doing this at a time when fully remote workers may make up 13 percent of America’s full-time workforce, as one survey suggested (even if the actual number of remote workers is up for debate). And we know that college graduates are leaving high-priced coastal cities in droves.

Tulsa’s policy, called Tulsa Remote, has turned heads because, by some accounts, it’s succeeding. In 2018, it began making a pitch to remote workers: Move to Tulsa, and we’ll give you $10,000, a free membership to a co-working space, and community-building opportunities. More than 20,000 people applied in the first two years. According to the program’s website, that city has now welcomed more than 2,300 program members. (Here in St. Louis, an influx of that size would boost downtown’s population by a quarter.)

Tulsa Remote is not taxpayer-funded, mind you. The George Kaiser Family Foundation has footed the bill. Yet according to a study commissioned by Kaiser, locals have indeed benefited, to the tune of $14 in new local labor income for every $1 spent on the incentive. Not every newcomer has stuck around, but a separate study by the Brookings Institute found that most Tulsa Remoters (54 percent) expected to stay for at least five years.

So I called some St. Louis business leaders to ask whether, in their view, such a policy deserved attention.

Jason Hall, CEO of Greater St. Louis Inc., tells me that it’s “on the radar screen,” though his group has not hammered out a proposal. Lately, they’ve prioritized retaining the workforce that’s already here. Missouri loses about 20,000 college grads per year, many of them from St. Louis, Hall points out. “I think it’s a little disingenuous to go out and say, ‘Hey, come here, life is great,’ if people are currently leaving,” he says.

Sam Fiorello, president and CEO of the Cortex Innovation Community, agrees with Hall that retention is key to achieving density and vitality. It’s one of three tacks that St. Louis must take, Fiorello says. The others: “upskilling” those who already live here—particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds—and yes, the recruitment of talented outsiders. But he argues for recruitment not by cash incentive, but rather, by a boosted quality of life or a solution to an “acute pain point” felt around the U.S. “What if we were to make an investment saying, ‘We’re going to have the most incredible childcare in the country?’” Fiorello says. “I bet that would move the needle.”

Many entrepreneurs have indeed moved to St. Louis to accept cash grants of $100,000 or more after winning the ArchGrants competition and relocating here. But Gabe Angieri, its executive director, says that in general, the “support ecosystem” is what those founders have appreciated more than the seed money. “We hear time and time again, ‘The cash grant was great, but the introduction to that first customer was what allowed us to pilot our solution,’” Angieri says.

Certainly, non-cash incentives—especially ones that are socially focused—can sweeten the pot for certain remoters. (Don’t forget, these people don’t spend time in their company’s offices.) Tulsa Remote’s managing director, Justin Harlan, says that while the grants may attract members, the community-building efforts “lay the groundwork” for their success after arrival. Tulsa Remote, for example, coordinates meet-ups and volunteering. Other locales have gotten more creative: Greensberg, Indiana, recently offered “Grandparents on Demand,” wherein elderly residents would babysit the children of relocators at no cost.

Non-cash incentives can also be a marketing tool. A few years ago, the town of Benton, Arkansas, coupled its cash-grant offer of $10,000 with a free mountain bike. It claims to have received 66,000 applications. Yes, to live in northwest Arkansas.

What could St. Louis offer as a targeted non-cash incentive? Emily Hemingway at Tech STL says she has been pondering that question, particularly because, unlike other locales, St. Louis has not leveraged ARPA funds or found philanthropic dollars for this specific purpose. Maybe the region could offer support for H-1B visas or spotlight our diverse international communities, she says, given the large number of remote workers, at least in tech, who hail from India and China. “We’re not just looking at attracting American citizens,” she says, “but also international talent.”

(Another idea, from yours truly: free local craft beer for a year.)

None of this should imply that Downtown is just a canyon for tumbleweeds. Its 7,000 or so multi-family units are, in fact, about 91 percent occupied. The point is to acknowledge that, compared to Nashville, Austin, or Minneapolis, it lacks density—that electric vibe of lots of bodies on streets. Remote workers could, in theory, foster such a vibe. They don’t seem to be arriving en masse on their own.

As Tulsa has shown, maybe all we need is some kind of incentive.

(And a private foundation’s willingness to fund an incentive, of course, wouldn’t hurt.)