(C) Daily Yonder - Keep it Rural
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The 'Zoom towns' luring remote workers to rural enclaves [1]
['Mark Johanson']
Date: 2021-06-04
Los Angeles native Shanelle Sherlin always wanted to live close to nature in a place where, as a triathlete, she could run, bike and swim away from city noise. So, when her job as a digital marketing manager for an entertainment company went fully remote, the 30-year-old made a dramatic move that would have been unimaginable before the pandemic: she traded the Hollywood Hills for the rolling Ozarks of Northwest Arkansas.
Sherlin was one of 30,000 applicants from 50 states and 115 countries who applied for the Life Works Here talent initiative, which was launched in November 2020 with a $1.5 million investment from the Walmart heirs (the big-box retailer has its headquarters in Northwest Arkansas). Successful candidates – there are currently 35 out of what will be a total of 100 by year’s end – receive $10,000 (£7,090) if they relocate for a minimum of one year, plus outdoor perks such as a free bike to enjoy the area’s 400 miles (644km) of hard and soft-surface trails.
“One thing that really impacted me right away was that it’s such a cycling-friendly community,” says Sherlin, who lives in Fayetteville, a small city of about 85,000 residents, by the 37-mile Razorback Regional Greenway. She bikes it and other trails three times a week, sometimes with a group of fellow cyclists. The newly remote worker also found a social club with a co-working space, which she says “is a great place to interact with likeminded, career-driven individuals”.
Although some urban centres across the world have also established programmes to entice workers to relocate, a taste for a slower, more outdoorsy option has recently emerged, especially in the US.
A new study from the Pew Research Center found that, like Sherlin, one in 20 US adults have moved in response to Covid-19, with those younger than 30 most likely to have made the change. Many are urbanites from major coastal cities, like New York and San Francisco, who were spurred by the growing disconnect between stagnant wages and rising living costs as well as the prospect of bigger spaces and access to nature in the American interior. Now that influential companies like Facebook and Twitter have set the tone for long-term remote work even after the pandemic ends, this young talent has been emboldened to seek out new horizons.
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[1] Url:
https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20210604-the-zoom-towns-luring-remote-workers-to-rural-enclaves
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