Small and medium-sized communities are taking advantage of companies allowing employees to work remotely, offering incentives to the workers to move to their towns, Alyson Krueger reports for the New York Times. The idea behind the incentives is to lure select workers who can do their jobs remotely, support local businesses and pay taxes, but who won’t take work away from local residents. “For regional economic development organizations, it’s an effort to build communities with high skill sets to attract start-ups and larger companies in the future,” writes Krueger. “For the migrating workers, it’s a chance to try out an up-and-coming place alongside other newcomers.” Last winter, as the pandemic kept Americans homebound, the Northwest Arkansas Council started a program offering select remote workers $10,000 and a free bicycle to relocate to the area. More than 29,000 applications flooded the council. People from every U.S. state and several countries applied for the program, Nelson Peacock, the council’s president, told Krueger. “We never expected this response,” he said. “The problem was figuring out how to choose.” Similar programs are being offered in Georgia and Hawaii.