For big cities like Dallas, the post-pandemic reality is workers can live anywhere
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Note: This article is part of our State of the City project in which The Dallas Morning News examines some of the most critical issues facing our communities. For more topics, see our look at the Dallas economy in the coming days.
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Dallas is emerging from the pandemic stronger than many other metropolitan areas, but with a new challenge: rivals who want to attract talent with incentives to work remotely.
How cities are recovering from the country’s worst health crisis in a century has a lot to do with how they fared before the pandemic, how they dealt with it months ago, and how they are viewed by remote workers on good salaries.
Nearly 40% of US workers have jobs that can be done remotely, and some cities are trying to capitalize on the big reveal of the pandemic: that work can be done from home. Small and medium-sized cities offer one-time incentives of up to $ 12,000 to attract remote workers as part of their economic development efforts.
The already hot labor markets like Salt Lake City, Austin and Boise, Idaho continued to boom during the pandemic as workers and businesses looked for cheaper places to get through.
Salt Lake City kept its momentum because it didn’t shut down completely, said Derek Miller, president and CEO of the Salt Lake City Chamber and Downtown Alliance. Miller said the metropolitan area of more than 1.2 million people has benefited from Utah’s holistic approach to staying open – developed by companies.
“It was a bottom-up grassroots approach with companies ultimately producing a document that was adopted by state and local governments,” Miller said.
A waiter took an order at the ramen bar in Salt Lake City on May 1. Shani and Serge Oveson were delighted to be reopening dinner seating at their small downtown Salt Lake City restaurant, which had seen sales decline 85% since mid-March, after restaurants across Utah were restricted to taking orders to Offer takeaway to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.(Rick Bowmer / AP)
Utah had no mask mandate until August and worked to keep politics out of the decision as more than 10,000 companies posted signs saying “Stay Safe To Stay Open”.
Utah had an impressive 2.8% unemployment rate in April.
Another state that sought its business community for ideas during the pandemic was Georgia.
The Metro Atlanta Chamber recruited retired CEOs, current C-level executives, Fortune 1000 board members, and college and university presidents to develop more than 120 policy recommendations for the Georgia General Assembly, which convened in June 2020.
The unemployment rate in Georgia was 4.3% in April, well below the national average.
Customer Dave Williams presented his signed bill to Fred Stewart at Varsity Restaurant in downtown Atlanta on April 28, 2020. (JOHN SPINK / AJC / AP)
Prior to the pandemic, major metropolitan areas across the country saw growth in college graduate households and high-income households, but the pandemic disrupted those trends, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. And as the lockdowns subsided, homebuyers’ attention shifted to the suburbs, said Laila Assanie, a Dallas Fed economist.
At the same time, remote working has prevailed and is now expected to remain well above the pre-pandemic level, Assanie said. These jobs are typically held by people with at least a bachelor’s degree, which is 34.7% of the population over 25 in the city of Dallas.
A higher percentage of workers in the greater Dallas area (42%) have remote-compatible jobs compared to the state (37%) and the nation (39%), she said.
“If people can work from anywhere, this trend can still work in our favor,” said Assanie. “If your money goes on in Texas and you can continue to work from home, it doesn’t have to be a disadvantage for us.”
Many remote and high-income workers will still prefer urban areas like downtown and uptown Dallas for amenities like good food, art, and pedestrian-friendliness, said Peter Haslag, finance professor at Vanderbilt University, who co-authored a new report on migration changes during the pandemic .
Still, Dallas County lags far behind Collin County in the north in all measures of population growth and net migration, he said. The Dallas-Fort Worth area’s population rose by 119,748 during the pandemic, but Dallas County gained only 285 residents, according to preliminary US census data. The population of Collin County grew by 36,997 and Denton County’s population increased by 30,559.
“But it should be comforting that Texas remains one of the hottest markets at the state level,” Haslag said.
Tulsa; Topeka, Kan .; Northwest Arkansas; and West Virginia are among dozens of places in the US that have developed programs to take advantage of the decoupling of workplaces from physical locations.
Publicly and privately funded incentives of up to $ 12,000 for workers moving to the area and the prospect of an affordable home in a less crowded location are enough of an inspiration for some people looking to make a difference.
Topeka offers two incentive programs: one with local employers and one for independent teleworkers. Since the beginning of last year, 49 people with an average salary of $ 87,000 and an economic impact of nearly $ 4 million have moved to the city.
“There are lagging partners and other family members, and some rent and some houses buy,” said Barbara Stapleton, vice president of the area’s economic development division, Go Topeka. The program requires proof of employment and pays up to $ 5,000 to renters and $ 10,000 to those who buy a home.
San Francisco is a concentrated example of how teleworkers have the potential to truly transform cities. Large tech companies have announced subleases of more than 16.3 million square feet, according to a report by SFGate. That’s worse than the dotcom bankruptcy and compares to roughly 1 million square feet of office space that is normally available in the market for sublet, according to CBRE.
Other cities like Nashville and Austin are coming out of the pandemic with a strong tailwind from huge development projects.
A sign posted in downtown Nashville last August called for masks to be worn.(Mark Humphrey / AP)
Oracle Corp. is building a 65-acre riverside campus in Nashville valued at $ 1.2 billion. The project includes a promise to add 8,500 high-paying jobs with average salaries of $ 110,000 over the next decade. Nashville can now count on 11,500 part-time jobs and 10,000 temporary construction jobs.
Austin has two major projects underway. Tesla’s vehicle and battery plant promises a minimum of 5,000 jobs, and Apple’s new $ 1 billion campus in North Austin will be ready next year. Austin is also one of the few cities Samsung has in mind for a $ 17 billion chip factory that will create 1,800 high-paying jobs.
Haslag, the Vanderbilt professor, has studied 300,000 moves between states in the past four years. The results showed that 10 to 20% of removals between April 2020 and February 2021 were affected by COVID-19, with a significant shift in migration to smaller cities, locations with lower cost of living, and locations with fewer pandemic restrictions.
“The trend of people moving for lifestyle reasons during the pandemic will continue,” said Haslag. “If people are allowed to live where they want to live, they will.”
Twitter: @MariaHalkias
Features of our State of the City project’s look at the Dallas economy:
Overview: Pandemic deepened the economic divide in North Texas
Editorial: To give poor children a chance, Dallas should address these trends
What’s next: Dallas faces the challenge of attracting workers following the pandemic
SWOT: An Analysis of the Dallas Economy
Jobs: The labor market is facing a turning point – with lasting changes
Income: wages are rising, but not for everyone
Real Estate: Why Building Homes in Dallas is Difficult
Small Business: Can Small Businesses Recover?
Mayor Q&A: Eric Johnson talks about the Dallas economy
Opinion: Strong local partnerships promote economic mobility, says Dallas Fed
Opinion: What suburbs can cities like Dallas teach about economic mobility?
Opinion: Small business start-ups create economic mobility
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