Indiana Talent Attraction Highlighted in the LA Times

What will it take for you to leave California for Indiana?

Start with $5,000 to $7,500 in relocation cash. If that’s not enough, how about free health insurance for a year, unlimited golf club membership, a seat on the community’s nonprofit board? How’s a Himalayan massage strike you? Or bourbon and burgers with the mayor?

Across the Hoosier state, dozens of counties and cities are practically stepping over each other in what has become the new competition across the land: attracting the pandemic-enlarged horde of people with remote jobs who no longer feel the need to live in more expensive urban centers like Los Angeles or New York.

Some 30 states have gotten into the action. Cities and states are accustomed to fighting for manufacturers and other businesses by offering tax abatement and sweet land deals.

The game today is recruiting higher-income and younger households — made possible by the rise of remote working and the geographic flexibility it has afforded many American workers.

Mariah Zingarelli, 29, a fourth-generation California native and self-declared Disneyphile, took the bait. She and her husband Chad, 34, sold their house outside Fresno in February and a month later moved to Noblesville, Ind.

Never mind that she had never stepped foot in Indiana before, let alone the 71,000-population city about 30 miles north of Indianapolis.

But the Zingarellis decided late last year to leave California for a new adventure. They discovered Noblesville from a promotional video and ads by MakeMyMove.com flashing the incentives.

Click here for full article from The LA Times (full article is behind paywall)