Vox: All Posts by Rani Mollahttps://cdn.vox-cdn.com/community_logos/52517/voxv.png2023-08-07T06:00:00-04:00https://www.vox.com/authors/rani-molla/rss2023-08-07T06:00:00-04:002023-08-07T06:00:00-04:00The future of cities, according to the experts
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<img alt="A colorful illustration of a city with people walking through and enjoying a park with anthropomorphized buildings on either side." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/CbP3HXrO7Yf2rPQsosuZW4nhxBk=/240x0:1680x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72520275/mkwon_MythDyingCities_Final01.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Michelle Kwon for Vox</figcaption>
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<p>Cities aren’t going anywhere, but they do need to change.</p> <p id="7oC0tN">Since the pandemic upended the world, we’ve been getting plenty of mixed signals about cities. We’ve heard both that <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/08/17/nyc-is-dead-forever-heres-why-james-altucher">cities like New York are over</a> and that they’re <a href="https://www.globenewswire.com/en/news-release/2023/06/01/2680221/0/en/Resonance-Consultancy-Reveals-America-s-Best-Cities-in-2023.html">immensely popular</a>. Are they <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/nyregion/coronavirus-nyc-crowds-density.html">bastions of disease</a> that people will forever avoid? Then why is the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/manhattan-rent-record-high-may-2023">rent so damn high</a>? Remote work means that people can work from anywhere — and they are, with the percentage of working days from home <a href="https://wfhresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/WFHResearch_updates_July2023.pdf">settling in at 30 percent</a> — and yet companies keep <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/01/michael-bloomberg-federal-employees-offices-washington/">calling people back to the office</a>. At the same time, economists are predicting the <a href="https://nymag.com/press/2023/07/the-panic-and-pivot-of-manhattans-office-megalandlords.html">demise of a lot of office buildings</a> and the tax windfall they bring for urban governments, meaning cities could <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/30/opinion/covid-pandemic-cities-future.html">run out of money</a> to fund some of the things we love about them. </p>
<p id="9f09Vw">It’s a confusing situation, to say the least. So we asked some of the best and brightest people who think about cities — economists, urban planners, academics — to weigh in on their future. Though they certainly didn’t all agree, a few themes emerged. </p>
<p id="el42u9">Big cities — think New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago — will ultimately be okay, since a lot of what made them attractive in the first place is still there and impossible to find elsewhere. But that doesn’t mean they will — or can — stay the same. </p>
<p id="IDxHY2">There are a number of things cities can do to retain their positions as attractive places to live — and many more they could do not just to survive, but thrive. And while the move away from cities is <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-04-14/three-years-into-the-pandemic-the-urban-exodus-was-overblown">overstated</a>, even small shifts from powerhouses like NYC could represent <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w28876">windfalls for the suburbs</a>, exurbs, and other cities those people choose to move to. That means smaller cities — like Cincinnati or <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/23751642/tulsa-remote-community-future-work">Tulsa</a> or Indianapolis — have a big opportunity to position themselves as destinations for those who do leave big cities, even as the largest urban areas are far from dying.</p>
<p id="j0prVn">“The truth of it is that cities are living organisms, they alter and change,” Mary Rowe, president and CEO of the Canadian Urban Institute, told Vox. “They’re too dynamic, they’re too changing, and they’re unbelievably resilient.”</p>
<p id="OcSUUn">“It takes a lot to kill a city.”</p>
<h3 id="RXhFBS">The demise of big cities has been greatly exaggerated</h3>
<p id="f0mEj7">If you were to travel 10 years into the future, chances are your favorite big city will look “remarkably similar” to the way it does now, according to Richard Florida, an urbanist and professor at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management. The pandemic — and <a href="https://www.vox.com/remote-work" data-source="encore">remote work</a> — sped up a departure from cities. But the populations of big cities are always churning, as people — often families — in search of more space or cheaper housing depart, and new people move in. The pandemic simply accelerated the norm. </p>
<p id="vhGmYz">“What happened was all those people hit family formation age almost all at once and a pandemic struck and they were married or partnered or had a kid, and they just left cities,” Florida said. “That’s a typical American pattern.”</p>
<p id="NEprzR">Nicholas Bloom, a Stanford economics professor who studies remote work, <a href="https://www.nber.org/papers/w28876">estimated</a> last year that the biggest 12 US cities collectively lost about two-thirds of a million residents from city centers through the pandemic, with about 60 percent leaving, as they usually do, to nearby suburbs. The explosion of remote work did allow many of the rest to go further afield, to other cities, more distant suburbs, and rural areas. But relatively few people abandoned urban life altogether, as the numbers show. “That is a drop in population but is not catastrophic and maybe reduces about a decade of urban densification,” Bloom said, adding that it probably moves those cities’ populations back to about 2010 from 2019.</p>
<p id="rakhZG">And already, cities are showing signs of recovery after historic pandemic population loss, with the greatest reversals seen in the biggest cities, according to a recent <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/big-cities-are-showing-signs-of-recovery-after-historic-population-losses-new-census-data-shows/">analysis of Census Bureau data by the Brookings Institution</a>. From July 2020 to July 2021, more than half the nation’s largest 88 cities lost population — something that hadn’t happened to many of them in decades. From July 2021 to July 2022, most of those cities had lower population losses, a switch to population gains or even greater gains, the analysis shows. In that time, nine out of 10 of the biggest cities — those with more than a million people — increased gains or reduced losses.</p>
<p id="9BsS87">Even with the option of remote work for many — but not all — the same things that attracted people to cities before are still attractive: <a href="https://www.vox.com/labor-jobs" data-source="encore">jobs</a>, other people, amenities.</p>
<p id="vWQzkh">“We are social animals and people will always want to gather and cluster in cities. That is hard-wired. I don’t see it changing. Downtowns create a critical mass of activities where commercial, cultural, and civic activities are concentrated,” Emily Talen, a professor of <a href="https://www.vox.com/cities-and-urbanism" data-source="encore">urbanism</a> at the University of Chicago, told Vox. “This concentration facilitates business, learning, and cultural exchange — that will always be desirable, socially and economically.”</p>
<p id="E0myj0">Covid-19 was historic, and its aftermath has not been without pain. Violent crime rates in cities, though <a href="https://counciloncj.org/homicide-other-violent-crimes-decline-in-u-s-cities-but-remain-above-pre-pandemic-levels/">down from pandemic peaks</a>, are still higher than they were just before the pandemic. Unemployment rates in cities like New York are higher than the national average, something that <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2023-opinion-how-livable-are-cities-three-years-after-start-of-covid/new-york-city.html">wasn’t the case pre-pandemic</a>. </p>
<p id="gcCIdH">But big cities have faced massive challenges before: Between 1970 and 1980, New York City’s population <a href="https://www.nyc.gov/assets/planning/download/pdf/data-maps/nyc-population/historical-population/nyc_total_pop_1900-2010.pdf">dropped by nearly a million people</a>, while the Great Recession drove many into <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/29/nyregion/29census.html">financial distress and deteriorated living conditions</a>, but ultimately the city <a href="https://comptroller.nyc.gov/reports/new-york-citys-labor-market-evidence-from-the-recent-expansion/">fared better and recovered more quickly</a> than the nation as a whole. </p>
<h3 id="3EN7gH">Cities will be most attractive to the young — and the old </h3>
<p id="EZxW14">Cities have long struggled to retain young families, given their inevitable need for more space and generally higher living costs. But for the population groups at both ends of the age spectrum — the young and the old — post-Covid cities could represent the sweet spot.</p>
<p id="8maUEB">Young people will still be attracted to big cities for the one thing they can offer that suburbs and rural areas can’t: other people, lots of them, in both a professional and social sense. They’re also the biggest fans of the cultural amenities giant population concentrations bring: restaurants, nightlife, swift public transit, diversity, and green spaces. </p>
<p id="O8Pob0">“While remote work has reduced the pull of dense urban labor markets, this effect has weakened the least for young professionals in their 20s and 30s still forming the networks that will shape their career trajectories,” Economic Innovation Group research associate Connor O’Brien said. “At the same time, most of the non-economic reasons young people congregate in dense cities have not gone away; if anything, perhaps the brief period without these amenities led people to appreciate them even more.”</p>
<p id="diBrAy">Ellen Dunham-Jones, a professor and director of the urban design program at Georgia Tech’s architecture school, says <a href="https://lightcast.io/resources/research/demographic-drought">labor shortages exacerbated by an aging population</a> of baby boomers will force employers to increasingly cater to the desires of a smaller young workforce, which will likely want a combination of working from home and in-person mentorship. They also want the amenities and socializing opportunities cities bring.</p>
<p id="T1jhCd">Meanwhile, aging populations too could <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/retirees-in-cities-11648063831">flock to cities</a> at higher rates to take advantage of best-in-class <a href="https://www.vox.com/health-care" data-source="encore">health care</a>, myriad services, walkability, and cultural opportunities — all of which allow active seniors to live independently longer.</p>
<p id="BwWVXb">“As you get older, you don’t want to have to be encumbered by a lot of things,” Rowe said. “So it’s better that you be where there are a lot of people, where the services are easily accessible, where there are transit choices and ways to get around, and cultural activities and all the things that people in their older years, who aren’t working as much, want to be able to enjoy.”</p>
<p id="rLuOoL">Notably left out of all this are people in the middle, especially those with young children, who have not returned to large cities after the pandemic, according to an <a href="https://eig.org/2023-family-exodus/">analysis</a> by the Economic Innovation Group. Since the start of the pandemic, the population of children under the age of 5 in large urban counties has declined 6 percent, or twice the national rate. </p>
<p id="W0sZyC">Families are driven out of cities by perennial problems like <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy/2023/4/17/23667770/child-care-crisis-prek-family-immigration">unaffordable child care</a> and housing that doesn’t meet their needs.</p>
<p id="Bi0n6v">City developers have largely stuck to one- and two-bedroom units — rather than larger ones that can accommodate multiple children — because the margins are fatter, said EIG’s O’Brien, and there’s also a lack of flexible child care arrangements, due to what he calls “stifling regulatory environments.” Reversing this would likely take a lot of political will. </p>
<p id="4Whzbe">“The extent to which cities age relative to the nation as a whole will hinge significantly on whether they take up the kinds of policies that will attract parents and families,” O’Brien said.</p>
<h3 id="k8SJEj">Downtowns will have to revolve around something besides office space</h3>
<p id="jztJmR">Giant office buildings are giant elephants in the room when it comes to looking at the future of cities. </p>
<p id="uxbrGV">“The old central business district is over,” Florida said, referring to them as the “last gasp of the industrial age.”</p>
<p id="uSpOT6">As it stands, three years after the start of the pandemic, offices are still at half their current occupancy, according to data from keycard company <a href="https://www.kastle.com/safety-wellness/getting-america-back-to-work/">Kastle</a>. Researchers at Columbia and New York University <a href="https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4124698">estimate</a> remote work has destroyed half a trillion dollars in office value nationally. </p>
<p id="sJKGJd">And as <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/interest-only-loans-helped-commercial-property-boom-now-theyre-coming-due-c3754941">$1.5 trillion in commercial loans</a> come due amid high vacancy rates, high interest rates, and low property values, that could mean defaults and budget shortfalls. In New York, real estate taxes make up about 30 percent of the city’s budget, and offices make up about 20 percent of that, though the city’s comptroller says he’s only <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-06-13/nyc-revenue-won-t-tank-in-office-doomsday-comptroller-brad-lander">expecting</a> a modest budget shortfall. Other major office cities like <a href="https://sfstandard.com/2023/03/31/san-franciscos-deficit-swells-to-780m-in-latest-sign-of-budget-distress/">San Francisco</a> are facing office-related budget shortfalls as well.</p>
<p id="g8opYu">Most experts we spoke with agree that many big-city office buildings will have to become something else to withstand the sustained move to hybrid and remote work. But while the loss of commercial revenue stands to put a hole in city budgets, it could lead to a transformation that will ultimately improve city dweller’s quality of life.</p>
<p id="HWBp7G">“Downtown office space will need to be transformed, as well as the activities that are done downtown,” said Esteban Rossi-Hansberg, a professor in the University of Chicago’s economics department. “These cities will probably become less business and more amenity-oriented, with an emphasis on culture and entertainment.”</p>
<p id="1m0J1S">Talen echoed that sentiment.</p>
<p id="3GRBpe">“American downtowns have revolved around office space, and that needs to change,” she said. “In order to remain vibrant, downtowns can’t only be a business district or only an office district. They need to be places where people can live, work, and play. So downtowns will greatly diversify.”</p>
<p id="RbRNnC">That will likely mean more of an emphasis on other revenue streams, like food, entertainment, <a href="https://www.vox.com/travel" data-source="encore">tourism</a>, and, importantly, converting office spaces to other uses — especially housing. (One of the paradoxes of the modern urban moment is that even as we debate the future of cities, housing costs have remained high in most coastal cities because the demand is still high and the supply low, and people who’ve remained in cities have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/why-apartment-rent-high-pandemic-big-cities-household-formation-roommates-2023-5">sought out more space</a>.) Doing so, of course, will require a lot of ingenuity on a number of levels, and certainly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/03/11/upshot/office-conversions.html">won’t be easy</a>. Many office building footprints are extremely large, making it basically impossible for each apartment to have necessities like windows. The cost of retrofitting things like kitchens and bathrooms into individual apartments rather than in just centralized areas in offices is also high — and a difficult economic lift considering that apartment rent is less than what offices would typically charge. That’s of course if building developers can find funding in this high-interest environment. Finally, city <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/upshot/american-cities-office-conversion.html">regulations</a> often prohibit such conversions, so there will be political hurdles to overcome as well. </p>
<p id="EeW61Q">“The thing about a really thriving ecosystem is that the waste in the system is quickly repurposed,” Rowe said. “As a plant loses its leaves, those leaves become compost that then feeds the plant next to it. That’s the same thing with cities: They’re constantly self-refueling and regenerative.”</p>
<h3 id="KtOAwv">Remote work is a big opportunity for small and midsize cities</h3>
<p id="2rM7uQ">While small population declines don’t mean much to big cities, they do mean a lot to little ones, where even a small influx of new blood would be a bigger deal. Remote work has made it so that people leaving cities can go farther than they would have typically and that’s a big opportunity for smaller and midsize cities, where prices are lower, but so were job opportunities. </p>
<p id="0UxZyD">Of course, these smaller cities have to prove that they are good places to live. That means having — and marketing that they have — things like cheap housing, good schools, temperate climates, abundant green spaces, good airports, and robust cultural activities.</p>
<p id="VfJW1u">“Going forward, footloose hybrid-WFH workers will have greater freedom concerning where they want to live,” said Matthew Kahn, an economics professor at the University of Southern California, who added that postindustrial cities have a leg up, due to ample housing, historic culture, and proximity to major waterways, that now might function as recreation in addition to ports of commerce. </p>
<p id="1ErGKv">People want places where their money will go far and where the quality of life is good. Beyond that, though, much of what people want varies. Small cities don’t have to be all things to all people. </p>
<p id="VK7LmL">“To thrive, cities will have to think like consumer products in a world of infinite choice,” economic historian Dror Poleg told Vox. “They will have to be more deliberate about the mix of customers they’re trying to attract.”</p>
<p id="CkVnT4">That could mean trying to attract liberal professionals or outdoorsy, mid-career families, he said.</p>
<p id="3CSSwy">“Think like a consumer brand: Bring together unique features and services in a manner that offers a unique value proposition to a specific group of people.”</p>
<p id="TQsdB1">Florida predicts the next growth centers will be in the Heartland, in places such as Tulsa, which has done a good job of <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/23751642/tulsa-remote-community-future-work">courting remote workers from around the country</a>. (Florida advises the Tulsa Remote program.)</p>
<p id="2maiWw">These types of cities still have some work to do in diversifying their economies and job prospects, and finding other ways to court remote workers. </p>
<p id="dJiydM">“Smaller cities will have to reinvent as hubs for remote workers,” Florida said. “Cities have to be more about living and playing and suburbs more about working. There has to be a little bit of rebalancing.”</p>
<p id="rcCoaY">Smaller cities can also use this moment as a chance to be more daring, trying things that can make their cities stand out.</p>
<p id="THXLhC">“Leaders of midsize cities need to be really brave,” Rowe said, citing ideas like banning cars downtown or adopting flexible policies on where housing can be built. “And they need to find their way to say yes to as many things as they can.” </p>
<p id="JMWVow">At the same time, it’s important that these smaller cities don’t run into the same problems that people leaving bigger cities are trying to escape.</p>
<p id="xAj9bL">“The country is doubling down on low-density agglomeration, with the fastest growth taking root in mind-bogglingly expansive footprints around Sun Belt cities in Texas and the Southeast,” said Kenan Fikri, research director at Economic Innovation Group. “How this plays out in terms of congestion and land consumption, how it gets reconciled with a changing climate, and what impacts it has on the nature or extent of innovation are all huge open questions as we look to the next decade.”</p>
<h3 id="d4FoYq">To compete with each other and truly thrive, cities must work on becoming more attractive places to live</h3>
<p id="uSSill">Just because big cities are probably going to be fine doesn’t mean they don’t have a lot of challenges or that they couldn’t be a lot better. They do and they can. </p>
<p id="DCPs8G">“The strength of big cities’ labor markets allowed them to paper over other issues like school quality, transit reliability, public safety, and housing affordability,” O’Brien said. “The rise of remote work should at least nudge cities back to the basics, refocusing city leaders on core quality-of-life concerns that local governments were created to address.”</p>
<p id="paaw1X">That means maintaining what already makes cities good and adding things that could make their constituents’ lives better — that’s something that will keep people there and make others come.</p>
<p id="nY61H3">“Critical areas for cities to focus on include building housing, infrastructure, and managing public services more broadly,” said Arpit Gupta, an associate professor of finance at NYU Stern. </p>
<p id="7KbJlK">That would require a combination of loosening zoning restrictions, incentivizing office-to-housing and other commercial real estate conversions, and finding new tax bases. It also means maintaining the systems they already have, like transit systems.</p>
<p id="BeLoLp">It’s also important that cities maintain cleanliness and safety, both in perception and actuality.</p>
<p id="ufUM5l">“Law and order is paramount as no business or high earner wants to live in a high crime area,” Bloom said. </p>
<p id="875hSX">Going forward, cities would also do well to try and be more family-friendly. That means funding schools, building housing that can accommodate families, creating policies that encourage affordable child care, and just generally making life easier for people with kids. Cities must also consider new challenges on the horizon like <a href="https://www.vox.com/climate" data-source="encore">climate change</a> and invest more heavily in adapting to changing weather patterns, with things like sea walls and fire-resistant structures. </p>
<p id="VjOcFi">What exactly the future of cities holds isn’t totally clear, but they’ll certainly stick around. Whether they truly thrive depends on what we do with them next.</p>
https://www.vox.com/technology/23818654/future-cities-experts-offices-urbanismRani Molla2023-08-02T06:00:00-04:002023-08-02T06:00:00-04:00Workers are mad as hell this summer
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<img alt="Actor Diana-Maria Riva walks the picket line in support of the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strike." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ryHOlq08ZXgjaE3Cd8S0nP3XEgk=/288x0:4896x3456/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72505939/1560981286.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Welcome to Hot Strike Summer, where everyone, it seems, is on strike. | Hollywood To You/Star Max/GC Images</figcaption>
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<p>From actors to delivery drivers, why 2023 is a perfect storm for strikes.</p> <p id="rDml6m">Everyone, it seems, is on strike or threatening to be. Not only have delivery drivers, teachers, and hotel workers taken to picket lines in recent months, so have the people who play them on TV.</p>
<p id="FLFZpK">Actors in SAG-AFTRA and writers in the Writers Guild of America (WGA) <a href="https://www.vox.com/culture/2023/7/13/23793828/sag-aftra-strike-wga-hollywood">are both on strike</a> — the first time that’s happened in 63 years. In July, United Airlines pilots <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/16/business/united-airlines-pilots-contract.html">negotiated</a> a 40 percent raise over the next four years, and soon after American Airlines pilots were <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/american-airlines-pilots-union-says-it-has-agreement-contract-deal-improvements-2023-07-27/">able to get a similar deal</a> (both <a href="https://www.vox.com/unions" data-source="encore">unions</a> had voted to strike if they didn’t get a suitable contract). UPS narrowly missed a strike this summer that <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/7/11/23791025/ups-strike-negotiations-demands-teamsters-union">could have disrupted</a> much of the <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy" data-source="encore">US economy</a>, gaining big pay increases for both full- and part-time workers, in addition to things like AC in new trucks and no forced overtime on their days off. </p>
<p id="2Qldc1">This was all after <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/06/23/1183952160/starbucks-employees-strike-pride">Starbucks</a> workers, upset with their company’s refusal to bargain for a first contract, went on strike at more than 150 locations around the country earlier this summer. Meanwhile, <a href="https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-07-28/a-strike-by-amazon-contract-drivers-is-heating-up">Amazon drivers</a>, <a href="https://jacobin.com/2023/07/southern-california-hotel-workers-strike-automated-management-unite-here">hotel</a> staff, and <a href="https://www.dailynews.com/2023/07/12/fast-food-workers-plan-1-day-walkout-across-los-angeles/">fast food workers</a> have all been on strike at some point this summer. And more big strikes are <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/07/12/cars/uaw-head-strike-big-three/index.html">potentially on the horizon</a> as the contract between the United Auto Workers and the Big Three American auto manufacturers will expire this fall.</p>
<aside id="pj2SQn"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode"}'></div></aside><p id="ds2zAn">“All these different struggles, all happening at the same time, in all these different industries, involving all these different groups of workers, all making these connections between their struggles,” Barry Eidlin, an associate professor of sociology at McGill University, said. </p>
<p id="504GtD">“You’re seeing that in a way that I have not seen in my lifetime.”</p>
<p id="ExpCaA">Like the year before it, 2023 is shaping up to be a big year for strikes. It’s only halfway through the year and there have been 177 work stoppages, according to data provided by Bloomberg Law. Before last year, when there were a total of 316 strikes, the last time the number of work stoppages was that high was 2007 — and that was for the full year<em>. </em>Of course, this level of labor action is nowhere near what America had in the decades prior to the 1990s, when a much bigger share of the population was unionized. Still, experts say the recent uptick is unique and notable — and potentially part of a resurgent labor movement.</p>
<p id="NSj1F7">But Eidlin says it can be tough to know when you’re in the middle of it. He noted that during the civil rights movement, there was a lot of time between hugely important events, like the <em>Brown v. Board of Education</em> ruling in 1954 and the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955, and the iconic Greensboro sit-ins of 1960 and the Freedom Rides of 1961.</p>
<p id="LB5Ion">“If you’re in 1958 or ’59, there’s nothing telling you that this one court decision and this one bus boycott in this one place is going to be what we now see as the beginnings of this big movement that changes the entire society,” Eidlin said. “There are these sort of episodic bursts, and you only connect the dots retroactively.”</p>
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<img alt="UPS workers in brown uniforms carry signs that read “UPS Teamsters: Just practicing for a just contract.”" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/374dsHIHrKGy06lg6skpEyHSDtk=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24824034/1540556561.jpg">
<cite>Jeff Kowalsky/Bloomberg via Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>UPS workers held a practice picket before they agreed to a contract.</figcaption>
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<p id="qRy6Nr">The current potential labor moment — if it is one — might have started with teacher strikes in Chicago in 2012 and in <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/4/13/17226654/teacher-strike-west-virginia-oklahoma-arizona-2018">Arizona, West Virginia, and Oklahoma</a> (the so-called Red State Revolt) in 2018 and 2019, according to Eidlin. </p>
<p id="NwPWSG">But why are so many workers striking now? A constellation of factors is at play.</p>
<p id="AwdkFK">Much of the union activity has to do with structural issues of inequality that were exacerbated by the pandemic, during which the public called many people “essential workers” while their employers treated them like the opposite. For many, working conditions <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/05/25/service-workers-job-burnout/">worsened</a> over the past three years, and worker pay <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/?g=17tsT">hasn’t kept up</a>.</p>
<p id="9Xyccn">“The big deal is something that’s been a problem in the US for centuries: The rich get rich and the poor get poorer,” said Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s ILR School. “And right now, the CEOs and executives have been doing really, really well in terms of their compensation over the last five years. And people can’t even keep up with inflation.”</p>
<p id="EUWAgx">He added, “If billionaires have enough money to fly to space and you can’t pay your rent, you have no sympathy for the company.”</p>
<p id="pT7eJB">Rising wages haven’t kept up with inflation, which means that working people don’t have the same spending power they once did, making workers’ situations more tense. At the same time, companies have <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/articles/profits-and-the-pandemic-as-shareholder-wealth-soared-workers-were-left-behind/">raked in record profits</a>, which is not sitting well with their employees. </p>
<div class="c-float-right"><aside id="x2mCi1"><q>“If billionaires have enough money to fly to space and you can’t pay your rent, you have no sympathy for the company”</q></aside></div>
<p id="PnUGap">Meanwhile, unemployment rates have stayed at or near-record lows, emboldening employees to strike since they have other options. The pandemic also made many realize what was important in life, pushing them to “work to live” rather than “live to work.” Indeed, many of the same factors that fed the <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22841490/work-remote-wages-labor-force-participation-great-resignation-unions-quits">Great Resignation</a> are fueling the strikes. </p>
<p id="vcbP2L">“There’s a general tension and discontent,” Wheaton said. “So going out on strike is a release to let people express some of their frustration, trying to say, ‘We deserve better.’” </p>
<p id="vrVZTM">This year also happens to be one in which a number of major union contracts are up for negotiations. And union leaders are taking a much more aggressive approach than they have in years past to try and get bigger wins for their members. The strikes are about getting big pay jumps and much better conditions, rather than defending against concessions.</p>
<p id="GEutfP">And workers themselves are driving many of the labor actions, in what’s considered a much more <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22993509/starbucks-successful-union-drive">grassroots approach</a> to organizing than in recent history. That means workers are more personally invested in their labor actions than if they were simply compelled to do so by their union.</p>
<p id="Ffmyji">Labor activity also feeds off other labor activity. When one group of workers witnesses another group of workers strike — or actually win better conditions and pay, as the Teamsters did with UPS — it inspires others to do so. A win in one union can also give other unions leverage. American Airlines pilots, for example, <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/aerospace-defense/american-airlines-pilot-deal-jeopardy-after-uniteds-contract-agreement-union-2023-07-18/">pointed</a> to the United Airlines contract in their negotiations. And the UPS contract will likely spell higher wages even for non-union FedEx workers in a tight hiring market, lest FedEx lose much-needed employees to its competition.</p>
<p id="SgzfpO">“Once workers see other workers having some success through their unions, it increases their willingness to take the risk that it takes to organize in the first place or strike over a contract,” said Susan Schurman, a professor at Rutgers University’s labor and management school. </p>
<p id="30phxy">Schurman herself was on strike earlier this year with the AAUP-AFT union. She credits the strike and the ensuing “extraordinary” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/15/1170284149/rutgers-university-faculty-strike-ends-tentative-deal">contract</a> they got to the willingness of senior, full-time faculty to band together with adjuncts and graduate students. Even though their situations are different, they are intertwined, since universities are increasingly relying on adjuncts, who are paid less and who have less job security, to teach.</p>
<p id="WykEh3">More and more, it seems workers are showing up not only for their peers and people at the same company or organization, but also for workers completely unrelated to them, in what people in labor relations call “horizontal solidarity.” </p>
<p id="8IC5k7">That means members of the Writers Guild <a href="https://news.bloomberglaw.com/health-law-and-business/la-strikes-embody-widespread-anxiety-over-worker-pay-rise-of-ai">showed up</a> to Teamsters rallies, and the Teamsters have refused to make deliveries to the studios. Starbucks workers can be found supporting Amazon workers and vice versa.</p>
<figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xuYvzhSgYp5xLYGtxxEuDo809zE=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24824020/1577015022.jpg">
<cite>Mario Tama/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Starbucks workers joined striking SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America (WGA) members on their picket lines this summer.</figcaption>
</figure>
<p id="GYqkby">“This is the first time I will tell you — and I’ve been in this field of labor relations for a very long time — of seeing this kind of horizontal solidarity, unions supporting other unions,” Schurman said. “The unions themselves have increasingly understood, ‘Hey, next time it could be us,’” she added. “Part of it is just understanding that the economy is now much more interconnected.”</p>
<p id="RjI7nZ">And even when they are worlds apart, workers in different industries are finding similarities. <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/4/28/23702644/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-technology" data-source="encore">AI</a> could impact a variety of <a href="https://www.vox.com/labor-jobs" data-source="encore">jobs</a>, from using the technology to monitor drivers and track movements in warehouses to writing scripts and broadcasting the likenesses of actors on screen indefinitely. </p>
<p id="cuEhah">Climate change, too, threatens to make work more miserable for a broad swath of workers, independent of industry. And increasingly, negotiations and strikes are factoring in environmental concerns.</p>
<p id="ZR1bwL">“We’ve documented both last summer and this summer multiple strikes by groups like fast food workers where workers are just spontaneously walking out in both Texas and California because of terrible heat,” said Johnnie Kallas, a PhD candidate and director of Cornell’s <a href="https://striketracker.ilr.cornell.edu/">Labor Action Tracker</a>. “That’s one example of a new type of activity that may grow in prominence.”</p>
<p id="HPJL5k">All of these issues are also factoring into broad public support for unions, which is at its highest level since 1965, <a href="https://news.gallup.com/poll/398303/approval-labor-unions-highest-point-1965.aspx">according to Gallup</a>. Current labor actions at companies and organizations that are household names — and <a href="https://www.vox.com/media" data-source="encore">the media</a> coverage they generate — only stand to make workers’ plights and union efforts more widely known. </p>
<p id="ordt84">“People who never heard of unions now know about unions,” Rutgers’ Schurman said. “Everybody knows when Brad Pitt’s on strike.”</p>
https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/8/2/23815980/hot-strike-summer-labor-union-actors-writers-driversRani Molla2023-07-25T15:43:14-04:002023-07-25T15:43:14-04:00A UPS strike would have been worse than you think
<figure>
<img alt="UPS workers gather around a large inflatable pig holding a bag of money, preparing picket lines with a variety of signs supporting the Teamsters." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/2HNzyH9iB9xcxp2QJwgQZBA-_4g=/44x0:4883x3629/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72443038/1513202518.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Teamsters in Queens, New York, hold “practice” picket signs on July 7, ahead of a potential strike. | Timothy A Clary/AFP via Getty Images</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Our reliance on delivery gave the Teamsters union a lot more leverage in UPS negotiations.</p> <p id="tkexJX"><em><strong>Editor’s note, July 25: </strong></em><em>UPS and the International Brotherhood of Teamsters reached a tentative agreement on Tuesday, which should avert a nationwide strike that had been planned for August 1. The provisional deal includes a $7.50 an hour pay increase for all UPS employees, as well as the elimination of a lower-paid class of delivery driver and the installation of air-conditioning units in delivery vans. If the deal holds, it represents a major victory for unions at a moment of intense labor strife. The story that follows was originally published on July 11 and last updated on July 14. </em></p>
<p id="C6NzoH">When UPS workers last went on strike in 1997, the New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1997/08/19/us/teamsters-and-ups-agree-on-a-5-year-contract-plan-to-end-strike-after-15-days.html">reported</a> that the labor stoppage “created myriad inconveniences, large and small, for companies and consumers across the nation” and “largely crippled” the company. It lasted 15 days before the delivery company acceded to many of the union’s demands. </p>
<p id="cb7T2K">Now, UPS workers are slated to strike again at the end of the month if they don’t come to a <a href="https://www.vox.com/unions">union</a> contract agreement. If they do strike, things could be a lot worse this time around, putting even more pressure on companies, consumers, and UPS. That’s because the <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy" data-source="encore">economy</a> a quarter-century ago is entirely different than now — one where package delivery is more important than it’s ever been.</p>
<p id="M54Xyb">“That was a very long time ago and the world was very different,” said Gregg Zegras, president of the global <a href="https://www.vox.com/e-commerce" data-source="encore">e-commerce</a> business unit at shipping technology company Pitney Bowes, which collects data on the package delivery industry. “Everybody shopped in stores.”</p>
<p id="EqZawg">While competitors like FedEx and the US Postal Service could pick up some of the deliveries, experts said logistics networks are too strained to fill many of the gaps that would be created by a UPS strike. That means headaches and delays for many of the people relying on UPS, which is responsible for about a quarter of all parcel delivery volume in the US, according to Pitney Bowes.</p>
<p id="PMvDzW">“There’s no good that comes from this for the consumer. There’s no good that comes from this for the merchants. And there’s no good that comes from other players in the industry,” Zegras said, adding that there’s not enough capacity among the remaining parcel delivery services, including Pitney Bowes, to handle the demand.</p>
<p id="4OwZKh">A 10-day strike would cost the economy more than $7 billion and be the costliest work stoppage in at least a century, according to a new <a href="https://www.andersoneconomicgroup.com/potential-ups-strike-could-be-costliest-in-a-century/">study by Anderson Economic Group</a>, which researches labor disruptions. That includes $4.6 billion in losses to consumers and businesses that rely on UPS, as well as more than a billion in lost wages and $800 million in company losses. </p>
<p id="JEwan5">E-commerce had already been a growing part of Americans’ shopping before 2020, but it <a href="https://www.census.gov/retail/mrts/www/data/pdf/ec_current.pdf">shot up</a> during the pandemic and, though down from its peak, is only expected to grow. E-commerce makes up about 20 percent of all retail sales when you exclude things like gas and motor vehicles, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data analyzed by Jason Miller, interim chair for the supply chain management department at Michigan State University’s business school, and it’s up about 25 percent from pre-pandemic levels. Another way to look at it: Employment in the courier and messenger sector stands at 1.1 million, which is <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/CES4349200001">double</a> what it was in 1997. UPS employs about a third of those workers. </p>
<p id="8VmqrM">“We’re certainly much more reliant right now on parcel carriers than we were back in the ’90s,” Miller said. He pointed out that the situation isn’t just about consumers getting their <a href="https://www.vox.com/amazon" data-source="encore">Amazon</a> packages. Businesses, too, are much more reliant on carriers like UPS to send them everything from sneakers to medical supplies to car parts, and about <a href="https://www.freightwaves.com/news/tough-quarter-starts-the-year-for-ups">40 percent</a> of UPS shipments go to businesses. </p>
<p id="KFV0wP">In other words, a strike at UPS doesn’t just mean trouble buying stuff online and receiving anything from food to <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/20/health/Covid-us-mail-prescription-drugs.html">medical supplies</a> from merchants — you’d also have trouble buying stuff at stores. </p>
<p id="27Lvft">“If I had to put it on a scale with one being not at all disruptive and seven being pure economic catastrophe, this is probably a five right now,” Miller said of a potential strike. He estimates that competitors could pick up about 20 percent of UPS package volume, and that’s only because they’ve held onto workers even as e-commerce demand has dipped from pandemic highs.</p>
<p id="58vvCi">But for the 340,000 UPS workers whose contract is up at the end of the month, a strike may be the only option to secure additional benefits for some of the company’s lowest-paid workers. Negotiations over a new contract <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-05/ups-drivers-head-toward-possible-strike-after-labor-talks-fail">fell apart</a> last week, with each side blaming the other; the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, which represents UPS workers in the country’s largest private-sector contract, <a href="https://teamster.org/2023/07/after-marathon-sessions-ups-negotiations-collapse/">said</a> UPS put forth an “unacceptable offer to the Teamsters that did not address members’ needs.”</p>
<p id="OdiquG">UPS told Vox in a statement, “We’re proud of what we’ve put forward in these negotiations, which deliver wins for our people. The Teamsters should return to the table to finalize this deal.”</p>
<p id="jC8Dmj">While the union and UPS had come to agreements over issues like getting <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-07-02/ups-agrees-to-scrap-two-tier-wage-system-in-win-for-teamsters">rid of a two-tier wage system</a> that the union said underpaid part-time workers and getting <a href="https://time.com/6292244/ups-strike-climate-change/">air conditioning in vehicles</a>, the sides are still at odds over cost of living increases and <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/potential-ups-teamsters-strike/story?id=100793059">raising pay for part-time workers</a>.</p>
<p id="0FCI0O">“They’re fighting for the little guy,” Art Wheaton, director of labor studies at Cornell University’s labor relations school, said. “It’s not just, ‘We have all the strength of all the drivers because the Teamsters are known for truck drivers.’ This is for those moving boxes. It’s a little lower on the totem pole or the hierarchy of the company — it’s the lower levels is what they’re really fighting for.”</p>
<p id="Z3Aibz">Given the stakes, some company analysts had expected the negotiations to go more amicably, predicting a “<a href="https://www.investing.com/news/stock-market-news/deutsche-bank-believes-ups-handshake-deal-with-teamsters-is-close-432SI-3118837">handshake deal</a>” earlier this month. Others think the company <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/video/2023/07/05/ups-isnt-going-to-give-its-best-deal-until-the-eleventh-hour-says-donald-broughton.html">will wait till the last minute</a> to offer a better deal, rather than risk a strike.</p>
<p id="vEqRqY">If workers do strike, experts say it likely won’t last long, and UPS could come back to the table quickly in hopes of limiting the damage to its bottom line. </p>
<p id="Cm2j4E">However negotiations are resolved, they will likely have big impacts on other package delivery companies, including Amazon, which has a logistics operation to rival UPS and has also been fighting its own union battles. </p>
<p id="D6pUZR">Indeed, the Teamsters have set their sights on <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/23282640/leaked-internal-memo-reveals-amazons-anti-union-strategies-teamsters">unionizing Amazon</a>, and some California <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/4/27/23667968/amazon-contractor-delivery-union-teamsters">delivery drivers</a> working for an Amazon contractor have already unionized with the Teamsters. If the Teamsters get a good contract for their workers at one delivery company, it will force competitors to raise wages and benefits as well, lest they lose workers in a tight hiring market. </p>
<p id="d5u29R">“The best thing they can do to help organize Amazon is make a big win at UPS,” Cornell’s Wheaton said.</p>
<p id="BTOp9Q"><em><strong>Update, July 14, 11:50 pm ET: </strong></em><em>This story was originally published on July 11 and has been updated to include a new report on the potential economic losses of a strike. </em></p>
https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/7/11/23791025/ups-strike-negotiations-demands-teamsters-unionRani Molla2023-07-22T07:30:00-04:002023-07-22T07:30:00-04:00Don’t schedule meetings after 4 pm
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<img alt="An illustration on a peach-colored background of three women, all yawning in different contexts — one is on the phone, another is holding a cup, while the third is just waking up." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/T9Eu9eqYYmuv3mThyOYMptCpJuE=/417x0:7084x5000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72474153/GettyImages_1188819246.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Getty Images/iStockphoto</figcaption>
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<p>People are redefining the 9-to-5 and that’s a good thing.</p> <p id="GU2Kn5">Hybrid work is the new millennials. It’s being blamed for destroying everything.</p>
<p id="wm0d5j">Most recently, hybrid work is apparently making it really hard to schedule meetings from 4 to 6 pm, since workers are ducking out slightly early to pick up their kids or get a workout in, according to the <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/work-office-coworkers-schedule-meetings-2af3f9b0">Wall Street Journal</a>. Some workers make up for the time missed by logging on again in the evening. (Personally, I never got the memo that the 9-to-5 now ends at 6.) In other words, people are trying to find a compromise between their work lives and the rest of their lives. </p>
<p id="Os0by7">Still, some managers are lamenting that these absences make it difficult for their teams to be productive because getting things done at work apparently requires everyone to be present at the same time, right before dinner. But perhaps 4 to 6 pm — the final hours of a long work day when many aren’t at their most clear-headed — was never a good time to schedule a meeting. </p>
<p id="zTcOMA">“People tend by that time of day to not be as productive as they were in the morning,” said Caitlin Duffy, a director in Gartner’s HR practice. Plus, there are better ways to encourage productivity, like scheduling meetings when people are<em> </em>alert and available. </p>
<p id="XTut8S">“Even though there’s a sense that you might not be able to predict as well when people are going to be available or people might not be available at the same time, that doesn’t have to mean it’s harder to get things done,” Duffy said. “It just means that you’re not optimizing your approach to hybrid work for your team.”</p>
<p id="EEyiWj">Duffy recommends that teams be transparent about their availability so that managers can use that information to set norms around when people are expected to be available for meetings and other collaborative activities. </p>
<p id="OOBC5y">It’s also important for bosses to consider whether something actually needs to be a meeting in the first place, since meetings in general are often not the best way to accomplish tasks.</p>
<p id="h04K4W">“I really hope that we aren’t defining productivity by the number of meetings that we’re in,” Christina Janzer, SVP of research and analytics at <a href="https://www.vox.com/slack" data-source="encore">Slack</a>, told Vox. “The first thing I’d challenge is that the number of meetings equals productivity.”</p>
<p id="XhzTRZ">Her research has found that people are in too many meetings as it is, and that more than 40 percent of them could be deleted without any real consequences. Many meetings could be an email or a Slack conversation instead.</p>
<p id="ChQ6r3">“Spending less time in meetings shouldn’t hurt productivity,” Janzer said.</p>
<p id="HqHflE">One important thing to note in this discussion is that productivity in the amorphous world of white-collar work is <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/23710261/productivity-definition-measures-remote-work-management">incredibly difficult to measure</a>. Many managers have struggled to find new ways to gauge productivity, since the shift to <a href="https://www.vox.com/remote-work" data-source="encore">remote work</a> during the pandemic meant they could no longer rely on the time-worn proxy of counting butts in seats. Often, they now look to inputs, like keystrokes or emails sent, rather than outputs, because those are easier to measure. Of course, those measurements can incentivize looking productive rather than being productive. </p>
<p id="IJcYPL">What we do know is that about half of employees — it’s higher for women and parents — say they’re more likely to put family, personal life, health, and well-being over work than they were before the pandemic, according to <a href="https://www.vox.com/microsoft" data-source="encore">Microsoft</a>’s <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/worklab/work-trend-index/great-expectations-making-hybrid-work-work">Work Trend Index</a>. And that’s maybe a good thing, both for individuals and for their work.</p>
<p id="OpOaZL">The 9-to-5 (or 9-to-6, apparently) never lined up for parents or other caregivers, who were forced to figure out what to do with their children after school, which typically ends earlier than the work day. This incongruity was a huge source of stress for working parents, one that remote and hybrid work has helped alleviate. By making the demands of their lives outside of work more manageable, remote and flexible work has actually been a boon for all employees. And the benefits can also be seen at work. In general, employees equate work flexibility with a whole number of positive outcomes, from higher productivity to less burnout and turnover. </p>
<p id="WwHA3z">By shoehorning employees into late-in-the-day meetings, managers are running the risk of lost productivity, not gained. And their companies can become unattractive places to work. Data from hybrid software firm <a href="https://flexindex.substack.com/">Scoop Technologies</a> recently showed that companies offering remote or hybrid work are growing headcount much more quickly than those with strict in-office requirements.</p>
<p id="fkAzP2">Making remote or hybrid work work for everyone is going to require some effort, but it’s better than reverting back to the way things used to be. That means managers need to get input from their employees to decide the best times for collaborative or focused work, and then set up norms for people to follow.</p>
<p id="W0hAnt">“It may be the mornings are really the magic time with their kids, getting everyone off to school, and it could be that the afternoon is good,” Boston Consulting Group managing director and senior partner Debbie Lovich said.</p>
<p id="GY1XbR">“The point is that managers should orchestrate conversations with their teams about when, where, and how work gets done,” she added. “That’s not a muscle managers had needed before.”</p>
https://www.vox.com/technology/23802010/hybrid-work-meetings-flexibility-managersRani Molla2023-07-19T06:30:00-04:002023-07-19T06:30:00-04:00The hottest new job is “head of AI” and nobody knows what they do
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<img alt="Illustration of a person carrying a briefcase and wearing a rocket on their back while flying into the air like a superhero." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/NhbLzPmKPaB7Q4yfsu3eABjhDCY=/367x0:6267x4425/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72464555/GettyImages_1264127349.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Companies need a head of AI but even those with that title disagree on just what they do. | Getty Images/fStop</figcaption>
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<p>America’s biggest companies are hiring AI leadership as fast as they can.</p> <p id="i5XIf2">If <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/4/28/23702644/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-technology" data-source="encore">AI</a> is coming for our <a href="https://www.vox.com/labor-jobs" data-source="encore">jobs</a>, many Americans are hoping to get out in front of it. Regular people are <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/23673018/generative-ai-chatgpt-bing-bard-work-jobs">using AI at work</a>, and tech workers are <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/6/28/23774435/ai-skills-classes-tech-jobs-pivot">rebranding themselves as AI experts</a>. And those in leadership are vying for the hottest new job title: head of AI. </p>
<p id="TXjXE8">Outside of tech, the head of AI position was mostly nonexistent a few years ago, but now people are taking on that title — or at least its duties — at everywhere from <a href="https://www.vox.com/amazon" data-source="encore">Amazon</a> to Visa to Coca-Cola. In the US, the number of people in AI leadership roles has grown threefold in the past five years, according to data from <a href="https://www.vox.com/linkedin" data-source="encore">LinkedIn</a>, bucking the downward trend in tech hiring overall. And while the head of AI job description varies widely by company, the hope is that those who end up with this new responsibility will do everything from incorporating AI into businesses’ products to getting employees up to speed on how to use AI in their jobs. Companies want the new role to keep them at the forefront of their industries amid AI disruption, or at least keep them from being left behind. </p>
<p id="o2AmAn">“This is the biggest deal of the decade, and it’s ridiculously overhyped,” said Peter Krensky, a director and analyst at Gartner who specializes in AI talent management. </p>
<aside id="jjuJeo"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode"}'></div></aside><p id="VXAoEK">Like anything new in tech, the AI revolution can take on a bit of a gold-rush quality. AI is one of the few areas where companies are actively spending money, since they see it as the inevitable future and as a way to improve their bottom line. At the same time, the parameters of the head of AI job — and even AI itself — aren’t very clear, and the pivot to the position can seem opportunistic. Remember <a href="https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/10/shingy-reflects-on-his-time-at-aol-and-whats-next.html">Shingy, AOL’s Digital Prophet</a>? </p>
<p id="vIequF">The thing is that while everyone seems to agree that companies need AI stewards, the nature of new technology means many are uncertain as to what that stewardship means in practice. Furthermore, we’re not sure about who exactly should become the new stewards: the people who have been working on AI for years or those who have been introduced to AI by the latest crop of consumer products and understand how the rest of us use it. We’re also not certain just how big of a disruption AI will be and how fast that disruption will happen.</p>
<p id="xDip4g">Those are just some of the reasons companies are hiring heads of AI. And if they don’t already have a head of AI, most big companies will have one soon.</p>
<p id="SXoDtD">“If I were talking to a CEO a year ago, and I was like, ‘You’d be a fool not to have a head of AI.’ They’d be like, ‘Come on, give me a break,’” said Krensky. “And now they’re like, ‘I know, that’s why I have one.’” </p>
<p id="g4PKCu">Krensky estimates that currently about a quarter of Fortune 2000 companies have dedicated AI leadership at the VP level or above. He expects it to be about 80 percent a year from now. While the position will be more commonplace at bigger companies — especially those in banking, tech, and manufacturing — he’s also seeing it crop up at midsize organizations and in government agencies. </p>
<p id="aB4rVG">Typically, the person taking what Kensky calls a “cool and sexy” job title — one that he says is often a “hat, not a role” — comes from an existing technology leadership position like chief data officer or chief information officer. But the accessible nature of generative AI tools and their potential use across industries and positions has meant that people in nontech roles like business and marketing are also donning the mantle.</p>
<p id="HV4tOo">And because AI is supposed to be more transformational and more readily profitable than <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/22907072/web3-crypto-nft-bitcoin-metaverse">tech fads like Web3</a>, experts think the head of AI is also going to stick.</p>
<p id="mfXvK2">“This is going to be a role that will stay on for a while. It’s not a transitional role,” said Beena Ammanath, executive director of the Deloitte AI Institute. “It’s absolutely crucial.”</p>
<p id="hIhvFi">Just what any given head of AI does varies, especially depending on the type of company. Generally, that breaks down into heads of AI at digital companies working to incorporate the technology into their products, while at nontech companies that means figuring out where and how to use existing AI technology to improve their business models, Ammanath said. Everyone, it seems, is trying to get the rest of their company to start using AI.</p>
<p id="Wfu95o">Mike Haley, SVP of research at Autodesk, says he’s the company’s de facto head of AI, having guided the architecture and engineering software company’s AI strategy for more than a decade. In addition to steering AI usage within the company, Haley is invested in putting AI to use in Autodesk’s products in order to “dissolve the interface” between users and the software. That means AI could help people use “natural methods of expression” like English or a pencil drawing, for example, to create detailed blueprints. </p>
<p id="JU0tEW">“Suddenly this complex tool that requires all sorts of learning and parameterization becomes way more accessible to more people,” explained Haley, who has a background in computer science and applied math. </p>
<p id="4xPBXD">Bali D.R., head of AI and automation at IT services consulting firm Infosys, is helping clients leverage AI while also trying to use it to “amplify human potential” across Infosys, from recruitment to sales to software development.</p>
<p id="vQzCH6">“All parts of the value chain, we are seeing how we can actually make it better, faster, cheaper,” says D.R., who moved to the AI role from another management role, and who started his career at the company 30 years ago in software development.</p>
<p id="R6SW9s">FICO chief analytics officer Scott Zoldi has been leading the data analytics company’s AI efforts for the past seven years, although without the “buzzy” head of AI title. He’s mainly focused on incorporating AI into the company’s products, including using consumer spending patterns to help detect credit fraud or when a customer is falling for a scam. He also spends a lot of time thinking about how AI can be used responsibly so as not to run afoul of regulatory bodies, corporate governance, or consumers by, for example, using AI that’s more likely to flag a protected group of people for committing fraud.</p>
<p id="QipdwN">Zoldi, who says he’s written more than 100 AI patents, thinks the “head of AI” position should go to someone with a technology background. </p>
<p id="zjRez6">“You really have to be an expert or you’re potentially going to be setting up the organization for failures down the road because it’s very complicated,” Zoldi, who views the position as a sort of watchdog, like a chief of security. </p>
<p id="qtYtgl">While Gartner’s Krensky estimates about 80 percent of AI leadership comes from a tech background, another 20 percent, of course, does not. </p>
<p id="ER7RWR">That’s the case with Coca-Cola’s global head of generative AI, Pratik Thakar, who previously led the company’s global creative strategy.</p>
<p id="63fGUj">Thakar has been using AI to streamline and amplify the company’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/6/29/23777560/cannes-lions-google-meta-ai-advertising-2023">advertising</a> products. That included recently using AI to make roughly 15 percent of a <a href="https://youtu.be/VGa1imApfdg">commercial</a>, which sliced the production time from a year down to two months. </p>
<p id="s3NlNl">Conor Grennan, a dean at NYU’s Stern business school, who recently took on the additional title of head of generative AI, sees the title as more of an initiative and thinks of it as akin to a chief learning officer or chief productivity officer. In the position, he pushes people across NYU, from students to professors to administrators and recruiters, to use AI to become more efficient and better at their tasks.</p>
<p id="Y2VENz">Grennan, who has an MBA and had previously studied English and politics, thinks it’s actually better for many organizations if their AI leadership doesn’t come from a tech background so that the person is better able to explain its benefits to a wider audience of mere mortals.</p>
<p id="ziNFM0">“You don’t need to know the software running your iPhone, just order an Uber,” Grennan said. Instead, what’s important for the role, he says, is creativity with language and breadth.</p>
<p id="ik9qv7">“They need to be an excellent communicator, they need to have a view of the entire firm, at least at the 30,000-foot view. And also it has to be somebody who really understands what generative AI can do,” Grennan said. “You don’t capture everything by putting it in the tech department.”</p>
<p id="q9Evcx">Regardless of where the head of AI sits within an organization, the fact remains that it’s a new frontier that will likely change a lot as the technology and our understanding of it develop. And like with any new technology, there’s going to be a mix of genuine innovation and genuine swindling.</p>
<p id="iAzF33">AI is happening, and it will be a very big deal. But its full effects — and exactly what those are — will roll out over many years, so we may have time to figure things out.</p>
https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/7/19/23799255/head-of-ai-leadership-jobsRani Molla2023-06-30T11:30:25-04:002023-06-30T11:30:25-04:00An Airbnb collapse won’t fix America’s housing shortage
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<img alt="Photo of a house under construction " src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/9q02bq1lhc_S_j-W_JQvn4VwtJw=/256x0:4349x3070/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72416138/1500433332.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>First, build more houses. | Scott Olson/Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>There’s more to the housing affordability crisis than Airbnb.</p> <p id="8IzWwV">The US housing market is scary right now, and Americans seem to be scrambling for signs that help is on the way.</p>
<p id="k6DYRe">This week a viral <a href="https://twitter.com/nickgerli1/status/1673774695693385728">tweet</a> said <a href="https://www.vox.com/airbnb" data-source="encore">Airbnb</a> host revenue had fallen off a cliff. But what’s perhaps more interesting than a potentially misleading tweet is the response it got. Many suggested the revenue shortfall would mean more houses would come on the market and help reverse soaring housing prices, which have become unaffordable for many Americans. But like <a href="https://www.vox.com/22524829/wall-street-housing-market-blackrock-bubble">private equity investment </a>in rental homes, short-term rentals like Airbnbs only play a small part in what’s a much bigger problem. </p>
<p id="w5suZy">First of all, both Airbnb and another dataset contradict the findings in the viral tweet. An Airbnb spokesperson said, “The data is not consistent with our own data,” adding that their last financial report showed more people traveling on Airbnb than ever before. And AirDNA, which scrapes Airbnb data and also has direct data from about a million short-term rental properties, said revenue per listing was down a modest <a href="https://twitter.com/Jamie_Lane/status/1673866745730437121">3 percent</a>, following a bumper year. Vox also reached out to AllTheRooms, whose data is cited in the tweet, to ask if the tweet did in fact represent their data and how they got it, but didn’t receive a response in time for publication.</p>
<p id="eWDhVd">The bigger takeaway from all this is simply that even a complete collapse of Airbnb’s business would not fix America’s housing market. There are lots of things contributing to out-of-control housing prices in the US, and short-term rentals are only just one tiny part. </p>
<p id="dD2Pqj">Even after a <a href="https://www.spglobal.com/spdji/en/indices/indicators/sp-corelogic-case-shiller-us-national-home-price-nsa-index/#overview">slight decline from a year ago</a>, home prices are near their most unaffordable on record, with annual payments for a median home representing 41 percent of the median income, according to data from the <a href="https://www.atlantafed.org/center-for-housing-and-policy/data-and-tools/home-ownership-affordability-monitor">Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta</a>. Meanwhile, the Mortgage Bankers Association <a href="https://newslink.mba.org/mba-newslinks/2023/june/mortgage-application-payments-increase-2-5-to-2165-in-may/">found</a> that home buying has never been so unaffordable. That’s all thanks to near-record housing prices combined with <a href="https://www.freddiemac.com/pmms">mortgage rates</a> not seen in more than a decade.</p>
<p id="bHEjlh">“It’s a one-two punch of needing to pay a high purchase price and <a href="https://www.vox.com/business-and-finance" data-source="encore">finance</a> it with this very expensive debt,” Zillow senior economist Jeff Tucker told Vox. </p>
<p id="tQIq8n">Interest rates aside, the fundamental reasons for the high prices of houses have to do with a lack of housing supply.</p>
<p id="6YSZuK">Since the Great Recession, home builders <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPU1USA">haven’t been building enough new homes</a> to keep up with the growing population and the generation of millennials who reached their 30s and are starting families. New home construction had finally been ramping up in the last few years but has experienced a number of setbacks, including the pandemic, supply chain issues, and now — like the home buyers they’re trying to furnish — high costs to borrow money.</p>
<p id="DIvN5J">“You can’t, in a single year, change the housing stock all that much. It’s this long accumulative process,” Tucker said. “We accumulated this deficit acutely over about 10 years, say from 2008 to 2018, and so it would take several years of the builders firing on all cylinders to offset that.”</p>
<p id="9fkN7Y">Another big issue hampering supply is the fact that homeowners are not putting their houses on the market. Zillow data shows that the inventory of existing homes for sale is about 50 percent less than it was pre-pandemic. New listings are <a href="https://www.redfin.com/news/data-center/">down significantly</a> this year. </p>
<p id="LBL1XL">That decline could be explained by the same reasons that are pricing everyone else out: housing prices and mortgage rates. Even if the price of their homes has appreciated a lot, so has the price of every other home. Current homeowners also don’t want to trade their low mortgage rates for the current, much higher ones by buying a new house.</p>
<p id="Odf4Fb">“There’s a larger number of existing mortgage holders with record-low interest rates. So if you have a mortgage with an interest rate in threes or low fours, you’re less inclined to take on mortgages with rates in the sixes today,” Alexander Hermann, a research associate at Harvard’s Joint Center for Housing Studies, which recently released a <a href="https://www.jchs.harvard.edu/state-nations-housing-2023">report</a> on the state of the nation’s housing, said.</p>
<p id="YOZ8mO">Housing prices have also been driven by demand. During the pandemic, many people decided they no longer wanted to live with roommates and needed more space since many were working remotely. That helped usher in a rush of new household formations, according to a recent report by the <a href="https://eig.org/remote-work-household-formation/">Economic Innovation Group</a>. </p>
<p id="NCkfsA">And scapegoating short-term rentals isn’t the answer. </p>
<p id="RWnWxk">“In the vast majority of places, something like short-term rentals is not going to drive supply challenges,” Hermann said. “They could exacerbate them.”</p>
<p id="uPLzMX">In the first quarter of 2023, there were 144 million housing units in the US compared with 1.2 million available short-term rentals like Airbnbs, according to AirDNA analysis of Census data. That means they make up just 0.8 percent of the housing stock, what Jamie Lane, AirDNA’s chief economist and SVP of analytics, calls a “rounding error.”</p>
<p id="tLm8VJ">In a <a href="https://www.airdna.co/industry-report/effects-of-short-term-rentals-on-local-housing-prices">survey</a> of recent studies on short-term rentals’ effects on housing prices, AirDNA estimates that short-term rentals were responsible for 1 to 4 percent of the increase in housing prices.</p>
<p id="HK7HRB">And even if people’s revenue from their Airbnbs were to decline, that doesn’t mean they’d all of a sudden sell those properties, driving down home prices. </p>
<p id="sJr2L5">“People are still going to have their second homes — they’re not getting rid of them,” Lane said. “Let’s say there’s their ski house in Breckenridge but now instead of only using it four weeks out of the year, they’re putting it into the short-term rental inventory those other 48 weeks.”</p>
<p id="zY0B5u">What could meaningfully increase the housing supply and stop the growth in housing prices? </p>
<p id="H8m9Pz">“What you fundamentally need is more new construction,” Hermann said. “How you get that is probably a combination of things.” That includes lowering interest rates, reining in the cost of construction supplies, and addressing labor shortages. More liberal zoning — allowing people to build more accessory dwelling units or on smaller parcels of land — would also help. </p>
<p id="dqUdO1">But an Airbnb collapse and the downfall of the short-term rental market? That isn’t going to fix the housing shortage any time soon. </p>
https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/6/30/23779862/airbnb-collapse-housing-shortageRani Molla2023-06-28T15:43:13-04:002023-06-28T15:43:13-04:00Pregnant or recently pregnant? A new law could make your job easier.
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<img alt="An illustration of a pregnant woman, whose hair streams to make an abstract black cloud behind her, sitting on the palm of a large hand." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/d-q7AQuDFSQDFuZnRBch8XVziHg=/756x0:9244x6366/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72409976/GettyImages_1301376714_copy.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Getty Images/iStockphoto</figcaption>
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<p>From remote work to extended leave, you can now use the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act to improve your work life.</p> <p id="iRmitU">Working while pregnant is still tough, but it just got a whole lot better. </p>
<p id="3N0dTD">The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act (PWFA), which went into effect this week, gives pregnant and postpartum workers rights to temporary accommodations at work — things like flexible schedules, lighter duty, remote work, more breaks, or access to a chair. The hope is that this will help them keep their jobs while they grow and recover from growing other humans. A <a href="https://www.abetterbalance.org/winning-pwfa/">decade in the making</a>, the new law will likely change the work outcomes for millions of pregnant people who now have the ability to ask for what they need to get by at work. </p>
<p id="d60Ww5">“We have worked with countless women through our <a href="https://www.abetterbalance.org/get-help/">helpline</a> who have been forced out onto unpaid leave or terminated for needing accommodations,” Sarah Brafman, national policy director of A Better Balance, a national advocacy group that helped craft the bill, told Vox. “They have lost their income. They have lost their health insurance. They were the primary breadwinner of their family and were forced into eviction, forced to go on to public benefits.” </p>
<p id="hp59dU">Nearly one in four mothers have considered leaving their jobs due to a lack of pregnancy accommodations or fear of discrimination during pregnancy, a Bipartisan Policy Center <a href="https://bipartisanpolicy.org/blog/bpc-morning-consult-pregnancy-discrimination/">poll</a> last year found. And many others have been forced out because they couldn’t do their jobs without accommodations while pregnant. </p>
<p id="MdcqzZ">“This law could spell the difference between someone continuing to feed their family and not,” Brafman said.</p>
<p id="B5oSFs">Since the law is new, it will likely take a while for employers and their employees to get up to speed, but here are some answers to common questions to help speed up that process. </p>
<h3 id="AyLtY7">What does the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act do?</h3>
<p id="zepL5N">The <a href="https://www.congress.gov/117/bills/hr2617/BILLS-117hr2617enr.pdf">Pregnant Workers Fairness Act</a> represents the first major advance in pregnant workers’ rights in decades. It expands on existing legislation, like the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Pregnancy Discrimination Act, and the Family and Medical Leave Act, to include more people and broader situations. It explicitly gives people experiencing limitations from pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions rights to reasonable accommodations without them having to have a disability or to prove that others would be given the same exemptions. In other words, it gives women the ability to ask for what they need to continue working during and after pregnancy.</p>
<p id="c6X4Rw">Regulations similar to the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act were already on the books in about half the states, but this brings clarity to that hodgepodge of laws and makes these rights more widely known. If your employer doesn’t work with you to come up with a solution, pregnant and postpartum workers also now have federal recourse, by being able to lodge complaints with the <a href="https://www.eeoc.gov/wysk/what-you-should-know-about-pregnant-workers-fairness-act">Equal Employment Opportunity Commission</a>.</p>
<p id="P99zNk">The law doesn’t say for how long after birth the accommodations can apply and, though many believe it should apply to situations of abortion or fertility treatments, it’s not yet entirely known how broadly the law will be interpreted. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission regulation, which is expected to come out at the end of the year, should help clear things up, but the full extent of what the law does and doesn’t do will likely be born out through future legal cases.</p>
<p id="XeiirB">“It seems to be straightforward, but with other laws, like the ADA, where there’s an interactive process between the employer and the employee and it’s very fact specific, I predict there will be a lot of litigation around it,” said <a href="https://www.franklingringer.com/attorneys/jasmine-y-patel/">Jasmine Patel</a>, a partner at Franklin, Gringer & Cohen who counsels employers on labor law. “Whenever there is, ‘In my eyes, it’s reasonable, but as an employer, it’s not reasonable. It’s an undue burden,’ someone’s going to be unhappy and that leads to litigation.”</p>
<h3 id="gT6NqF">Who is included?</h3>
<p id="3TWc37">The Pregnant Workers Fairness Act protects employees who work at public or private sector companies with at least 15 people and who disclose limitations related to pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions. That means <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2023/2/9/23591549/tech-freelance-contract-independent-work-layoffs">contract workers</a> and people who work at small firms aren’t covered. Also you have to be proactive and ask for accommodations!</p>
<h3 id="aY3kif">What kind of accommodations can someone get?</h3>
<p id="PrEqVZ">The definition of “accommodations” is up for interpretation and will be based on a person’s particular needs and their job. </p>
<p id="nN7xni">“It’s not just a specific list, it’s a case-by-case determination of, ‘What is the need?’ and ‘Is there an accommodation that would enable you to work safely?’” said Emily Martin, VP of education and workplace justice at the National Women’s Law Center. “It is meant to be flexible rather than assuming that lawmakers can predict the whole universe of problems that might arise.”</p>
<aside id="TbYVI9"><div data-anthem-component="readmore" data-anthem-component-data='{"stories":[{"title":"Most moms now work through their pregnancy. This gorgeous photo series honors them. ","url":"https://www.vox.com/2018/10/31/18028866/pregnancy-work-discrimination-act"}]}'></div></aside><p id="U44lFH">Accommodations can include anything from giving pregnant waitstaff more bathroom breaks to knowledge workers gaining the ability to work from home if they’re nauseated or the commute is unmanageable as they recover from childbirth. It also means you can get more time for doctor’s appointments or even extended leave to recuperate from delivery. </p>
<p id="ghmLmw">That doesn’t mean you’ll get everything you ask for — and again, you have to ask — but your employer is obliged to work with you to help solve the problem. Employers have to do so unless it places an “undue hardship” on the business, meaning those accommodations would be really difficult or really expensive to provide. It wouldn’t, for example, be an undue hardship to give a cashier a chair so she can sit down while ringing up customers, or to let a marketer who did her entire job from home during the pandemic do so again. A warehouse job in which your entire job is lifting boxes might be able to grant you smaller items to lift but probably isn’t obligated to create a totally different position that doesn’t exist at the company. They also don’t have to buy you a $5,000 chair you’ll only use for a few months.</p>
<h3 id="5Tm13a">Why did it take so long?</h3>
<p id="eYsoHT">After a 2012 <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/31/opinion/pregnant-and-pushed-out-of-a-job.html">op-ed by Dina Bakst</a>, the co-founder and co-president of A Better Balance, her organization and lawmakers began writing the PWFA, which was first introduced to Congress that year. After being brought before Congress pretty much every year since, it was finally passed, with bipartisan support, last year. </p>
<p id="1ZzURE">Passing the law took the effort of numerous advocacy groups and politicians, state laws, and public pressure to finally get the vote passed, according to a <a href="https://www.abetterbalance.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/ABB-Winning-PFWA-RD7-2.pdf">report</a> by A Better Balance. Bakst also <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/27/well/live/pregnancy-workers-fairness-act-discrimination.html">cited</a> growing awareness of negative outcomes for women and the lack of support they receive. </p>
<h3 id="NZ8UWC">What does the Pregnant Workers Fairness Act <em>not</em> do? </h3>
<p id="H0R0Ry">It’s important to note that your limitations have to pertain to you, not your baby, according to Daphne Delvaux, founder of women’s rights firm <a href="https://delvauxlaw.com/">Delvaux Law</a> and creator of the popular Instagram account <a href="https://www.instagram.com/themamattorney/?hl=en">TheMamattorney</a>.</p>
<p id="el75XX">“If you have a 3-year-old and you have child care problems, you can’t use the law for that,” Delvaux said. “But what could be birth related is, ‘I have a baby. My baby’s not sleeping. My baby’s not taking the bottle and I have to go back to work. I am so stressed and anxious.’”</p>
<p id="EC2Rvd">She added that the stakes are high. “Risk of job loss during this time, it impacts their entire motherhood experience and it robs them of this beautiful bonding time,” Delvaux said. “It’s emotional robbery and financial robbery.”</p>
<p id="mummKU">More legislation is needed to help working families, including child care reform, paid maternity leave, and sick leave, as well as accommodations for parents as their children get older. </p>
<p id="v4m5os">“This is a first, really important step,” A Better Balance’s Brafman said. “It is going to be a huge not just legal change, but culture change, for workers in this country, but it’s by no means the end of the work-family policies that this country still needs.”</p>
<h3 id="nYQeCK">How to take advantage of your new rights</h3>
<p id="b7uU4e">Start by telling your employer, preferably in writing, your situation and asking for an accommodation that will make it easier to work while pregnant or postpartum.</p>
<p id="wA6qX9">A Better Balance runs a free legal <a href="https://www.abetterbalance.org/get-help/">hotline</a> that can help people discuss their specific cases and provides a <a href="https://www.abetterbalance.org/resources/sample-letters-to-give-to-your-employer-about-the-pregnant-workers-fairness-act/">template</a> for how to ask your boss for an accommodation. Delvaux also has a <a href="https://daphne-delvaux.mykajabi.com/free-PWFA-accommodations-template">template</a> you can use. </p>
<p id="OJxAA9">You should also talk with your doctor about what solutions at your job can best accommodate your health. A doctor’s note will go a long way in bulwarking your case. </p>
<p id="PGGuPY"><em><strong>Update, June 28, 3:30 pm ET</strong></em><em>: This post was modified to add in more details about potential accommodations.</em></p>
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https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/6/28/23777215/pregnant-workers-fairness-act-law-work-postpartumRani Molla2023-06-28T07:30:00-04:002023-06-28T07:30:00-04:00Scared tech workers are scrambling to reinvent themselves as AI experts
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<img alt="" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LLExZhpvXOnh54Xqt5eClNXLP80=/334x0:5667x4000/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72408377/GettyImages_1447700814.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Tech workers pivot to AI | Getty Images</figcaption>
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<p>The AI specialist is the new “it” girl in tech.</p> <p id="bxXC1k">While tech workers are dealing with pay stagnation, <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/4/21/23692515/tech-workers-software-engineers-layoffs-meta-coding">layoffs</a>, and generally less demand for their skills than they’d enjoyed for the past decade, the <a href="https://www.vox.com/2023/4/28/23702644/artificial-intelligence-machine-learning-technology" data-source="encore">artificial intelligence</a> specialist has become the new “it” girl in Silicon Valley.</p>
<p id="IuxzJc">“All of the products that we’re working on, that we’re seeing today, are shifting toward that AI-powered type of operation,” said Zac Brown, founder of the AI startup <a href="https://nonprofitshq.com/">NonprofitsHQ</a>. “This is a rough time to be a regular software engineer.” </p>
<p id="jvBSJ7">When Brown was looking for <a href="https://www.vox.com/labor-jobs" data-source="encore">jobs</a> last year, he hadn’t updated his resume to focus on all the work he’d done with AI in his previous roles. Previously, the 28-year-old had been used to companies tripping over themselves to talk to an experienced software engineer, but all of a sudden, he wasn’t seeing the same interest. </p>
<p id="VUCiEn">“I was a software engineer, because that’s what I always was,” Brown told Vox. “I realized this last time I was looking, you have to highlight the AI that you’ve got, because that is what’s attractive to companies right now.”</p>
<aside id="O0p4Md"><div data-anthem-component="newsletter" data-anthem-component-data='{"slug":"recode"}'></div></aside><p id="fgBkLO">While tech companies and investors pull back seemingly everywhere else in tech, money is <a href="https://www.axios.com/2023/06/21/softbank-ai-offensive">still flowing into AI</a>, which the industry sees as the next big thing. That’s meant outsize demand, pay, and perks for people who can facilitate that kind of work. This situation is incredibly attractive to people who’ve recently been laid off in tech or who worry that their tech jobs don’t have the upward mobility they used to. To capitalize on this, people in adjacent tech careers are attempting to reposition themselves where the good jobs are. Short of getting another degree, many are hoping to do so with on-the-job training, boot camps, and self-education. </p>
<p id="NZw6xF">“If you take a look at job openings right now on job boards, the job listings are more emphasized on software engineers who have a background in AI,” technical recruiter Eddiana Rosen told Vox. (Data from the salary site <a href="https://www.salary.com/">Salary.com</a> showed that in the 12 months ending May 31, 2023, employers sought AI-related skills in 1.1 million job postings, more than twice the amount for the same period a year earlier.) </p>
<p id="9kOY5n">“On top of that, when it’s time to negotiate for a higher salary, those people will have more advantages and more leverage.”</p>
<p id="XEevtp">People with AI skills are paid on average 27 percent more than typical tech workers, according to data furnished by the compensation software company <a href="https://www.payscale.com/">Payscale</a>. The median annual salary for an AI engineer was $243,500 in May, according to data by the tech career comparison site <a href="https://www.levels.fyi/">Levels.fyi</a>, compared with $166,750 for non-AI engineers. And their pay is growing at a faster rate. <a href="https://www.comprehensive.io/">Comprehensive.io</a>, which tracks compensation across more than 3,000 tech companies, found that pay for senior software engineers who specialize in AI and machine learning grew 4 percent since the beginning of the year, while pay for senior software engineers overall stayed flat. <a href="https://www.a.team/">A.Team</a>, a firm that connects groups of tech talent with companies looking to hire their services, said 30 percent of their new pipeline over the last month was AI-related, a fivefold jump over the previous three months. </p>
<p id="gQG3as">Big tech companies are scouting AI talent from universities, even while <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2023-06-13/2023-tech-layoffs-end-the-myth-of-infinite-silicon-valley-jobs">rescinding offers</a> for non-AI talent, says Zuhayeer Musa, co-founder of Levels.fyi, which also helps candidates negotiate offers. Those companies are also trying their best to hold on to the talent they have, offering key AI engineers multimillion-dollar retention bonuses lest they leave for more exciting opportunities at other firms, especially smaller ones where the work might be more interesting and the potential for growth, both financial and technical, higher. </p>
<p id="YU0C2k">“It’s kind of a bonanza,” Musa said. “We’re seeing people go from everywhere to everywhere.”</p>
<p id="et5I49">In contrast to crypto or web3, few people think AI will be a flash in the pan. Just how prevalent it becomes, of course, will depend largely on how profitable business use cases for it are. Already, tech workers are <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/dropbox-to-cut-16-of-workforce-ca3a39e7">losing jobs to AI</a>, so many figure they might as well get ahead of it and get in on the action. They’re turning to communities on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/cscareerquestions/comments/1415i98/want_to_pivot_from_mainframe_to_aiml_engineering">Reddit</a> as well as to friends and colleagues already in the field to find out how they can pivot to<strong> </strong>lucrative jobs in AI rather than having their jobs replaced by AI. </p>
<p id="2uFO42">For Brown, who is no longer looking for work since he founded his own AI startup, selling himself was a matter of advertising skills he already had and that he’d picked up on the job. A previous employer gave him the opportunity and the time to work with another team that was working with machine learning and AI, so that he could fill in his skills gap. Brown said that while a boot camp or online course might provide a good introduction to the skills needed for AI, the best instruction comes from working on it yourself.</p>
<p id="n2LniL">“A lot of that is going to come in actually doing it, actually working on these systems, messing it up, making mistakes, learning from those, and pushing forward,” he said.</p>
<p id="kXangV">That’s not always easy to do, especially in an <a href="https://www.vox.com/economy" data-source="encore">economy</a> where even tech workers are being laid off and where companies are better positioned to hire people who already have those skills.</p>
<p id="My0WGo">Taylor, a software developer in North Carolina who asked that we not use his full name so as not to jeopardize his employment, plans to moonlight at a friend’s AI startup, where he’s hoping he’ll be able to learn from a back-end engineer there who’s experienced in machine learning. The goal isn’t to become an AI engineer per se, but rather to be able to do his job better, since he believes AI will creep into regular software development work in the near future. </p>
<p id="7hpqyu">“It’ll either help me more in my current job or help me get the next job,” Taylor, 41, said.</p>
<p id="T0wBxx">Eric Lamy, a customer data product manager who typically works alongside engineers, is trying to develop his knowledge around AI governance because he sees it as a future need at his current job, where he sits on a corporate <a href="https://www.vox.com/cyber-security" data-source="encore">cybersecurity</a> task force and where there’s a lot of interest in how to responsibly deploy AI. To up his understanding of the new technology, the 37-year-old is using a body of knowledge <a href="https://iapp.org/news/a/iapp-releases-ai-governance-professional-body-of-knowledge/">document</a> released by the International Association of Privacy Professionals, which will soon provide certification and training for AI governance professionals, to guide his independent study.</p>
<p id="v59h2u">“It’s not so much that the transition is relying on a gap that’s in my current career; it just doesn’t really exist yet as a function,” Lamy said. “I see this as a place where people, who are able to get on board early and learn some of these frameworks and apply this governance mindset, have an opportunity to really do some good work.”</p>
<p id="ehER4X"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/avidunixuser/">Nitin Pathak</a>, a data scientist at <a href="https://www.vox.com/microsoft" data-source="encore">Microsoft</a>, recently got a six-month professional <a href="https://em-executive.berkeley.edu/professional-certificate-machine-learning-artificial-intelligence">certification</a> in machine learning and AI from Berkeley so he could perform better at his job. “It really helped me draw those connections between machine learning and AI concepts, and which models would make sense for different business situations,” he said.</p>
<p id="JhUi3J">“I’ve been working in technology for several decades, and in today’s world, it’s so clear that we’ll all have many careers,” he added. “I love technology and I don’t want to be obsolete. I want to be on the cutting edge.”</p>
<p id="c2VVbV">Even those who studied AI as part of an advanced degree are always working to stay abreast of the tech. </p>
<p id="8N8vmi">Nicole Hedley, a 30-year-old fullstack product engineer who runs her own consulting company that specializes in generative AI, had taken artificial intelligence and machine learning courses while getting her computer science degree. She’s also had plenty of hands-on exposure to new AI projects, especially in the last year when they’ve dominated her workload. Even still, she’s constantly trying to keep up with new advances in AI. </p>
<p id="wmJYc9">“Because there are so many recent developments, it’s a constant learning process,” Hedley, said.</p>
<p id="HJr8ms">Of course, just because you become fluent in AI doesn’t mean your career is bulletproof.</p>
<p id="xDKto0">Alexander Whedon, a software engineer who specializes in AI, was <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/4/18/23688627/meta-layoffs-mark-zuckerberg-facebook-instagram-whatsapp">laid off from Meta</a> earlier this year, despite his skills. But now he considers that loss a “blessing in disguise.” As a freelancer, Whedon, also 30, gets to work on a wider variety of projects for a wide variety of companies.</p>
<p id="Gdyq9H">“I enjoy this work so much more and I honestly make more now,” Whedon, who advocates for trying to build your own AI projects rather than going through boot camps, said. </p>
<p id="xREFVA">“The future of any company isn’t sure,” he added. “But the future potential of AI I think is very potent.”</p>
<p id="QVEx4J"><em>A version of this story was also published in the Vox technology newsletter. </em><a href="https://www.vox.com/pages/newsletters"><em><strong>Sign up here</strong></em></a><em> so you don’t miss the next one!</em></p>
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https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/6/28/23774435/ai-skills-classes-tech-jobs-pivotRani Molla2023-06-20T07:00:00-04:002023-06-20T07:00:00-04:00The hottest new perk in tech is freedom
<figure>
<img alt="A miniature model of an office." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/j1SNMa7G1dnruEBTIVGxcH5gSJk=/750x0:5250x3375/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72384685/GettyImages_748326849.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Small tech companies are way more likely to let employees work remotely than big ones. | Getty Images/Westend61</figcaption>
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<p>How small tech companies are using remote work to compete with the big guys.</p> <p id="yoGDB7">It used to be that <a href="https://www.vox.com/big-tech" data-source="encore">Big Tech</a> companies like <a href="https://www.vox.com/google" data-source="encore">Google</a>, <a href="https://www.vox.com/meta" data-source="encore">Meta</a>, and <a href="https://www.vox.com/apple" data-source="encore">Apple</a> led the way when it came to workplace advantages. On top of great pay, they offered freebies like gourmet meals, massages, and on-site laundry. Then, when the pandemic made the office a physical danger, those same companies were <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/10/tech/google-work-from-home-coronavirus/index.html">among the first</a> to offer the ultimate perk: the ability to work where you wish.</p>
<p id="bBpUuN">But, as their stock prices have suffered, Big Tech has not only dialed back on many on-site perks, they’ve also called workers back to the office. Facing hard times, they’ve retrenched into what they knew before the pandemic, typically asking workers to come into the office three days a week. Google is even <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/google-gets-stricter-about-employees-time-in-office-9a20f2e">factoring office attendance</a> into performance reviews.</p>
<p id="ieg8Xj">Smaller tech companies have since picked up the mantle of <a href="https://www.vox.com/remote-work" data-source="encore">remote work</a>. They are much more likely than their larger peers to allow people to work fully remotely, with 81 percent of those with fewer than 5,000 employees either allowing remote work or only having remote options, according to <a href="https://www.flex.scoopforwork.com/reports/tech-industry">new data</a> from Scoop Technologies, a software firm that builds tech to help hybrid teams coordinate and also tracks the office policies at major companies. Meanwhile, just 26 percent of companies with more than 25,000 employees are fully flexible. </p>
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<p id="CKzne0">Tech has the greatest variation in fully remote policy by company size than any other industry. This suggests that remote work is completely possible in the tech industry, but different-sized companies have settled on different policies based on how they think it benefits them or not. And their reasons for doing so might depend, in part, on how they want to portray themselves to the outside world.</p>
<p id="5zAnog">Why the so-called “flexibility divide” among tech companies?</p>
<p id="IqrPEN">Tech companies with fewer employees are using remote work as a way to pull in more talent in what had been a notoriously difficult hiring environment and to signify that they, unlike Big Tech, are where progress is happening. People in the tech industry, especially, are more likely to be lured by remote work, according to Gartner, which has found that better work-life balance and greater flexibility were the top benefits tech employees would choose over 10 percent higher compensation.</p>
<p id="mzUdCm">That’s a big deal for smaller tech companies, which haven’t always been able to compete with the Googles of the world in terms of salary. <a href="https://www.vox.com/airbnb" data-source="encore">Airbnb</a>, which employs more than 6,000 people, has used its work-from-anywhere policy to attract not only more applicants — its career page saw twice the traffic last year as it had the year before — but also more diverse ones, with 21 percent of new hires being under-represented minorities.</p>
<p id="43mqIM">“We want to hire the best talent we can all around the world,” Dave Stephenson, Airbnb’s CFO and head of employee experience, told Vox. “If we narrow that definition of getting the best talent around the world to being 50 miles around San Francisco, that’s going to put us at a disadvantage.”</p>
<p id="3mScOR">At the same time, Airbnb has cut its office footprint by half, slowed attrition, and marked its first <a href="https://skift.com/2023/02/14/airbnb-notches-first-full-year-profit/">full year of profitability</a>. The company pays to fly in its far-off employees — about 20 percent of its workforce — to be together from time to time. But this only happens if the company’s “ground control” team has deemed that there’s an important project that requires them to be in person.</p>
<p id="TdAJnx">“If they’re satisfied with their ability to balance their personal lives with their work lives, I think we get more effective performance out of people,” Stephenson said.</p>
<p id="TXsruJ">The situation is similar at Yelp, which also lets its 5,000 workers choose where they work and notched its sixth straight quarter of record revenue last quarter while also rolling out products like <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2023/04/25/yelp-rolls-out-ai-powered-search-updates-and-the-ability-to-add-videos-to-reviews/">AI-powered search</a>. The company says that remote work hadn’t hurt sales goals or engineering productivity but had caused a huge spike in its talent pipeline.</p>
<p id="sf9hpY">“I think we saw pretty early on during the pandemic that, wow, this is actually working,” said Carmen Whitney Orr, Yelp’s chief people officer, who joined the company remotely last year. “Happy employees are productive employees and that means happy customers.”</p>
<p id="PIHTzv">The ability to work remotely is most common among the smallest tech companies.</p>
<p id="K6GC5e">“If you can demonstrate that you’re able to create a team that is just as productive, if not more, by being remote, then there’s really no reason to not do it,” said Zuhayeer Musa, co-founder of tech compensation comparison platform Levels.fyi, which has nine workers. Levels.fyi was founded as a remote company in 2017, which Musa says makes it easier to continue working remotely. </p>
<p id="GsIvVa">In turn, remote work has meant the company has had better access to talent than it would if it demanded office attendance. </p>
<p id="nIfIvz">“If you require someone to move to a certain location, you are inherently limiting the talent pool that you’re going to be working with,” he said.</p>
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<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ac9IzdC8iJIKefgbrq1dyEzXUwM=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24731078/GettyImages_748326823.jpg">
<cite>Getty Images/Westend61</cite>
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<p id="EbHivH">That could be what Big Tech is doing. </p>
<p id="CbSSPC">Amid economic uncertainty, flagging stock prices, and years without major innovation, larger tech companies are using their calls back to the office to signify to shareholders that they are grown-up and responsible corporations. Gone are the days of ping-pong-playing engineers and squandered profits. Here are the days of penny-pinching and strict oversight, probably in an office environment. </p>
<p id="T0tGdO">In other words, what were once considered the most innovative and forward-thinking companies are behaving a lot more like their stodgy non-tech corporate counterparts. </p>
<p id="r3PEPq">When it comes to allowing fully remote work, policies at big tech companies are closest to their non-tech peers, like <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-making-workers-employees-return-to-office-rto-wfh-hybrid-2023-1">Citigroup and Starbucks</a>. Like their non-tech counterparts, many tech companies have quickly shifted to a structured hybrid model, where workers have to come in a set number of days per week. The share of large tech companies that are doing hybrid (65 percent) is nearly the same as large companies overall (60 percent), as is the number of days per week they want people in (2.5 on average), according to Scoop.</p>
<p id="x8D70o">“Bigger companies, more complex companies, are more likely to be looking for more professional types of management,” said Kathy Harrigan, a professor of corporate management at Columbia University’s business school. “Investors expect that.”</p>
<p id="FMW7md">And professionalism to them means butts in chairs. Harrigan says in-person work is necessary to coordinate the complicated, varied businesses these tech conglomerates now operate. The move to AI has only made in-person coordination more of a necessity, she said.</p>
<p id="DQgK8s">“They’re working with a more complex kind of product. It means a lot more coordination from a lot of different points of view, where previously these workers were permitted to work in silos,” Harrigan said. </p>
<p id="0kumJj">One could argue that companies like Google, Meta, and Apple all ran very complex businesses during the pandemic, when they recorded <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2022/2/11/22925859/big-tech-companies-2021-earnings-record-revenue-apple-amazon-alphabet-meta">record profits</a> while their workers toiled from home. </p>
<p id="lQgRoP">“In the face of volatility and uncertainty, it is human nature to want to revert back to something that is a known quantity,” said Caitlin Duffy, a research director at Gartner, about the push to return to the office. “And so there might be some psychological things happening that may be overriding the evidence in front of them.”</p>
<p id="crR69e">The evidence, she says, shows that offering flexibility in where people work makes them happier and, by extension, more productive and innovative. Accounts to the contrary were “unfounded.” What’s worse, Duffy said, is that arbitrarily calling people back to the office might actually hurt workers’ productivity and innovation by driving fatigue and burnout.</p>
<p id="7RBtco">Whether their back-to-office plans ultimately end up harming these companies remains to be seen. Big Tech companies, of course, might be able to sit back on their brand names and giant salaries to attract talent. But to some extent, with their flexible remote policies, small tech companies are expressing their ability to innovate and grow, just like the big guys used to do. </p>
https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/6/20/23762655/tech-perk-remote-work-freedom-airbnb-yelpRani Molla2023-06-12T06:00:00-04:002023-06-12T06:00:00-04:00Tulsa will pay you to live there. And you’ll love it.
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<img alt="Several silhouetted figures in the foreground are looking off into the distance. Winding paths lead from all directions to the state of Oklahoma. An oversized Oklahoma rose marks the location of Tulsa." src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/qJorOzQ0FjjnuJq-0vxqwzRcj_Q=/336x0:1776x1080/1310x983/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/72361815/R2_PaigeVickers_Tulsa.0.jpg" />
<figcaption>Paige Vickers/Vox</figcaption>
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<p>Remote workers came for the cash. They stayed for the community.</p> <p id="7bZEhn">TULSA — Teamer Tibebu walked onto the rooftop of the recently renovated Tulsa Club Hotel to survey his new home. The 32-year-old software engineer had moved from New Orleans just two weeks earlier to join Tulsa Remote, a program that gives knowledge workers $10,000 to move to this city of 400,000 in northeastern Oklahoma. On this warm May evening, Tibebu was taking a break from the program’s orientation celebration, when he was approached by Ron Roller. </p>
<p id="DzfbHA">A few minutes into their conversation, Roller learned that Tibebu wanted to start his own photography business. Roller, who has lived in Tulsa since the early ’70s, is a mentor with the local chapter of the business nonprofit <a href="https://www.score.org/tulsa">SCORE</a>, which offers businesses free assistance with things like financial planning and fundraising.</p>
<p id="mQOciM">“I’ll tell you where to start. Call me,” said Roller. “Everything we do, we do for free. Your excuse can’t be, ‘I can’t afford it.’”</p>
<p id="IAiEZb">“I don’t know where to start, so I definitely want to connect with you,” Tibebu replied.</p>
<p id="LsdOrh">The interaction was precisely what Tulsa Remote is trying to encourage as part of its bid to attract and retain talented professionals. I was at the orientation event with nearly 50 new Tulsa Remote members of all ages, who were learning the ropes of the program, registering to vote, and making connections with their peers over appetizers. The event took place in a masterpiece of Art Deco architecture, a former private club and one-time home to the Tulsa Chamber of Commerce, that <a href="https://savingplaces.org/stories/art-deco-tulsa-club-hotel">sat vacant for over 20 years</a> before reopening in 2019 as a boutique hotel.</p>
<p id="TPv60t">It’s easy to see why Tulsa is courting people like Tibebu. These new residents are bringing their big paychecks and new blood to a city that had been struggling. They’re also an industrious lot — Roller said more than half of the Tulsa Remoters he’s talked to are interested in launching a new business or side project. Which makes sense: Starting from scratch in a new place is somewhat of an Oklahoma tradition.</p>
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<p id="yk5H5B">Oklahoma is, for better or worse, known for being a place for resettlement. The state became a forced home to tens of thousands of Indigenous people driven west from their native lands in the early 1800s. They were then compelled to leave again, when the federal government opened up the land for white settlers later that century, in a series of land runs that let people claim territory by simply showing up first. Soon after, these settlers found oil near Tulsa, sending another rush of people to what became known as the “oil capital of the world” in the early 20th century. </p>
<p id="19METP">But in the latter half of the century, oil capitals moved elsewhere, highways were built around downtown, and people left for the suburbs and brighter cities. Tulsa has dealt with years of population stagnation as a result. The city lost its vibrancy, its economic strength, and many of its young people. </p>
<p id="pUNxyM">Like many middle-American cities, Tulsa is trying to bring those things back. And recruiting knowledge workers to move to the city is a big part of that effort. For one, it means more cultural and economic diversity. The latest Tulsa Remote <a href="https://landing.tulsaremote.com/economic-impact-report">economic impact report</a>, which the organization conducted itself, found that in 2022, full-year Tulsa Remote members each generated $150,000 in labor income, which includes their salaries plus the estimated income Tulsans got based on their spending. That’s more than 10 times what the George Kaiser Family Foundation, which funds Tulsa Remote and a lot of the city’s other programs and public works, paid out to bring them there. Members also spent a lot in the local economy, leading to an estimated $2.5 million in new sales tax revenue for Tulsa County last year. The results were similar to those the <a href="https://eig.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/Tulsa-Remote-Summary.pdf">Economic Innovation Group</a> found a year earlier. </p>
<p id="eUSiAv">But while the appeal of the program is clear to local leaders, it’s less obvious to see why these knowledge workers would want to move to Tulsa. After all, the only cultural touchstone some have is the episode of <em>Friends</em> where Chandler Bing unintentionally accepts a move to the city after falling asleep in a work meeting. More importantly, a spate of regressive state policies in Oklahoma — banning abortion, gender-affirming health care for young people, and the teaching of critical race theory in schools — have made the place an unlikely destination for often liberal individuals from coastal cities to call a new home. But that hasn’t stopped them from coming.</p>
<div class="c-wide-block"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="City buildings viewed from beneath an archway, with a semicircle of blue sky above them." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/qOgt6c5Iezkjg5xVZND6dn32814=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24715433/2020_04_18___PhilClarkinHR_0007.jpg">
<cite>Courtesy of Tulsa Remote/Phil Clarkin</cite>
<figcaption>The downtown of Tulsa was once shaped by the oil industry, and now is home to a more diverse set of businesses.</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p id="p2xT6x">The truth is that Tulsa overall is doing a surprisingly good job of making itself a place where young tech and other knowledge workers and their growing families want to be. Tulsa Remote started offering remote workers the <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tulsa-oklahoma-will-pay-you-10000-to-move-there-but-theres-a-catch/">headline-grabbing</a> $10,000 sum to move to the city back in 2018. The program also offered a place where they could find relatively affordable housing, access to free coworking space, and the subsidized opportunity to reimagine their lives anew somewhere else. So far, the program says it has brought 2,400 people from places like New York and New Orleans, from San Francisco and San Antonio, from Omaha and even Americans from abroad to relocate smack-dab in the middle of the country. </p>
<div class="c-float-right c-float-hang"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A large outdoor clock seen between high-rise buildings." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mjDjLZIGhESqjyi49CFh8E6uGV4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24715387/2020_04_06___PhilClarkinHR_9230.jpg">
<cite>Courtesy of Tulsa Remote/Phil Clarkin</cite>
<figcaption>Downtown Tulsa, Oklahoma, is attracting remote workers through its Tulsa Remote program.</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p id="YpFqPD">What has made these remote workers stay is less obvious. Impressively, 90 percent have remained in Tulsa beyond the requisite one-year commitment, and 76 percent of all members have been there since the program launched. People are buying homes, starting families, and getting involved in the community. From my conversations with roughly two dozen Tulsa Remoters, it seems that community, not the cash, is the special sauce that’s made the program work.</p>
<p id="s1IGmZ">Ultimately, the Tulsa Remote model could serve as a blueprint not only for other landlocked cities hoping to reinvigorate their economies and communities. It could also inform big cities on how to maintain their status as attractive places to live. </p>
<p id="xCoUBq">A <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/research/work-from-anywhere-as-a-public-policy-three-findings-from-the-tulsa-remote-program/">study published by the Brookings Institution</a> last year found that people in the Tulsa Remote program had a higher chance of staying in their communities long term and higher levels of community engagement than those who were accepted but did not join. </p>
<p id="HMx3t4">“The program has been remarkably successful in not only being able to attract remote workers to Tulsa, but also in keeping them, in fully embedding them in the local community,” one of the report’s authors, Thomaz Teodorovicz, an assistant professor at Copenhagen Business School, told Vox. The program did so, he said, by attracting people who are already interested in building community and then facilitating that community-building, with events — there are about 15 each month, including orientations — and by setting up one-on-one introductions with community members.</p>
<p id="tJWayf">But what’s perhaps most integral to building the community is much more quotidian: Slack. This software platform is best known for helping coworkers communicate from anywhere, but in this case, it helps people in the program connect with their new neighbors. When someone is accepted into Tulsa Remote and schedules a visit, they’re allowed to join five introductory Slack channels, where they can begin talking to existing members. Once they’ve joined the program, they’re privy to 160 such channels, which cater to a variety of interests and purposes, from parents with kids in certain age groups, to book and biking clubs, to a marketplace channel akin to Craigslist. The channels have guidelines and 10 community moderators to make sure nothing goes off the rails. People seek advice, invite others to join them at concerts, and organize community service. </p>
<p id="u8ZLRG">The result is a bit like an idyllic early Facebook or Nextdoor, and every Tulsa Remote participant I spoke to said the Slack channels were integral to the community. </p>
<p id="BmpX9G">Overall, Tulsa Remote helps get at a problem with modern living: People crave community, but it can be hard to find or build. As a society, we often neglect how difficult it can be to make friends as adults. The pandemic only made the situation more dire, as people in coastal cities were often isolated in their small apartments. They spent a lot of time reconsidering what they wanted out of life, and for many, a more fulfilling social and community life became a top order.</p>
<p id="y8WPhK">When I asked Elena Haskins, a 26-year-old UX designer who had been living in New York City, what ultimately made her choose to move to Tulsa, she said it was the “allure of that sense of community” she’d glimpsed from visiting and from talking to the people in the program on Slack.</p>
<p id="BE3O7h">“They were like, ‘This is so great. I made all these friends. I have these new hobbies. I started a new business,’” said Haskins. “And so hearing that, it just didn’t leave my head. I kept thinking, maybe that could happen to me.” </p>
<p id="6ji0EO">The trick will be retaining the vibrancy — and accessibility — of that community as it grows.</p>
<div class="c-wide-block"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A small movie theater at dusk with the words, “Stay gold, Tulsa,” on the marquee." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ivTb2YSigPT4MEuIhVn7uRPzrtw=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24715392/2020_04_18___PhilClarkinHR_0122.jpg">
<cite>Courtesy of Tulsa Remote/Phil Clarkin</cite>
<figcaption>The Circle Cinema theater, with a marquee reading “Stay gold, Tulsa.”</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<div class="c-float-right"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Graffiti of a young woman reading a book while lying on her front with her feet up." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/vdsd3VVfrgycLr1VA2WiRDASehg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24715426/2020_06_19___PhilClarkinHR_0594.jpg">
<cite>Courtesy of Tulsa Remote/Phil Clarkin</cite>
<figcaption>A mural of a woman reading a book.</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<h3 id="uzlCQl">Making a city people want to live in</h3>
<p id="gzvKmH">On my first full day in Tulsa, Grant Bumgarner showed me around town in his Hyundai Elantra. The 26-year-old is a fifth-generation Tulsan who wore cowboy boots and told us about leaving for college at Northwestern but coming home after graduation to work as a community manager for Tulsa Remote. He’s now a director of its subsidiary, Experience Tulsa, which introduces out-of-towners, including those accepted into the Tulsa Remote program, to the city.</p>
<p id="mcYaYi">The tour started at a coworking space called 36 Degrees North. Located at an old Ford manufacturing plant in the center of the Arts District, the self-described basecamp is free to Tulsa Remote members and tends to be full of people plodding away on laptops, building startups, or working for far-off companies. The city has generally made smart use of its historic, Instagram-ready architecture, as well as its abandoned and empty spaces, where there are fewer hard feelings when new people and projects move in. </p>
<p id="jBC0lc">“In Tulsa, our downtown was so bombed out for so long, it’s like, ‘Oh, no, that was an empty warehouse for 40 years. I’m glad that’s a restaurant,’” Bumgarner said. “Quite literally everything you see was either a vacant warehouse space or a parking lot.”</p>
<p id="MKUOyK">As we drove past once-abandoned spaces that are now full, it’s clear the city is punching above its weight in terms of amenities. Those include everything from an impressive number of museums, cultural centers, and music venues to hip coffee shops, bright murals, and buzzy restaurants. On some street corners, we saw racks of electric bikes that are part of a bike share network called This Machine, a reference to Oklahoma singer and activist Woody Guthrie, who prominently displayed the slogan “This machine kills fascists” on his guitar. It all felt very cool, but not too cool.</p>
<div class="c-float-left c-float-hang"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A pole with street signs — Black Wall Street, Archer Street, Greenwood Street — and a plaque that says “Historic Greenwood Neighborhood.”" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/UT8qOzObb75J-dC_K6geOeSp9SI=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24715440/R2_2020_06_19___PhilClarkinHR_0893.jpg">
<cite>Courtesy of Tulsa Remote/Phil Clarkin</cite>
<figcaption>The intersection of Archer Street and North Greenwood Avenue, also known as Black Wall Street.</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p id="IA2PNC">When we entered the Greenwood District, Bumgarner pulled over and pointed out a sign for Black Wall Street. The area was once home to one of the most affluent black communities in the United States, before white rioters destroyed it in 1921. After years of <a href="https://www.vox.com/22456481/tulsa-race-massacre">covering up</a> what’s now known as the Tulsa Race Massacre, the city of Tulsa has more recently embraced its troubled past, holding a centennial in 2021 to memorialize the event and to honor the legacy of the town’s Black residents. The area is once again home to a growing number of Black-owned businesses as well as <a href="https://www.greenwoodrising.org/">Greenwood Rising</a>, a historical center geared to educating visitors about the massacre and the long history of racial violence in the US. </p>
<p id="EtW4oj">After heading three miles down the Arkansas River, we arrived at <a href="https://www.mvvainc.com/projects/gathering-place2">the Gathering Place</a>, an eye-popping public park that opened in 2018. Designed by renowned landscape architects Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates, also responsible for New York’s Brooklyn Bridge Park and Chicago’s Maggie Daley Park, the sprawling collection of berry-laden trails and open meadows includes everything from wildflower-lined basketball courts to more than 100 inventive playground structures. </p>
<div> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="An aerial shot of green trees and park paths, with downtown buildings in the distance." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/0zFH4G5tJOKSzIfE_yQmYNEnPq8=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24715226/5_1_23_All_GP_Photos__Patrick_Quiring_of_PQ_Multimedia__7.jpg">
<cite>Courtesy of Tulsa Remote/Patrick Quiring of PQ Multimedia</cite>
<figcaption>An aerial photo of the Gathering Place park.</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p id="1N9s7R">Like Tulsa Remote, the Gathering Place was funded in part by the Tulsa billionaire George Kaiser, who’s <a href="https://givingpledge.org/pledger?pledgerId=220">pledged</a> to give away more than half his wealth, most of which so far has gone toward improving the lives of young Tulsans. You could argue that spending is also geared at attracting new people to come and stay in Tulsa. There are other cities with their own billionaires, but it’s hard to overstate the extent to which Kaiser’s largesse — his <a href="https://www.gkff.org/what-we-do/parent-engagement-early-education/">early education programs</a>, <a href="https://www.tulsacc.edu/programs-courses/continuing-education/cyber-skills-center">coding initiatives</a>, and <a href="https://tulsaworld.com/business/local/new-tech-accelerator-launches-in-tulsa-for-under-represented-founders/article_ac073182-90c4-11ec-9156-2784c15cf79f.html">tech accelerators</a> — has left a mark on Tulsa, where some locals jokingly call him “Daddy Kaiser.” </p>
<p id="PON45w">Of course, not every city has a billionaire to bankroll its best efforts, but not everything in Tulsa is a billionaire’s doing. Tulsa and its citizens deserve a lot of credit for improving their city, passing a series of capital improvement bills in which hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars go toward making Tulsa a better place to live. That includes <a href="https://www.cityoftulsa.org/zink">damming the Arkansas River</a> to create a lake for recreational use.</p>
<p id="Md4Xhr">Generally, it was hard to find much criticism of the Tulsa Remote program itself, but one refrain was that more money should be spent on getting Tulsans to stay than paying others to move there. </p>
<p id="CwUYe8">David Basteri, a mental health technician who’s been in Tulsa for 40 years, said his interactions with Tulsa Remoters have all been good. But he added, “Some people get upset with rising rents, and people that have already been here for a long time feel like maybe they should get some of that money, too.” </p>
<p id="bUCMXb">I did speak with a restaurant server who’s now studying machine learning and a hairdresser who’s taking courses to be a full-stack engineer at a technical college alternative called the Holberton School. Thanks to a partnership with the George Kaiser Family Foundation, attendees can apply to receive a $1,500 monthly stipend. Tuition is free until they’re gainfully employed, when they have to pay back a share of their income that’s capped at $85,000.</p>
<p id="ymLCe9">Their training means not just a good job, but potentially a good remote job — much like the ones people in Tulsa Remote have.</p>
<p id="NJdF7w">“I have a daughter to take care of, and what can I do from home if there’s another pandemic that I can still provide for me and my daughter?” Taylor Woodson, the future full-stack engineer, who wasn’t able to do hair for six months during the pandemic, said. “And it was this.”</p>
<h3 id="UOoSos">The political barrier to entry</h3>
<p id="7LKTqQ">From a band of windows in the mayor’s office, you can survey most of Tulsa below, watching the storms rolling in long before everyone else. But when I visited Mayor GT Bynum, who wore a blue suit and his signature orange keyhole glasses, it was sunny, and he was upbeat.</p>
<p id="f1wbQG">Bynum is a pro-immigration, pro-diversity Republican, one who thinks it’s important to spend taxpayer dollars on making the city a better place to live. Some of his relatively progressive views run counter to what’s happening in Oklahoma, a very red state that hasn’t voted for a Democratic president since Lyndon B Johnson, and which recently enacted a series of regressive laws for people of color, women, and LGBTQ citizens. Bynum, 45, recognizes that such laws could hamper his city’s attractiveness, but he also takes the long view. Programs like Tulsa Remote, whose members tend to be more diverse than the city overall, and the city’s initiatives to encourage <a href="https://www.cityoftulsa.org/new-tulsans/">immigration</a> will bring in people who will shape the laws in their image, Bynum told me. </p>
<p id="VeHx0h">“I’m a big believer that you get better policy and you make better decisions when you have a diversity of viewpoints and life experiences around the table,” he said. “Now, that does not make it easy or comfortable in the immediate term, but the reality is that there is great potential to build the kind of community people want it to be over time.”</p>
<div class="c-float-right"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="A circle of young men laughing near Black Wall Street" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LNSFl-Z6yzu_jpww_2vgKq1f5j4=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24715270/2020_06_19___PhilClarkinHR_0878.jpg">
<cite>Courtesy of Tulsa Remote/Phil Clarkin</cite>
<figcaption>A circle of young men laughing near Black Wall Street.</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p id="z7Xjsq">Bynum, a fifth-generation white Tulsan, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/history/2020/03/13/tulsa-mayor-bynum-mass-graves/">hadn’t heard about the Tulsa Race Massacre</a> growing up, but championed bringing its history to light for the 2021 centennial. That same year, however, the Oklahoma legislature enacted a <a href="http://webserver1.lsb.state.ok.us/cf_pdf/2021-22%20ENR/hB/HB1775%20ENR.PDF">law</a> that made it illegal for schools to teach concepts that deal with systemic racism and the country’s history of oppression, part of a broader Republican <a href="https://www.vox.com/22443822/critical-race-theory-controversy">disinformation campaign</a> around so-called critical race theory. So while educators can <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/05/25/antiracism-teaching-ban-oklahoma-490159">ostensibly still teach</a> that the Tulsa Race Massacre happened, the law may prevent them from discussing the underlying power dynamics that enabled it.</p>
<div> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="Fish-eye lens view of large painted letters on a city street that spell out “Black Lives Matter.”" data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/5-sMREa4tfecxaaMNZoHLl52pSU=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24715265/2020_06_19___PhilClarkinHR_0605.jpg">
<cite>Courtesy of Tulsa Remote/Phil Clarkin</cite>
<figcaption>“Black Lives Matter” painted in yellow letters down Black Wall Street.</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p id="Bvor96">The Republican-led state legislature has also taken action against women’s and LGBTQ rights. Last year, Oklahoma’s governor signed into law the <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/05/26/1101428347/oklahoma-governor-signs-the-nations-strictest-abortion-ban">strictest abortion ban in the country</a>. More recently, the state’s highest court <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/oklahoma-top-court-finds-right-abortion-preserve-mothers-life-2023-03-21/">found</a> that its constitution would allow an abortion to protect the mother’s life, but already the <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/04/25/health/emergency-abortion-confusion-okahoma/index.html">confusing and contradictory laws</a> are jeopardizing women’s health. And just last month, the state <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/oklahoma-governor-signs-ban-on-gender-affirming-care-for-trans-kids">banned gender-affirming care</a> for young people. That followed previous bills that barred transgender people from sports teams and from using bathrooms that align with their gender identity. </p>
<p id="Ljc5j6">These laws can be a barrier to many considering moving to Oklahoma. A survey last summer of those who had been accepted into Tulsa Remote but hadn’t yet moved found that of the 150 or so who decided to decline, nearly 40 percent cited politics as their reason.</p>
<p id="7iVXZT">The political situation in the state also weighs heavily on people like Montana Cain, even though she’s ultimately happy with her move to Tulsa, where she met her partner, started her own consulting business, and found a strong social network.</p>
<p id="sloQtZ">“I have a large community that looks like me and understands my lived experiences and shared lived experiences, so I have a little bubble,” Cain, a 40-year-old Black woman who moved from South Carolina, said. “It’s when I have medical issues or when I have to step out or take a road trip that I’m hyper-aware.” </p>
<p id="BR7ekP">For Cain, that awareness means skipping stops at smaller gas stations when driving to Oklahoma City and opting for hospitals without religious affiliations. It also means she’s uncertain about her long-term future in the state.</p>
<p id="RT3K9C">“As a business owner, as a single woman, it’s great. It’s fine. I can navigate that. But as I think about family and approaching motherhood, that’s a harder decision for me.”</p>
<div class="c-wide-block"> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt="The Tulsa skyline with trees in the foreground." data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/LqgFkEgM5MoWeciLzDO1D4q2my0=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24715382/2020_04_18___PhilClarkinHR_0041.jpg">
<cite>Courtesy of Tulsa Remote/Phil Clarkin</cite>
<figcaption>Part of the downtown Tulsa skyline</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<h3 id="kVDDiL">Cashing in on a remote future</h3>
<p id="5MYBGk">As you walk toward the outskirts of Tulsa, where most of the city lives, big buildings quickly give way to tree-lined streets filled with single-family homes. Unlike downtown and its Art Deco skyscrapers, there’s no unifying architectural style here. It’s a charming mix of everything from Tudor to Craftsman to Spanish Colonial. Together with its public amenities, Tulsa’s neighborhoods give the feel of a place much more affluent than its <a href="https://www.forbes.com/advisor/mortgages/real-estate/cost-of-living-calculator/tulsa-ok/?city=new-york-brooklyn-ny&income=70000">cost of living</a>, with cheap beer, <a href="https://www.gasbuddy.com/gaspricemap?lat=38.822395&lng=-96.591588&z=4">gas</a>, and housing, would suggest.</p>
<p id="6h6H2l">In April, the average price of a home in Tulsa was $191,000, according to Zillow, well below the national average of $339,000. I, for one, immediately checked online real estate listings, sending my sister a link to a sprawling, pristine midcentury modern house on a wooded lot that would have been impossible to afford anywhere else. The housing prices are a revelation for many people in the Tulsa Remote program, too, where the mean income is more than $100,000 a year. </p>
<p id="9UIizZ">“I was in a six-unit apartment and the walls were paper thin and the neighbors were really not good neighbors and it was destroying my safe haven,” Laura Landers, a 32-year-old social media manager and designer who came to the city with Tulsa Remote, said of her previous living situation in Los Angeles. “I always knew I wanted a house. I’m like, where on Earth can I buy a house and I can afford it, being a broke millennial?”</p>
<p id="83mKZB">The flip side to becoming a popular place to live is that the price of housing goes up. Since January 2020, the <a href="https://www.zillow.com/home-values/20859/tulsa-ok/">average home price in Tulsa</a> has risen 47 percent, according to data from Zillow, slightly higher than the <a href="https://www.zillow.com/home-values/102001/united-states/">national level</a> of 41 percent in that time. New demand for housing in the area, including from Tulsa Remote workers, of whom more than 400 have bought homes, has likely helped contribute to rising housing costs. </p>
<p id="DKE356">The city recently <a href="https://www.housingsolutionstulsa.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Tulsa-Citywide-Housing-Assessment_Final-03.01.23.pdf">assessed</a> its housing stock and found that there’s currently pent-up demand for 4,000 more housing units, a number expected to more than triple in the next 10 years. In August, residents will vote on whether to commit $100 million toward a <a href="https://www.cityoftulsa.org/improve-our-tulsa/about-improve-our-tulsa/2023-iot-package/">new housing initiative</a>. Otherwise, it’s easy to see a scenario in which Tulsa becomes just another city in which young families get priced out.</p>
<p id="Z3Eh1u">And herein lies the rub for Tulsa and all the other American cities and towns hoping to capitalize on the continued popularity of remote work: How do you make your location an attractive place to be without ruining what’s appealing about it in the first place?</p>
<p id="gn0KmY">Nearly half of Americans who can work from home do so in a hybrid manner now, meaning they’re only going into the office some of the time, <a href="https://wfhresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/WFHResearch_updates_June2023.pdf">according to WFH Research</a>, which doesn’t expect remote numbers to move drastically in the future. Another nearly 20 percent of knowledge workers are still fully remote. More than three years after the world went on lockdown, these remote situations have begun to feel more permanent than they had during the pandemic. Indeed, Tulsa Remote hasn’t seen a dip in interest, despite the so-called <a href="https://www.vox.com/technology/2023/5/15/23721410/return-to-office-remote-work-commercial-real-estate">return to the office</a>. The program, which had felt like an experiment before the pandemic, now feels more like a pilot project for other cities.</p>
<p id="wpdCdy">Remote work has big implications for cities, whose centers of gravity have <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/american-cities-are-starting-to-thrive-again-just-not-near-office-buildings-d839798f">shifted</a> closer to residential areas since residents don’t have to commute as often. It also holds a lot of promise for smaller cities — <a href="https://www.makemymove.com/get-paid">dozens</a> across the country, from <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/30/realestate/bentonville-arkansas-moving-incentive.html">Bentonville, Arkansas</a>, to <a href="https://www.makemymove.com/get-paid/muncie-indiana?gad=1&gclid=CjwKCAjw1YCkBhAOEiwA5aN4AbtKe7neNzU3VEuwNVLPB4LSq-95iDP7Uh8TINNKOd3fe_Yx8mPTTxoCW_YQAvD_BwE">Muncie, Indiana</a> — all looking to slice off a little bit of that economic diversity for themselves by courting fully remote workers. </p>
<p id="RvwJSi">Whether other cities can replicate Tulsa Remote’s success will depend on a number of factors, including their ability to convey that they’re an “under-appreciated asset” or to come through on promises of community, according to Matthew Kahn, an economics professor at the University of Southern California and author of <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520384316/going-remote"><em>Going Remote: How the Flexible Work Economy Can Improve Our Lives and Our Cities</em></a>. Warm weather, cheap housing, and quick flights elsewhere are also big pluses when it comes to attracting people (it took me, like many visitors, two flights to get to Tulsa). Mustering a strong, headline-winning incentive like Tulsa Remote’s “shrewd” $10,000 also helps, he said. </p>
<p id="gzC2Ok">“There’s many people who it’s never crossed their mind to think about moving to Oklahoma,” Kahn said. “For folks looking to reinvent themselves, for folks who might have roots in the general area, Tulsa is signaling that it is open for business.”</p>
<div> <figure class="e-image">
<img alt=" " data-mask-text="false" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/Y06-CjINpgFn1qnscws1CImyFXo=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/24711933/Vox_05.jpg">
<cite>Andrew Lichtenstein/Getty Images</cite>
<figcaption>Wooded land bridges over tunnels that pass through the Gathering Place park in Tulsa.</figcaption>
</figure>
</div>
<p id="015jfi">Tulsa, like these other places, will have to find a way to retain what makes it special while adapting to a new future. One key aspect of all this will be for the city to invest in public works that improve the lives of all its citizens. Tulsa also needs to protect what attracted people to the city in the first place, like affordable housing, while buffering against Oklahoma’s worst political inclinations. And Tulsa has to hold onto the community that made it all possible to begin with.</p>
<p id="bRxMRf">But its success is more than just a remote possibility. </p>
https://www.vox.com/technology/23751642/tulsa-remote-community-future-workRani Molla