Can Michigan’s Upper Peninsula be the next haven for remote workers?
The UP is in a good position to attract a new generation of knowledge economy workers
Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, like many regions of the United States, is facing a tough demographic challenge. Between 2000 and 2010, the population of the UP declined by 6,000 people, with current forecasts for the 2020 census predicting even more population loss. And let’s not even begin to discuss the aging population.
Despite this, we all know that the Upper Peninsula is a great place to live, work, and raise a family. One major hurdle, however, continues to be a lack of employment opportunities in sectors that pay at or above the median national salary.
So, what’s the solution? Remote work.
Remote work is a catchall term that covers telecommuters, digital nomads, online freelancers, and location-independent entrepreneurs who can work anywhere with an internet connection.
Think about your own job for a moment. Have you ever worked from home when you were sick? Or have you ever checked your email after hours on your phone? Many professionals working in the knowledge economy often work remotely without even realizing it.
According to a report from Flexjobs, remote work has increased by 195% since 2005, and as of June 2019, 4.7 million people in the US work remotely, up from 3.9 million in 2015.
Attracting remote workers to the UP is a great way to boost the economy, match the area’s high standard of living and affordability with people who can work from anywhere, and plug the demographic gap.
Luckily, there are a few organizations and programs already working towards transforming the UP into a great place to do business, including for remote workers.
The Innovate Marquette SmartZone was recently selected to participate in the 2020 cohort of the Rural Innovation Initiative hosted by the Vermont-based Center on Rural Innovation. It’s the second year of the initiative, and this time, twenty organizations across the US were selected to participate out of 110 applicants.
Marquette and the other communities selected will “receive intensive technical assistance as they execute an innovation hub strategy: an economic development model that works to educate and train local residents in digital skills, employ them in new economy jobs, and empower them to launch the startups that will drive their digital economy.”
InvestUP is a private-sector led, pan-UP organization launched in 2018 that has already positively impacted the area by working with successful entrepreneurs in the region for a bottom-up approach to economic development. The organization’s website has all of the usual information about doing business, but it also makes a strong point about the benefits of the lifestyle that the Upper Peninsula affords.
“Our region doesn’t have a big city. But our communities tend to have a little of everything and never a lot of chaos. You can live modern. You can live rustic. You can be an art and culture zealot or hang with wired high-tech gurus. Up here, there are a lot of people living life just the way they want to in a place they can’t replicate anywhere else.”
InvestUP
The Michigan Tech Enterprise Corporation (MTEC) SmartZone sponsors a series of events called Return North that aim to attract exiled Yoopers and others to come and work at companies in the UP. The organization has also spearheaded a new regional branding initiative called Innovation Shore that highlights the advantages for tech companies to set up shop in the region. Both of these initiatives have laid the groundwork for creating a good environment for attracting remote workers and remote-focused companies.
Marquette-based independent news site Word on The Street, written by retired CNN journalist Brian Cabell (a remote worker in his own right), recently published an article featuring a few people already working remotely in the area, including Keith Glendon who works for IBM:
“I’d estimate ten percent of the population here is doing remote online work that they couldn’t do ten years or certainly twenty years ago,’ says Keith Glendon, an NMU graduate who has a senior job for IBM in security sales. He works out of his home. “And it’s a huge economic impact because these are generally higher paying jobs.”
I left the UP shortly after graduating from Northern Michigan University, first for Washington, DC, and then overseas to Tallinn, Estonia.
Over the past five years, I have been working here in Estonia for the country’s e-Residency program. The aim of this program is to help the growing number of remote entrepreneurs start and run a company in Estonia entirely online so that they can live and work where they choose.
This experience is what has made me so passionate about the possibility for the UP, my home, to take advantage of this macroeconomic trend.
So what else does the UP need to achieve in order to be the next haven for remote workers in the United States? Here are a few ideas.
1. Test direct financial support programs for relocation
The city of Tulsa, Oklahoma, has partnered with the Kaiser Family Foundation to launch Tulsa Remote, a program aimed at attracting remote workers to the city. Participants selected for the program receive a grant of $10,000, assistance finding housing, a paid membership at a local coworking space, and other perks. The program was launched in 2018 and received 10,000 applications for 100 available awards, expanding to 250 available awards in 2019.
Vermont also offers something similar called the Remote Worker Grant Program that provides a $5,000 incentive to people who move to the state to work remotely. The demand has been so high that authorities had to stop taking applications as of January 6, 2020, until more funding could be allocated.
While we are still in the early stages of understanding the return on investment for these programs, I think we will see more and more locations begin to compete for people by offering incentives like this.
Imagine a city like Escanaba creating a similar grant program that would encourage remote workers to move to the city, take up residency in one of the new loft apartments on Ludington Ave., work from Stone’s Deli during the day, and spend time with family at Ludington Park in the afternoon. For many people, this would be an attractive option when compared to the high rents and traffic jams of the large cities on the coasts.
The question is, who will pay for it, and how do you measure success?
2. Empower existing innovation hubs and create new ones
Beyond the organizations mentioned above, the Upper Peninsula has seen a growth in the number of organizations aimed at supporting businesses, investments, and innovation in the region.
On the public sector side, the UP is home to 58 of Michigan’s 288 Opportunity Zones. These opportunity zones offer “incentives for patient (long-term) capital investments all over the nation in low-income communities in which investment has been sparse and growth of businesses has been minimal.”
Beyond that, there is a myriad of chambers of commerce, county economic development agencies, planning commissions, tourism boards, and other groups who work to promote business in the UP.
Is there an opportunity to bring all of these organizations together to work on the shared goal of making the UP a great place to work remotely?
3. Promote investments in infrastructure to support remote workers
The UP might need to consider making upgrades to its infrastructure if it wants to support remote workers. For example, while traditional broadband internet is avaiable from cable providers and other ISPs, fiber-based internet, important for companies who need a solid connection with equal upload and download speeds, is severy lacking, with only one or two companies, such as Peninsula Fiber Network, offering the service in limited locations with expensive fees.
The UP is also not the easiest place to travel to and from. One of the best parts about working online is having the freedom to travel and work from where you want, but what happens if they want to travel Florida for a week in February, or what if they have to travel to a meeting at their company HQ in San Francisco? Flights from airports in the Upper Peninsula typically feed into hubs like Detroit, Chicago, or Minneapolis, adding time and expense to anyone looking for a quick trip away for business or pleasure. If more remote workers moved to the UP, could airports expand to meet the demand and offer flights to destinations further afield, or would it take significant additional subsidies?
Beyond that, what about schools, housing, childcare, healthcare, and other services? Can the UP’s existing infrastructure meet the demands?
4. Provide more places for remote workers to work
Even though remote workers can technically work from anywhere, they still have basic needs, and the couch at home doesn’t always work. Coworking spaces have been the traditional way to serve these needs, and the UP has at least two of them so far.
Ampersand in Marquette was launched with great fanfare by the now-defunct Marquette Chamber of Commerce but has struggled despite its superb location downtown. In Hancock, 101 Quincy Coworking seems to be fairing a bit better.
As we’ve seen with WeWork, the economics around full-time coworking spaces is something that the market is still trying to figure out, but we do know that the model is successful in some places when they serve as event spaces and innovation hubs, and there is probably room for new coworking spaces in the population centers of the Upper Peninsula.
If a town can’t support a full-time coworking space, there are possibilities for existing infrastructure to adapt and create new business models for local companies.
For example, if a local library has extra space, it could create a “remote work corner” with comfy chairs, monitors, and access to coffee and other amenities for a small fee.
Or if a coffee shop or cafe is struggling, it could offer discounts to remote workers and make sure its furniture and internet support people working online.
5. Attract branches of remote-first companies
Remote workers aren’t always freelancers striking it out on their own with a laptop and a prayer. Companies, especially those founded in expensive cities like San Francisco, are beginning to understand that they can save money and increase efficiency by making some or all of their workforce remote. Some choose to have a fully distributed workforce with employees working from anywhere, and some have chosen to create smaller hubs in smaller, lower-cost cities.
Expensify is one of the leading expense management software services for businesses. The company was founded by Saginaw, Michigan, native David Barrett in 2008 and has raised over 38 million dollars on its road to becoming the segment leader. The company’s headquarters are in Silicon Valley but they also boast offices around the world, including the tiny town of Ironwood, Michigan. Since it opened in 2014, the Ironwood office has become one of the largest employers in Gogebic Country.
Could the UP convince more companies in Silicon Valley to move all or part of their operations to the area?
The UP can become a great place to work remotely
None of these ideas are meant to be a short cut for the economy of the Upper Peninsula, and many regions around the United States, will be competing for the same remote talent. But with the right support from the public sector and local entrepreneurs, the UP is well-positioned to become a great place to attract the new generation of location-independent entrepreneurs.
Have any thoughts about the issues discussed in this article? Please feel free to reach out to me at alex.john.wellman@gmail.com.
