Thread by @amywebb

I've been thinking this weekend about the future of what I'm calling Tech Migrants.

Tech Migrants are employees of the G-MAFIA (from my book #TheBigNine - Google, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, IBM & Apple) and other tech co's who are WFH but choose to move to other places.

The WSJ is reporting that Google will keep its 200k employees home until at least next July. Facebook is exploring more permanent WFH options. This is a STRONG signal about Tech Migrants and it's worth thinking through next-order risks/ opportunities.

Here are some thoughts.

RISKS: Tech Migrants leave cities like SF for other places. This leaves apartments, houses empty. The rents come down (good), but fewer support staff are needed (bad). Real estate investment decreases.

Declining property taxes means less city revenue. This ripples through social services, schools, infrastructure.

But what about the places where Tech Migrants are moving to? There, we also see risks.

RISK PATTERN 2: Tiny islands, small costal communities, and other idyllic settings see a bump in tech migrants with high earnings and low expenses relative to other residents.

Rather than one big housing crisis in SF, there are hundreds of small-scale housing crises.

The places Tech Migrants settle in don't have the governing infrastructure in place to manage the new, sudden wealth disparity.

Outside investors, looking for a new market, start building.

Development happens fast. City services are overwhelmed.

Mitigate risks, do some better planning, and next-order outcomes of Tech Migrants could be opportunities.

Tech migrants could lead to increased city/ town revenue, new demands for services, and a new urgency to improve infrastructure.

Places that already have abundant digital infrastructure, public health facilities and housing could court Tech Migrants.

Remember how all those cities embarrassed themselves trying to land Amazon's HQ2? Put a fraction of that effort into landing Tech Migrants...

A city like Baltimore already has solid digital infrastructure availability (access is another thing). It has abundant housing, world-class hospitals, and the restaurants are good!

An influx of tech Migrants could rebuild the local economy in a way that HQ2 wouldn't have.

Baltimore has problems, yes.

Like many American cities, the biggest problem in Baltimore is the lack of a long-term vision and a a serious long-term economic revitalization plan that's built on *actual* modeling, supported by stakeholders, and divorced from political nonsense.

If the city of Baltimore decided to court Tech Migrants as part of a long-term plan, and looked holistically at how to manage the city's resources, challenges, and opportunities, this could be a significant opportunity to revitalize and rebuild.

The right way to do it is to invite Tech Migrants, but create the civic apparatus to enable them to grow while growing the city.

Provide income tax incentives if they volunteer at public schools and property tax incentives if they do tech work for city offices community groups.

Create a public-private partnership -- an Ambassador Office -- to do outreach and engagement. When Tech Migrants arrive, get them immediately plugged in to civic engagement, make it easy to find tax incentives, highlight social hubs.

My point is this:

Yes, we're grappling with Covid-19.

Yes, we're in the midst of a racial injustice reckoning.

Yes, it's an election year.

It's also harvest season for signals about the future.

Find risk, seek out opportunity. Tech Migrants are coming either way.

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