Tallahassee Wants More Residents

Tallahassee, Fla. wants new residents. The capital city's project, Choose Tallahassee, is trying to recruit Baby Boomers looking to down-size.

Choose Tallahassee has held two contests via social media to attract retirees to the city, offering a year’s free housing and "other perks" to the winners. The first contest winners, former New Hampshire residents Cathy and Bill Campbell, believe that the key to bringing in more people to Tallahassee is to woo multigenerational families, The New York Times reports. Says Cathy Campbell, “Maybe it’s because it’s a capital city, people don’t realize that it’s a quiet place that is family friendly.” In fall 2017, the program expanded from a staff made up entirely of volunteers to one of paid positions, and now has a budget of $150,000 from city and county governments, banks, and real estate firms.

After two contests that attracted retirees, Choose Tallahassee is skipping a third, at least for now, and instead focusing on helping residents persuade out-of-state relatives, friends and acquaintances to move to the city. One reason is that campaign organizers want to learn what attracts people to Tallahassee and improve outreach. “One of our earlier efforts was looking at the number of new driver’s license applications from out-of-state residents who were 60 and over,” Ms. Bono said. “We wanted a more precise way to track who the campaign is reaching.”

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