Business leaders and local officials in Tulsa, Okla., puzzled for years over how to fill the hole created when young people left for big coastal cities. What, they wondered, could keep professionals rooted in the heartland?

They ended up turning that premise on its head: Rather than fighting to hold on to native Tulsans, they decided to recruit outsiders. In recent years, the rise of virtual work opened up a new way of responding to the city’s brain drain.

Five years after the George Kaiser Family Foundation began offering $10,000 to remote workers willing to move to Tulsa for at least a year, some 3,300 people have taken up the offer.

Steven Briggs, 55, was working remotely as a data scientist in Dallas when he applied for the program, Tulsa Remote. He and his wife moved to Tulsa in 2021, and he jokes that his new hometown embodies the flip side of the famous line about New York City: “What you can say about Tulsa is ‘If you can’t make it anywhere, you can make it here.’”

The sudden onset of remote work during the pandemic prompted plenty of cities and states — Topeka, Kan., and Savannah, Ga.; West Virginia and northwest Arkansas — to vie for new residents with programs offering cash incentives. Tulsa’s program is one of the largest. Researchers at Harvard and other universities examined the effects of Tulsa Remote, wondering whether it was proving a good deal for the remote workers and the city itself.

Their research, released this month, surveyed 1,248 people — including 411 who had participated in Tulsa Remote and others who were accepted but didn’t move or weren’t accepted but had applied to the program — and found that remote workers who moved to Tulsa saved an average of $25,000 more on annual housing costs than the group that was chosen but didn’t move. The relocations were also a boon for the State of Oklahoma and the City of Tulsa, bringing in some $14.9 million in annual income tax revenue and $5.8 million in sales taxes from the remote workers, the researchers estimated.

“Every heartland mayor should pay attention to this,” said Prithwiraj Choudhury, an associate professor at Harvard Business School and the lead author of the study. “Because of remote work, a large part of the work force is able to relocate, and there is the possibility of reversing brain drain.”

Figuring out how to keep professionals has long been a challenge for midsize, non-coastal cities. Tulsa was losing roughly 1,000 more college-educated people than it was absorbing each year from 2015 to 2019. During that period, people who moved to Oklahoma were nearly all over the age of 45 and mostly had incomes below the state average, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City.

Local philanthropists pondered how to recruit new Tulsa residents. Around 2011, they began to notice that some people who had moved there because of Teach for America, which places recent college graduates into communities for two-year teaching stints, continued living in Tulsa. If other kinds of knowledge workers were given a reason to try out life in the city, they, too, might decide to stay.

“It was a lightbulb moment, that if we could incentivize folks to come here for a year, we could keep them around to contribute to the city and economy,” said Justin Harlan, managing director of Tulsa Remote, who previously worked at Teach for America.

The president of Tulsa’s regional chamber of commerce, Mike Neal, recalled being skeptical. “When they first mentioned the idea to me, I was like, ‘Have you lost your mind?’” Mr. Neal recalled. “‘There’s not a snowball’s chance in hell this thing is going to work.’”

But when remote work jumped to 43 percent of the country’s workers, in spring 2020, from just 4 percent, the prospect of drawing young professionals to Tulsa became far more viable. That year, 380 people moved to Tulsa for the program, and in 2021 the number climbed to 939. Last year, 643 remote workers moved through Tulsa Remote.

Oklahoma more broadly saw an influx of younger, working-age people and high earners during the pandemic, according to the Kansas City Fed. Since 2020, 40 percent of those moving to Oklahoma were between the ages of 25 and 44.

Program managers at Tulsa Remote sifted through applicants to select remote workers who seemed interested in contributing to the community by volunteering or starting businesses. Nearly three-quarters of participants who have completed the program are still living in Tulsa. The program brings them together for farm-to-table dinners, movie nights and local celebrity lectures to help build community, given that none have offices to commute to. (The George Kaiser Family Foundation has said it will continue to fund Tulsa Remote “so long as it demonstrates to be a community-enhancing opportunity.”)

Jasmine Renae Ball, 32, is part of Tulsa’s pandemic-era wave of remote-work migrants. She had been living in Los Angeles, doling out advice as a financial planner and dogged by the sense that she should take her own counsel and save up to buy a home. That didn’t feel feasible in Los Angeles.

In 2020, once her client meetings moved to Zoom, she applied to Tulsa Remote. She bought a three-bedroom home in Tulsa for roughly $185,000, one-third of the cost of smaller apartments she had been looking at in Los Angeles. Ms. Ball also persuaded her retired parents to move from Northern California to Tulsa, along with her younger sister.

“Everything was very expensive,” Ms. Ball said of her life in California. “It all added up to where you’d have to either pick and choose and not necessarily live the life you wanted, or people would go into debt trying to create the lifestyle they wanted.”

Plenty of cities across the country have experienced this cycle in recent years. Fed-up young professionals from expensive cities parachuted in and sent local costs soaring. In Spokane, Wash., home prices rose 60 percent between 2020 and 2022. Austin, Texas, and Portland, Ore., have similarly seen housing costs jump because of an influx of residents. Tulsa isn’t immune to these challenges. The median price of a home in the Tulsa area has risen 9 percent since last year, while nationwide the median home price is up 3.2 percent.

Mr. Choudhury, at Harvard, noted that other cities across the country had seen a large jump in housing prices, and that the influx of residents through Tulsa Remote had so far been too small to significantly affect local costs.

“Gentrification is the concern,” Mr. Choudhury said. “But the scale right now is not concerning to me. In a city of one million people, there are 3,000 new knowledge workers.”

Some of Tulsa’s new residents have acknowledged that they don’t yet feel fully part of the culture — so how long they will stay remains unresolved.

“I’m definitely still Wisconsin at my core,” said Tricia Jimo, 45, whose move to Tulsa, through the program, was partly inspired by having pushed through too many frosty mornings shoveling snow out of her driveway before heading to work in the suburbs outside Madison.

“In my mind, I was coming to Tulsa for a year, and then I could always boomerang back if it wasn’t a fit for me,” she added. “Four years later, now the conversations I’m having are more like, ‘Are you staying in Tulsa forever?’ Maybe.”

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Recently opened restaurants in the Tulsa area

Many families around the country have traditions involving restaurants, whether it's returning to the same spot year after year for birthdays, Sunday morning brunches at a favorite local diner, or Friday night pies at a neighborhood pizza place.

While plenty of diners like to visit the same restaurants every year, every month, or even every week, others also want to try something new. Consumers today are "looking for new flavor experiences that excite their palates and provide a respite from their daily routines," Stacey Kinkaid, the vice president of product development and innovation at US Foods, said in a statement. "The trend of global flavors demonstrates this as diners look for discovery and escape from the ordinary."

US Foods, a major domestic food service distributor, surveyed 1,000 people who reflect the demographic makeup of the general American population about their dining out and takeout habits. They found that the average person dines out about three times per month for a wide range of reasons, from socialization to enjoying the atmosphere, and from celebrating something special to avoiding the labor of cooking (and cleaning up afterward).

As for what types of restaurants they tend to dine in, at the top of the list is casual dining (62%), followed by fast food (57%) and fast casual (54%). Contemporary casual (32%) and bar and grills (25%) round out the top five.

Need some inspiration for your next meal out? Stacker compiled a list of recently opened restaurants in Tulsa using data from Yelp, including details on how each restaurant is rated by diners and the types of cuisine they serve. Get ready to make some new restaurant plans!

Note: The photos in this article are stock images and do not necessarily depict the specific restaurants listed or the dishes they serve.

You may also like: Best options in Tulsa for 8 popular outdoor activities

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The Avery

- Rating: 3.7/5 (9 reviews)- Address: 100 East 2nd St. South Tulsa, Oklahoma - Categories: American, Breakfast & Brunch, Wine Bars- Read more on Yelp

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Pisoneros'

- Rating: 4.5/5 (6 reviews)- Address: 5970 East 31st St. Tulsa, Oklahoma - Categories: Barbecue, Chicken Wings, Pizza- Read more on Yelp

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Tuly's Tacos

- Rating: 4.8/5 (9 reviews)- Address: 419 South Boulder Ave. Tulsa, Oklahoma - Categories: Tacos- Read more on Yelp

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Clark Crew BBQ

- Rating: 3.6/5 (28 reviews)- Address: 10825 East 71st St. Tulsa, Oklahoma - Categories: Barbecue, Bars, Pizza- Read more on Yelp

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Freeway Café

- Rating: 4.2/5 (6 reviews)- Address: 4401 East 31st St. Tulsa, Oklahoma - Categories: Salad, Breakfast & Brunch, Soup- Read more on Yelp

You may also like: Highest-rated restaurants in Tulsa by diners

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Mission BBQ

- Rating: 4.2/5 (12 reviews)- Address: 7111 South Mingo Road Tulsa, Oklahoma - Categories: Barbecue, Sandwiches, Salad- Read more on Yelp

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rise soufflé - Tulsa

- Rating: 4.3/5 (20 reviews)- Address: 2054 Utica Square Tulsa, Oklahoma - Categories: French, Desserts, Wine Bars- Read more on Yelp

This story features data reporting by Karim Noorani, writing by Jaimie Etkin, and is part of a series utilizing data automation across 82 metros.

TULSA, Okla. — Tiffany Townsend calls the letter she received from the City of Tulsa on Nov. 13 "alarming and concerning."

The letter indicates in bold that her home's water service line is of "UNKNOWN" material.

The letter goes on to say:

Although unlikely, it is possible it may be lead; so it is important to understand that lead can cause serious health problem, especially for pregnant woman and young children.

City of Tulsa, Water and Sewer

See the first page of the letter here.

See the second page of the letter here.

Townsend found the letter so alarming, she immediately called City Hall. The customer service person told her they don't have any information about the letter and advised her to call the number she found on the back for getting water tested for lead.

She told the 2 News she called it two or three times and each time it went straight to voicemail. When no one returned her calls she reached out to the Problem Solvers to see if we could get answers.

"I understand the language in the letter can be kind of alarming," said Melissa Gray with Tulsa's Water Department. "But it is a standard notification that was provided to us. The letters customers receive in the mail this week are a requirement from the Environmental Protection Agency and the department of Environmental Quality. The customers that received the letter have the service line of unknown material - unknown being we just don't know what type of material it is. We don't have a record that lead was never installed at those individual addresses so we are required to sent the notification."

Gray told 2 News Tulsa hasn't found lead in service lines, but the EPA requires letters be sent because it has been found in pipes in other cities.

She stressed getting a letter does not automatically mean you have lead in your pipes. And, the information for lowering the risk to your health is part of the form letter the EPA requires.

As Tulsa rolls out its automatic water meter readers its crews will check service lines to homes where the city does not already have confirmation there is no lead in the pipes. The project is anticipated to take up to five years. If you don't want to wait that line to know what's in your water, you can call 918-591-4384 to request a free water testing kit.

The city will drop it off at your front door. All you have to do is fill the bottle with water from your kitchen faucet first thing in the morning before using any other water in your home. You then leave the bottle by your door for the city to collect and test. The whole process should only take a few days.

Contact the Problem Solvers:

Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere --

Oklahoma Weather Forecast: Bookmark this page and refresh it often for the latest forecast and daily updates.

TULSA, Okla. -

Clear skies, dry air, and light winds have brought very cold weather to northern Oklahoma early Friday morning.

This will be the coldest morning of the late fall and early winter season for many locations, with temperatures in the upper teens and lower 20s.

A surface high-pressure system is located to the north and east, allowing for a light north wind Friday morning. Later, as the ridge moves, a light south wind will develop at 10 mph.

This will result in mostly sunshine and afternoon highs reaching the upper 40s and lower 50s.

Most of the weekend will be pleasant yet with some increasing cloud cover with temperatures in the upper 50s and lower 60s. There will be a chance for a few showers across southern Oklahoma and North Texas.

A low-pressure system has been cut off from the upper airflow for the last several days, positioned across the desert southwest. It is slowly moving eastward and will eject over the central and southern Plains on Sunday.

Another lobe of energy will arrive at the base of this trough later Friday night, producing showers and storms across Texas that will extend into the Red River Valley Saturday morning and then again late Saturday night and Sunday morning.

There will be a low-end probability for a few showers along and south of the I-40 corridor, but higher chances will be along the Red River Valley.

Early Sunday morning, as the cutoff low begins to eject to the east-northeast, additional showers and storms will likely occur across northeast Texas, extending into far southern Oklahoma.

A few showers will be possible along and east of Highway 69 across east-central sections of the state, but higher probabilities will remain to the south and east of most of our area.

As the low ejects away from the state on Monday, a cold front will move across the area by midday, bringing falling temperatures from the 50s into the 40s by afternoon and early evening.

Tuesday morning will start in the upper 20s and lower 30s, with afternoon highs in the mid and upper 40s.

Wednesday morning will also start in the mid and upper 20s, with daytime highs in the upper 40s and lower 50s.

From Thursday through next weekend, a warming trend is likely with no major storm systems approaching the state.

Emergency Info: Outages Across Oklahoma:

Northeast Oklahoma has various power companies and electric cooperatives, many of which have overlapping areas of coverage. Below is a link to various outage maps.

PSO Outage Map

OG&E Outage Map

VVEC Outage Map

Indian Electric Cooperative (IEC) Outage Map

Oklahoma Association of Electric Cooperatives Outage Map — (Note Several Smaller Co-ops Included)

The Alan Crone morning weather podcast link from Spotify:

https://open.spotify.com/episode/62zT1gppNJjlMO4T2NVOxR

The Alan Crone morning weather podcast link from Apple:

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/oklahoma-news-from-kotv-news-on-6-in-tulsa-oklahoma/id1499556141

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