Migration from California to rural-ish middle America

That's the topic of a big Los Angeles Times feature in Tuesday's paper.  The headline for Don Lee's story is "Rural towns lure California’s remote workers with cash, child care and other relocation perks."  Here's the lede, which addresses Californians:   

What will it take for you to leave California for Indiana?

Start with $5,000 to $7,500 in relocation cash. If that’s not enough, how about free health insurance for a year, unlimited golf club membership, a seat on the community’s nonprofit board?

* * *  

Across the Hoosier state, dozens of counties and cities are practically stepping over each other in what has become the new competition across the land: attracting the pandemic-enlarged horde of people with remote jobs who no longer feel the need to live in more expensive urban centers like Los Angeles or New York.

The Indiana place featured most prominently in the story is Noblesville, an upscale suburb of Indianapolis and, with a population of 70,000 and ranked the 10th largest city in Indiana, hardly rural at all.  

On the other hand, sometimes the incentives come from more accurately rural places and leverage quintessentially local perks, as in Poplar Bluff, Missouri (population 16,225), which offers stays at vacation cabins in the nearby Ozark mountains, "among 17 incentives valued at $11,000."  Lee's story quotes the city's manager, 

I think we have a lot to offer....Our cost of living is low.  Rural America is attractive to some people. It takes me five minutes to get to work every morning, and that’s if I’m not in a hurry.

So far, however, no one has applied to take advantage of the Poplar Bluff offer.  

Still, broadly speaking, the incentive programs are working:  In just the last two years, some 22,000 people have applied for incentives in Indiana through Indianapolis-based MakeMyMove, which "helps cities across the U.S. recruit remote workers."