Move to Berrien County, Michigan, for the Beaches—And the $15,000

Berrien County, Michigan, is not the kind of place you would expect to be losing residents. Perched on the coast of Lake Michigan, “the Hamptons of the Midwest” is widely known for its sandy beaches and vineyards, which draw plenty of tourists from nearby Chicago and Indianapolis. But the county hasn’t yet persuaded those tourists to stay, and its population has been declining since the 1970s. So last year, Rob Cleveland, the leader of a regional economic-development organization, got creative. If you’re a remote worker from another state who wants to buy a house and resettle in Berrien, you can apply with Cleveland’s group, the Cornerstone Alliance, and get $10,000 to $15,000.

Since September, when the program launched, more than 2,500 people from all over the country have reached out to express interest in the incentives, Cleveland told me. He connected me with one of them, Jill Urbanski, a longtime Chicago resident who heard about the offer on the radio in October. By the end of February, she had moved to St. Joseph, Michigan, and collected her $10,000. “It made perfect sense,” Urbanski told me. “Everything lined up