Come Home to Montana? A Pitch for New Homesteaders

Most local economic development schemes focus on creating jobs. Many offer incentives to startup companies, or try to lure existing companies to relocate.

But a campaign in Montana is turning that on its head. It's not trying to recruit companies but rather employees to come to the sparsely populated state and telecommute.

David Blackburn works for a financial services firm in Jersey City, N.J. He and his wife both have six-figure incomes, but real estate in the New York City area is so expensive that they have to live kind of far from their jobs.

"Every day I get up and put on a suit and get on a train, and it takes about an hour door to door, in the crush of people, in the hot, in the cold," he says. "It wears on you a little bit."

And, once he gets to the office, it's not like he really even has to be there at all.

"Every day I'm working with people in multiple time zones, in multiple countries," Blackburn says. "So, even though I'm physically in the office, I'm essentially telecommuting to where they are."

Blackburn has considered asking if he could do his job from someplace less urban — someplace like Montana.

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