This article presented some interesting metrics regarding Oklahoma cities and towns to digest. It's about America's most miserable cities which I rarely take time to read data from a negative view but there's good data to mine here and try and figure out where Tulsa is lacking amongst others in state. While Tulsa has grown 2.2% since 2010, OKC has grown by 11.9% and averages about $5000/year higher median income. Also from the article: Moore has grown 12.7%, Edmond almost 15%, Norman by 11.3%, and Broken Arrow by 10.5%. BA's average median income is $70K, $26K higher than Tulsa. There's no mention of Jenks, Sapulpa, or Owasso in the study so no idea about their growth vs. Tulsa and the OKC area.
OKC
and it's suburbs are growing at more than 10% each. I can't imagine that OKC's school system is vastly superior to Tulsa's which is the #1 reason given as to why people move to Tulsa's suburbs, rather than to Tulsa. So OKC's growth is still slightly behind three of it's major suburbs but not by much. For as long as I can remember, Tulsa's been stuck in this negligible growth pattern, at least 30 years.
Why is this? What is the OKC metro doing which is so vastly different? Geographically speaking, Tulsa is a far more compelling place with beautiful rolling hills, access to beautiful lakes within 90 minutes or less, great urban spaces, and is much closer to NW Arkansas for quick weekend getaways, etc. OKC is flat and sprawling, I've never been enamored with it. Bricktown always seemed just a bit contrived to me. It seems from a sense of natural resources and recreation that Tulsa should be leading in growth and attracting major employers but it is just not happening. Maybe Pryor had better infrastructure readily in place for Google, but landing a business like that would have been huge for Tulsa and could have been a beacon for other companies like that.
I vacillate constantly about whether or not 5-6% annual growth like Austin, is such a great thing for an area or if Tulsa should be happy it's plodding along slowly. That kind of growth would better justify developments like SFS or the TPAC development but at what price?
Most people I meet from Austin these days are talking about what a shithole it is becoming due to the rapid growth and would love to find a way to get out of there, but the employment picture is great, so they deal with the headaches of a metro growing faster than infrastructure can keep up.
Of course, most contact I have with people from other areas is while they are on vacation and it's natural to idealize what it would be like to live in a small village or ski resort town instead of a sprawling metro area when you are a visitor to such a place. We get a lot of people from DFW, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and all over the Texas Panhandle as well as Tulsa and OKC metros at our inn and brewery and I generally take time to get to know people while they are in our establishments as much as you can in brief bursts of conversation. If I'm tending bar at the brewery, I can get into pretty spirited hour long conversations on a slow day with a guest or three.
Tulsa had explosive growth like Austin is experiencing, to an extent, during the oil boom of the late '70's and early '80's where anything south of roughly 61st Street was maddening to get around in rush hour as that's where all new construction was, but we still had a network of two lane roads without so much as turn lanes at that time.
So here's the data set I was looking at:
https://www.tulsaworld.com/news/local/list-of-miserable-cities-in-america-includes-in-oklahoma/collection_d578ee89-4bfa-5455-8885-b0c7aaa02472.html?utm_source=WhatCountsEmail&utm_medium=NEWS%20-%20Latest%20News&utm_campaign=Latest%20News&utm_content=Latest%20News#7Tulsa:
2018 population: 400,669
Population change from 2010 to 2018 (estimated): 2.2%
Percentage of people working: 65.8%
Median household income: $44,577
Persons without health insurance: 19.8%
Median commute time: 18.4 minutes
Percentage in poverty: 20%
OKC:
2018 population: 649,021
Population change from 2010 to 2018 (estimated): 11.9%
Percentage of people working: 66%
Median household income: $51,581
Persons without health insurance: 18%
Median commute time: 21.3 minutes
Percentage in poverty: 17.1%
Broken Arrow:
2018 population: 109,171
Population change from 2010 to 2018 (estimated): 10.5%
Percentage of people working: 70.4%
Median household income: $70,788
Persons without health insurance: 11.4%
Median commute time: 20.7 minutes
Percentage in poverty: 7.6%