(Hope I'm putting this in the right section.)

So I moved back to OKC this January after being gone 15 years. The original MAPS was just getting started then, and so much has changed since then! It feels like a completely different city from the one I grew up in.

But OKC still has a pretty bad inferiority complex. When telling people I moved back, they get real confused. It's as though they can't believe anyone would choose to move here. And they're doubly confused that anyone one choose to move back.

And then they ask, with all the doubt and hesitation they can muster, "How do you like it here?" They seem to think I'm just being nice when I tell them I'm glad to be back.

I also hear people say that OKC is still two or three years behind the rest of the country (it's not, not that I can tell). And behind every positive thing they say abou OKC, there's an unspoken parenthesis. "Yeah, downtown has improved a lot (well, by Oklahoma standards.)."

What's it going to take for OKC to get over this inferiority complex? The city is hardly touched by the recession (compared to where I used to live), the Thunder almost made it to the final round, and we're building one of the best downtowns in the country, especially if we can get that streetcar built. What's to be ashamed of? What's it going to take for people to be proud of OKC, without apology?