Oklahoma City Economic Reports

[gopokes88]

A metro area with 800 billion gdp isn’t going to have a 800 billion gdp from two slices of a pie or three slices. It’s gonna have a big pie with a lot of slices. Some slices bigger than others, but a lot of slices none the less.

That was my indirect point without outright stating it.

That’s not necessarily true. 1 in 6 jobs in NYC and 35% of all wages are in finance. That’s a very large slice of a pie.

[Plutonic Panda]

TThe seven university professors who conducted the research stated the methodology that they used to get the results that they got. If you dismiss their results it is not absurd to ask how you arrived at a different result.

Data can be easily spun by anyone. It doesn’t matter if they’re university professors. There is just no way that El Paso is more diverse than Dallas. Like Josh said, if you believe than please PM and I’ll sell you a bridge in the North Pole.

[josh]

And a smaller pie with more slices will have more slices.

The number of the economic value has zero to do with how diversified that economy is.
They measured diversity by how diverse the employment sector is, not by profits.

Again, LA is such a huge economy that there are more micro slices in that pie than there are probably overall slices in a single state pie including OK. Seriously, this is just absurd.

I’m seriously trying to justify that LA has a more diverse economy than El Paso, Corpus, Bakersfield, Virginia Beach, Oklahoma City, Sacramento.

[josh]

TThe seven university professors who conducted the research stated the methodology that they used to get the results that they got. If you dismiss their results it is not absurd to ask how you arrived at a different result.

Those seven professors didn’t conduct the study. They just answered economic questions asked by WalletHub. It was the staff at WalletHub that came up with the ranking and methodology.

[josh]

That’s not necessarily true. 1 in 6 jobs in NYC and 35% of all wages are in finance. That’s a very large slice of a pie.

In 2014, 1 in 5 jobs in OKC was in the oil and gas industry. That’s an even bigger slice of a much smaller pie compared to NYC. I doubt that number has changed much in three and a half or so years.

[Thomas Vu]

Data can be easily spun by anyone. It doesn’t matter if they’re university professors. There is just no way that El Paso is more diverse than Dallas. Like Josh said, if you believe than please PM and I’ll sell you a bridge in the North Pole.

I think what RodH is trying to say is if you performed the experiment with their measurements and methodology, you should explain how you arrived at a different result than they did.

[d-usa]

Well, in a contest between a questionable website with a published methodology and finding, and people on a local website who simply say "nope", even the click-bait site might be a more reliable source.

[Plutonic Panda]

I think what RodH is trying to say is if you performed the experiment with their measurements and methodology, you should explain how you arrived at a different result than they did.

I need to look over what methods they used to find these results. I just don’t want to spend my time trying to disprove that Lawton has a more diverse economy than LA.

[stlokc]

I haven’t looked at all the metrics but I find it hard to believe that 1 in 5 jobs in OKC is in the oil and gas industry. I’ve actually seen the number 3 percent quoted somewhere, maybe even in this thread.

But really, the sheer number of jobs isn’t as important. There are probably more fast food, call center and Wal-Mart workers in OKC than anything else if you’re just looking at types of employers. It’s really more about the jobs that pay a substantial amount and that drive the follow-on industries, like professional services. The thing that makes corporate HQ jobs valuable over the same number of jobs in another type of business is the fact that corporate HQ spread influence around in their home cities in advertising agency work, insurance, accounting, legal etc. Not to mention the work with local nonprofits etc. What OKC needs are more diversified bigger companies in different kinds of industries.

[T. Jamison]

The size of the economy has nothing to do with the diversity. It's about how the employment is spread among different industries. They just measured the dispersion of overall civilian employment within municipal boundaries between the different industry classifications (NAICS). They used Census data, and I doubt WalletHub has a pro-OKC agenda and therefore ranked OKC (#7) over L.A. (#8). It seem pretty legit to me. I just did a down and dirty calculation from preliminary February 2018 BLS data, and it showed that the standard deviation of the OKC labor force vs L.A. is relatively similar. L.A. is 6.09% and OKC is 6.11%

[josh]

The size of the economy has nothing to do with the diversity. It's about how the employment is spread among different industries. They just measured the dispersion of overall civilian employment within municipal boundaries between the different industry classifications (NAICS). They used Census data, and I doubt WalletHub has a pro-OKC agenda and therefore ranked OKC (#7) over L.A. (#8). It seem pretty legit to me. I just did a down and dirty calculation from preliminary February 2018 BLS data, and it showed that the standard deviation of the OKC labor force vs L.A. is relatively similar. L.A. is 6.09% and OKC is 6.11%

So, El Paso is more diverse than OKC? Corpus Christi as well? Alrighty then.

[d-usa]

So, El Paso is more diverse than OKC? Corpus Christi as well? Alrighty then.

Other than "bigger cities are bigger" or "richer cities are richer", have you made any kind of actual argument about diversity?

[josh]

Other than "bigger cities are bigger" or "richer cities are richer", have you made any kind of actual argument about diversity?

Again, you can simplify my point all you want. If you trust and believe in the methodology of this ranking, then El Paso and Corpus Christi, both have more diverse economies than Oklahoma City.

Is that something you accept or believe? Yes or no?

[d-usa]

I haven’t really heard any argument why that couldn’t be the case.

[josh]

I haven’t really heard any argument why that couldn’t be the case.

Then there you go. You believe Corpus Christi and El Paso are more diverse economically than Oklahoma City.

Out of sheer curiosity, is there any one else who agrees with d-usa?

[d-usa]

Why do you think Oklahoma City is more diverse than those cities?

[josh]

Why do you think Oklahoma City is more diverse than those cities?

It shouldn’t matter what I think. You think the rankings are correct. I’ve stated multiple times in this thread what I believe and why I believe it. I’m not rehashing it. I’ll respect your opinion.

[Urbanized]

josh, I want to ask you a question. This is an honest question, not meant to be an attack. I’m simply curious. I’m sure you recall we engaged the other day regarding retail incentives and it was a testy exchange. For the record this isn’t an extension of that, though you correcting my confusing you with the guy who posts about Dallas DID cause me to go look at your posting history.

First, let me say I mostly agree with you that the stats for this diversity thing seems weird. I’ve spent a ton of time in both Corpus and Dallas (and plenty in San Antonio, and Houston, and even a bit in LA) and agree that Corpus is not as diverse as OKC, while OKC is not as diverse as Dallas, etc.

But my question is this: what drives your visits to OKCTalk? Are you connected to OKC in some way? I ask because of this: when I looked at your posts I saw almost exclusively posts about San Antonio development (which by the way I personally enjoy and appreciate, though I mostly usually just skim them lightly). I like posts showing developments in other cities because it reminds us that we aren’t the only ones doing the development thing, the downtown thing, etc.. It also shows us the standards by which we should measure our own development.

I don’t know what would motivate me to go put OKC stuff on another city’s discussion site, but I’m glad you and others rep your cities here.

The thing that struck me though, was that pretty much every single post that DOESN’T promote San Antonio development seems to be to run down OKC in some way, or at least to provide needles to the optimistic balloons of posters here. There admittedly are few; you rarely interact outside of the SA thread. But the others are posts like in this thread, or saying things like (paraphrased) “no way OKC hits those census projections,” or “the Thunder has no shot to beat those teams,” etc.. I just skimmed, but saw no examples of “wow that’s a great building,” or “hey, congrats on that announcement!”

So again I ask, what’s the motivation? Do you just not care for OKC? And if that’s the case, why bother coming here? I’m genuinely interested.

[Plutonic Panda]

Can someone that is knowledgeable in data analyzing shine some light here? I will not accept the fact that El Paso is the most diverse city in Texas by this list. Are there any other sources that have claimed this besides Wallethub?

Here is their methodology:

Methodology
In order to identify the most diversified local economies, WalletHub’s analysts compared 501 of the most populated U.S. cities — limiting each state to no more than 10 cities each - across three key metrics, which are listed below with their corresponding weights and subcomponents. Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most economic diversity.

We conducted our analysis using the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index method, which is a commonly accepted measure of market concentration that also works effectively as a general-purpose measure of diversity.

Our sample considers only the city proper in each case and excludes cities in the surrounding metro area. Each city was categorized according to the following population-size guidelines:

Large cities: More than 300,000 residents
Midsize cities: 100,000 to 300,000 residents
Small cities: Fewer than 100,000 residents
We then calculated the total score for each city based on its weighted average across all metrics and used the resulting scores to construct our final ranking.

Maybe that is the cause just by going off of city proper but it still seems like a stretch.

This is the Herfindahl-Hirschman Index method:

Herfindahl-Hirschman Index Example Calculations
The HHI is calculated by taking the market share of each firm in the industry, squaring them, and summing the result:

HHI = s1^2 + s2^2 + s3^2 + ... + sn^2 (where s is the market share of the each firm expressed as a whole number, not a decimal)

Consider the following hypothetical industry with four total firms:

Firm one market share = 40%

Firm two market share = 30%

Firm three market share = 15%

Firm four market share = 15%

The HHI is calculated as:

HHI = 40^2 + 30^2 + 15^2 + 15^2 = 1,600 + 900 + 225 + 225 = 2,950

This is considered a highly concentrated industry, as expected since there are only four firms. But the number of firms in an industry does not necessarily indicate anything about market concentration, which is why calculating the HHI is important. For example, assume an industry has 20 firms. Firm one has a market share of 48.59% and each of the 19 remaining firms have a market share of 2.71% each. The HHI would exactly 2,500, indicating a highly concentrated market. If firm number one had a market share of 35.82% and each of the remaining firms had 3.38% market share, the HHI would be exactly 1,500, indicating a competitive market place.

Read more: Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI) https://www.investopedia.com/terms/h...#ixzz5CKSJGiLL

I am horrible at math so it is hard for me look at that and fully understand it but I will admit I'm not looking too much into it. At the same, it is very easy to spin numbers around and create click bait articles and misleading information. It just boils down to common sense whether OKC is more diverse than LA. As Josh stated, there are industries in LA that the state OKC is in doesn't even have. LA has every industry OKC has I'm sure. I bet there's probably even some oil companies in LA but I by my life on that one. Other than that, point to me an industry that exists in OKC but doesn't in LA.

[Plutonic Panda]

I don’t know what would motivate me to go put OKC stuff on another city’s discussion site, but I’m glad you and others rep your cities here.

I want to say to this I post about OKC on Skyscraper Page and Skyscraper City though I haven't updated those threads in awhile I will soon. I stopped posting on City Data because there are trolls on that forum, one is a member here but I won't go into detail any further, and they constantly bash OKC and Oklahoma to extents I find completely unreasonable which might be shocking to some here. I used to post on DFWu on occasion and was considering updating the OKC thread they had but I didn't like their new update.

[Urbanized]

Yeah PluPan, I get going and repping your city on a building porn site. I can’t imagine taking the time to do so, but I get feeling the need to not have your own city left out of the conversation. I also get posting in a forum of a city where you have lived previously even after moving on. We have a ton of posters like that, and I’m glad they like to keep their finger on OKC’s pulse, and to continue to cheer us on from afar (most of them, anyway).

Just don’t get the desire to go to another city’s forum to run it down or to keep people in that city from feeling TOO good about themselves. It strikes me as odd. I’m not going to go to an Amarillo forum to post OKC development news, and I’m DEFINITELY not going there to dog Amarillo.

[josh]

josh, I want to ask you a question. This is an honest question, not meant to be an attack. I’m simply curious. I’m sure you recall we engaged the other day regarding retail incentives and it was a testy exchange. For the record this isn’t an extension of that, though you correcting my confusing you with the guy who posts about Dallas DID cause me to go look at your posting history.

First, let me say I mostly agree with you that the stats for this diversity thing seems weird. I’ve spent a ton of time in both Corpus and Dallas (and plenty in San Antonio, and Houston, and even a bit in LA) and agree that Corpus is not as diverse as OKC, while OKC is not as diverse as Dallas, etc.

But my question is this: what drives your visits to OKCTalk? Are you connected to OKC in some way? I ask because of this: when I looked at your posts I saw almost exclusively posts about San Antonio development (which by the way I personally enjoy and appreciate, though I mostly usually just skim them lightly). I like posts showing developments in other cities because it reminds us that we aren’t the only ones doing the development thing, the downtown thing, etc.. It also shows us the standards by which we should measure our own development.

I don’t know what would motivate me to go put OKC stuff on another city’s discussion site, but I’m glad you and others rep your cities here.

The thing that struck me though, was that pretty much every single post that DOESN’T promote San Antonio development seems to be to run down OKC in some way, or at least to provide needles to the optimistic balloons of posters here. There admittedly are few; you rarely interact outside of the SA thread. But the others are posts like in this thread, or saying things like (paraphrased) “no way OKC hits those census projections,” or “the Thunder has no shot to beat those teams,” etc.. I just skimmed, but saw no examples of “wow that’s a great building,” or “hey, congrats on that announcement!”

So again I ask, what’s the motivation? Do you just not care for OKC? And if that’s the case, why bother coming here? I’m genuinely interested.

I’m a member on multiple cities forums and post there as well. It’s not exclusively to this forum or any other forum. I just post my opinion, if someone agrees or disagrees with it, so be it.

I’m not sure how you’ve come to the conclusion that I tend to run down OKC in my non-San Antonio comments.

In the incentives thread, I made a claim based on my own personal knowledge, funny enough, about Corpus and El Paso that I then had to defend even though my claim was in response to a claim Pete made about California cities not having to incentivize CostCo and his claim wasn’t scrutinized like mine was. I felt a bit targeted in that thread tbh,

Besides that, in this thread my issue is with the website, its flawed methodology and the ranking. Again, the only cities I’m “running down”, if you’d call it that, are Corpus and El Paso, because I’m very familiar with those two places. Moreso than probably anyone on this forum.

With that said, any OKC discussion I have is from an outside unbiased point of view. If some of the things I say bother you, I apologize, but I don’t say anything with malicious intent. Nor do I think have I ever.

[d-usa]

For what it's worth, here is the percentage breakdown for different industries for the LA area and the Oklahoma City area from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:


https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ok_oklahomacity_msa.htm


https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ca_losan...ngeles_msa.f.3

And that's about a rough estimation of the methodology used by this study.

[Urbanized]

...I’m not sure how you’ve come to the conclusion that I tend to run down OKC in my non-San Antonio comments...

In the incentives thread... ...my claim was in response to a claim Pete made about California cities not having to incentivize CostCo and his claim wasn’t scrutinized like mine was. I felt a bit targeted in that thread tbh...

...With that said, any OKC discussion I have is from an outside unbiased point of view. If some of the things I say bother you, I apologize, but I don’t say anything with malicious intent. Nor do I think have I ever.

Like I said, my impression was purely based on doing a quick once-over of your posts. Maybe 95% San Antonio development posts (which I said I personally appreciate) and maybe 5% disputing/dismissing positive posts about OKC. Not much else.

Regarding incentives, you feeling targeted and feeling like Pete gets a pass underscores my impression that you don’t spend much time in other threads on the forum. I take Pete to task CONSTANTLY on the topic of incentives, TIF, etc. And he gives it right back. It’s a running theme on this board, probably to the point of annoyance for many readers. And then, by the way, we often adjourn to have a beer IRL and talk about life.

Sorry if you felt targeted; it wasn’t personal. It’s just that your info - at least the way I (and others) read it - was egregiously and provably inaccurate. I feel pretty driven to keep the incentives conversation honest since it usually swings pretty far in one direction here.

As far as apologizing about something bothering me or anyone else, no need at all to do that. That is, unless you INTEND to bother people with your comments, in which case an apology wouldn’t be sincere anyway. You do you. Like I said, I personally enjoy the SA updates if nothing else. I was just interested in your motivation, and it seems you answered that question, so thanks.

[Plutonic Panda]

For what it's worth, here is the percentage breakdown for different industries for the LA area and the Oklahoma City area from the Bureau of Labor Statistics:


https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ok_oklahomacity_msa.htm


https://www.bls.gov/eag/eag.ca_losan...ngeles_msa.f.3

And that's about a rough estimation of the methodology used by this study.

The first issue I see with that is OKC is being compared to the LA area, not the city proper which is what the list included. I only noticed that after farming representing 10% of jobs in Los Angeles. I can't even read what the blue but I hope its entertainment because that should be on this pie chart somewhere if we're talking about LA Proper.