The Decline of Detroit - How To Prevent in OKC?

[Dob Hooligan]

Oklahoma City is on the verge of becoming Detroit if you emphasize the failures of the city and diminish the progress of the city, then frame that progress in a negative context.

I will admit I have gotten to where I automatically assume a long comment left after 9PM is probably a drunken post.

For whatever reason, the longest and angriest posts are usually between 9PM and 5AM, IMO.

[kukblue1]

Wait what have I missed. I like Downtown Detroit. Casinos right there ballpark right there. It's not a bad downtown area at all.

[bison34]

Wait what have I missed. I like Downtown Detroit. Casinos right there ballpark right there. It's not a bad downtown area at all.

They declared bankruptcy, for one.

[PhiAlpha]

This seems like a really dumb decade old thread to resurrect and attempt to relate it to a thriving city.

[Jake]

Was Oklahoma City ever better than it is right now? I'm not originally from here, was there some other peak/prime the city had before now? Seems like it's doing quite well at the moment.

[Mr. Blue Sky]

Another thread resurrected from more than a decade ago and responded to like it was posted yesterday. Yes, Oklahoma City has its share of problems, but NEWS FLASH, every American city has problems. I love Oklahoma City, past and present. I’m even a little more nostalgic than the next guy; but I try really hard to not live in the past and not romanticize everything from my childhood or young adult years. Oklahoma City was different back in the day, no question, but to object to progress, on practically every level, in order to complain about how “things are today” makes for a kind of miserable attitude on a forum like this. So many good things are happening in Oklahoma City right now. That, btw, can’t be said of every American city.

[Plutonic Panda]

I think Detroit is going to experience a Renaissance. They have extremely wealthy suburbs. Much nicer than anything that exist anywhere in Oklahoma. Their downtown is slowly but surely starting to come back. They are removing a freeway which I’m not quite sure how I feel about it but it’s I-375. We’ll see how that goes.

I don’t see how there’s any comparison between Detroit and Oklahoma City. If memory serves correctly, Detroit was either the biggest city or one of them in the entire country. There’s a lot of history behind Detroit. I’ve never been to Michigan, but it looks like a beautiful state.

[Snowman]

I think Detroit is going to experience a Renaissance. They have extremely wealthy suburbs. Much nicer than anything that exist anywhere in Oklahoma. Their downtown is slowly but surely starting to come back. They are removing a freeway which I’m not quite sure how I feel about it but it’s I-375. We’ll see how that goes.

I don’t see how there’s any comparison between Detroit and Oklahoma City. If memory serves correctly, Detroit was either the biggest city or one of them in the entire country. There’s a lot of history behind Detroit. I’ve never been to Michigan, but it looks like a beautiful state.

It was never larger than NYC or Chicago, and have to go back like 150 years for it to be larger than LA. It seem unlike even half the other dozen metros larger than it today only passed it in recent decades, and they are much further back if go by city proper population.

[Pete]

Was Oklahoma City ever better than it is right now? I'm not originally from here, was there some other peak/prime the city had before now? Seems like it's doing quite well at the moment.

Now is absolutely, positively the best time OKC has ever seen.

And based on our momentum and pipeline of big commercial projects, the new arena, the Olympics, and our much more diversified economy, the future looks even brighter.

Some will romanticize the late 70s (before the Penn Square Bank and oil bust) but I lived through that time and it was not remotely comparable.

[stlokc]

Comparing Detroit and Oklahoma City is like comparing a stapler to a bag of marshmallows. The cities’ histories, geographies, built environments, economies, political realities etc could not be more different. I have been to Detroit and it has enormous problems and enormous potential. But OKC and Detroit just don’t have meaningful data points in common to make a meaningful comparison between the two.

[cinnamonjock]

Was Oklahoma City ever better than it is right now? I'm not originally from here, was there some other peak/prime the city had before now? Seems like it's doing quite well at the moment.

Depending on your preferences, maybe the 1920s? Good economy, big streetcar and interurban network (with streetcar suburbs), trains to take you to any other city or small town around. Of course, this is true for most cities in the U.S., and reminiscing about any time before the civil rights act is tricky.

[Rover]

Depending on your preferences, maybe the 1920s? Good economy, big streetcar and interurban network (with streetcar suburbs), trains to take you to any other city or small town around. Of course, this is true for most cities in the U.S., and reminiscing about any time before the civil rights act is tricky.

WTH does the civil rights act have to do with anything? I hope you aren't saying what you are saying.

[cinnamonjock]

WTH does the civil rights act have to do with anything? I hope you aren't saying what you are saying.

I'm saying that the civil rights act of 1964 improved a lot of people's lives.

[Rover]

I'm saying that the civil rights act of 1964 improved a lot of people's lives.

Doesn't read that way.

[Dob Hooligan]

^^^^

Moving on, I would think Henry Ford's era of the Model T and the $5 day, through the Post WWII era were the time where Detroit was one of the most important cities on Earth. There were challenges since, but it is resilient.

[Martin]

Doesn't read that way.

please stop. i'm not sure what your issue is... either you lack fundamental reading comprehension skills, or you deliberately mischaracterize users' posts. either way, this is becoming a regular problem for you and it's a distraction.

it's clear what the user was saying... from the standpoint of transportation options, the 1920's could be considered a peak time for the city. however, the user points out that characterizing any point in time prior to the civil rights act as "ideal" can be problematic.

[Martin]

^^^^

Moving on, I would think Henry Ford's era of the Model T and the $5 day, through the Post WWII era were the time where Detroit was one of the most important cities on Earth. There were challenges since, but it is resilient.

i agree with you on the resilience of detroit. while there is still much work to do, the city seems to be on the right trajectory... much positive progress has been made in the past decade.

[CCOKC]

I went to Detroit for the first (and only) time in 2019. I was expecting what I think most people expect and was so very highly impressed. I stayed at a lovely Bed and Breakfast Inn in a quiet neighborhood just to the northwest of downtown by the art museums. The Inn had a shuttle that took us on the short drive down Woodward Street to the Detroit River where I learned a lot of history of the area. Detroit is very walkable. All of the major sports teams' venues are downtown if you like sports. The Fox Theatre and The Fillmore are a block apart if you are into live music. The food was fantastic. The areas north of Detroit are beautiful. Plus, if you like cars, you can take a tour of a working assembly plant where they make Ford F150s. I would go back and spend more time in Detroit anytime.

[PhiAlpha]

Now is absolutely, positively the best time OKC has ever seen.

And based on our momentum and pipeline of big commercial projects, the new arena, the Olympics, and our much more diversified economy, the future looks even brighter.

Some will romanticize the late 70s (before the Penn Square Bank and oil bust) but I lived through that time and it was not remotely comparable.

70s and early 80s were good. Post WWII was pretty good. I think the period from statehood (and the moving of the capital in 1910) through the beginning of the depression probably has a pretty strong argument for being the largest growth and development period for the city, it's hard to top springing up from nothing to being a relatively large, dense modern city in the span of 15-25 years. That said, the time period from the bombing and the opening of the first few MAPS projects (canal, ballpark, arena, river) to today has been such a massive/rapid transformation that it rivals going from empty prairie to urban city in 30 years. One put OKC on the literal map and the other has propelled it onto the national/international stage. It's something that's pretty cool to take stock and think about every once and awhile.

Of course that's all more growth related, in terms of quality and excitement it's certainly hard to envision there being a "better" time to live here than now. The only time period I can directly compare it to from experience is the 90s and by all accounts it sucked pretty hard then (all the way down to OU football).

[Jersey Boss]

Don't forget about Windsor when going to Detroit. Nice city and compliment to Detroit

[Pete]

70s and early 80s were good.

Oil prices peaked in 1980 then started a long, steady fall. I graduated from OU in 1982 and nobody was hiring.

PS Bank completely collapsed in July of '82 and then things got really bad very quickly.

[PhiAlpha]

Oil prices peaked in 1980 then started a long, steady fall. I graduated from OU in 1982 and nobody was hiring.

PS Bank completely collapsed in July of '82 and then things got really bad very quickly.

Yeah, should've specified VERY early 80s lol.

[jn1780]

Someone was wearing their rose colored nostalgia glasses again(You see a lot of these kind of posts at this time of year). These same old timers talk about how they had to walk through an apocalyptic wasteland to get to school.

[Pete]

Someone was wearing their rose colored nostalgia glasses again(You see a lot of these kind of posts at this time of year). These same old timers talk about how they had to walk through an apocalyptic wasteland to get to school.

I am guilty of being very sentimental -- having lots of fond memories -- but absolutely not being nostalgic, i.e. thinking those days were somehow better.

I often say my 80s self is so incredibly jealous of the OKC everyone has now, especially young people. I knew absolutely every place there was to go in the 70s and 80s and while we managed to have fun, it was really, really, really bleak compared to now.

[john60]

Oil prices peaked in 1980 then started a long, steady fall. I graduated from OU in 1982 and nobody was hiring.

PS Bank completely collapsed in July of '82 and then things got really bad very quickly.

My parents are a year younger than you - my dad graduated from OU and stayed in OKC. I am surprised there is not a ripple effect of the size of the "elder millennial" population in OKC based on that early 80s downturn - the elder millennials being the kids of those early 80s grads who left the state. There seems to be a pretty big population of 35-40 year olds in OKC today. Had I grown up out of state, I'm sure I would've gone to college in that state (or not in Oklahoma) and probably would not have ended up in OKC after school. Maybe by this logic, the elder millennial population in OKC would be even larger today had the local economy not crashed in the early 80s and driven people away from the state.

And anecdotally, most of my friends who were from out of state but attended OU/OSU returned back to their homes out of state after school, so I don't know that there's been a huge influx of elder millennials from out of state. The stats could be different though.