NY Times: OKC Is Booming With Oil and a New Exuberance

[Doug Loudenback]

See American Journeys - Oklahoma City - Reaping the Benefits of the New Oil Boom - NYTimes.com

Oklahoma City Is Booming With Oil and a New Exuberance



Excerpt:
Newcomers to Oklahoma City might at first have a hard time guessing what part of the United States they’re in. A generally flat cityscape and the Chicago-style Art Deco architecture downtown, coupled with the friendly-but-not-too-friendly nods and hellos, hint at the Midwest. Jazz, blues bars and ubiquitous barbecue joints suggest the South. But the wide vistas, blast-furnace winds from the surrounding red-dirt prairie and preponderance of American Indian shops (Oklahoma has 38 sovereign tribes), pickups and cowboy hats indicate that you are indeed in the West.

And a Western kind of audacity pervades, from the 55-foot-tall glass Dale Chihuly sculpture in the Oklahoma City Museum of Art — which boasts the world’s most comprehensive collection of Chihuly’s works — to the exuberant parades and festivals that seem to be a constant. While I was in town, a nationally known local psychedelic band, the Flaming Lips, screened a homemade movie and music extravaganza, “Christmas on Mars,” to a raucous crowd at the deadCENTER Film Festival. At the same time, the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum was hosting a gathering of contemporary Western artists — imagine a group of people resembling the cast of a Sam Peckinpah movie with paintbrushes. There is also a frisson in the air over the news that the city has managed to snag a National Basketball Association franchise, with the SuperSonics moving here from Seattle next season.
* * *
Come to think of it, given that it seems to be having the ride of its life, one could say that about the whole city.

Nice slide show in the article is here: The New Oklahoma City - The New York Times > Travel > Slide Show > Slide 1 of 11

[PennyQuilts]

My son sent that to me. It is very flattering. I don't know that I attribute all of it to oil, they way it at least implies, but it is still a favorable article.

[Doug Loudenback]

I see that there is a good report at Forbes, also:

Okla. cities outpace nation in personal income

Okla. cities outpace nation in personal income - Forbes.com

[Edmond_Outsider]

Oil Boom....I hadn't really thought of us in the midst of an Oil Boom. Perhaps that's because I remember the one in the '80s and everything seems far more sober right now.

I was in college with lots of kids who's families were on the high end of that boom and it seemed way more extreme than what we have now.

Perhaps the high end of the '80s boom was more decentralized. It seems that anybody who had a drink with a Penn Square exec in the early '80s came away with a multi-million dollar line of credit.

Today, the big money seems centered around a few big corporate guys. They are feeding a lot of construction and other economic stimuli, but it seems very different.

For example, I don't think you see 1000 insta-bagillionaires fighting for helicopter pad space at OU football games like in the '80s or every investment bank in the world fighting to loan money for any oil related project.

However, there's no denying that oil putting a lot of money in our economy right now.

Devon and Chesapeake's shadow over our current economy looms large and I worry about what happens when/if they start having problems.

[betts]

I think, ala the bumper sticker, "Please God, give us another oil boom, and I promise I won't blow this one", you're not seeing the ridiculous spending that occurred doing the previous oil boom. The difference between this one and that one is that the first oil boom was an artificial shortage created by the Arab Oil Embargo. This one is related to significant increases in world-wide demand. I'm sure there will be ups and downs of a minor variety, but I don't see demand lessening. Also, Chesapeake is natural gas, so there might be some differences in price fluctuations between the two markets.

[metro]

Great article. I wish the writer could have visited the Chesapeake Boathouse and whatnot.

[OKCMallen]

Terrific article.

[soonerfever]

Anytime you can get a feature in one of the largest newspapers in the country, and its not revolving around bad press, you know something good is going on.

[wsucougz]

Seriously? Who paid for this?

[BDP]

What's really crazy is that, even as comprehensive as the article is, he still missed some things, like MidTown and the Paseo.

As for the oil boom, I agree that it seems a lot more "sober" than what I kind of remember from when I was young. I think the biggest noticeable difference on the street is that it seems a lot more young people have better paying jobs and/or are sticking around than even just 8 years ago when I moved back.

[Pete]

Thanks for sharing that!


I think the biggest difference in this flavor of oil boom is that it's concentrated in a few large companies rather than a ton of smaller and mid-sized ones. I worked in OKC in the early 80's and remember the excesses very well.

Having lived through that (not unlike those that went through the depression) I can't help but worry about some of the large-scale corporate spending now. It's almost all good for OKC but everything in this world is cyclical and I just hope these companies don't have their necks too far out and that OKC as a whole doesn't end up paying the price as well.

[JWil]

Man, between this and and Oklahoma River/regatta park story that made it into the NYTimes, I think that's like two major OKC stories in the NYT in the past year.

[amaesquire]

Here's to hoping the good press keeps on coming...

[FritterGirl]

Seriously? Who paid for this?

If, in asking that, you are inquiring as to who PAID this journalist to write that article, then the answer is "nobody."

If you want to know how it came to pass that OKC got a glowing article in the NYT, then you can thank none other than the efforts of the dutiful staff of our local OKC CVB (Convention and Visitors' Bureau), who hosted the North American Travel Journalists Association at the end of June.

Over 100 travel journalists from across the US, and some from Canada, participated in the three-day event. The journalists visited the entire OKC metro area, including day trips as far as the Arcadia area, and down to Norman.

They focused mostly on the major tourist attractions of downtown OKC, including Bricktown, the Oklahoma River, Memorial, OKCMOA, Myriad Gardens, and then went up to the Adventure District, etc.

I don't recall if a trip to the Paseo District or Mid-Town were a part of the tour. I believe the Paseo was.

The journalists had more or less free rein in how they wanted to organize their trips, signing up for different itineraries that took them to various attractions.

This writer was one of the journalists attending the convention.

[Platemaker]

I've already booked three rooms from out-of-staters today BECAUSE they read this article. None of them have even been to Oklahoma before.

[soonerguru]

Platemaker,

Where do you work? (If it's OK for you to say....)

[Nawfside OKC]

cool article. Oklahoma Were Booming again... come to think of it thats should be the new state motto!

[MartzMimic]

Seriously? Who paid for this?

We Oklahomans paid for this story. We paid for it with perseverance, hard work and a belief that Oklahoma City could be better than it was. We paid for it with our tax dollars, including the upcoming renovations to the Ford Center and a practice facility for our NBA team.

And this is just the start. Once our crosstown expressway is moved to the south in the next few years, Core to Shore will start in earnest. We'll pay for that too, and be damned proud of it.

And you'll still be twittling your thumbs over the viaduct.

[Doug Loudenback]

And you'll still be twittling your thumbs over the viaduct.

I don't get it. What viaduct?

[Dar405301]

i assume that Martz is talking about the Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle

[ksearls]

Why a duck?

[Doug Loudenback]

Why a duck?

When I was a kid, I never could figure out why duck tape was called duck tape!

[wsucougz]

We Oklahomans paid for this story. We paid for it with perseverance, hard work and a belief that Oklahoma City could be better than it was. We paid for it with our tax dollars, including the upcoming renovations to the Ford Center and a practice facility for our NBA team.

And this is just the start. Once our crosstown expressway is moved to the south in the next few years, Core to Shore will start in earnest. We'll pay for that too, and be damned proud of it.

And you'll still be twittling your thumbs over the viaduct.

First off, I'm not a troll, but good guess on the Seattle part. I'm a transplant living in OKC going on 7 years now, so I paid for a lot of this stuff myself. I love it here and am excited about this city, which is why I'm pretty active on this forum and okmet. That being said, it feels a little inappropriate to downplay any of our good press, but this article just struck me as being a bit over the top. I'd also had a few in me at the time. It's a positive thing though nonetheless, so I'll leave it at that.

Secondly, the whole Seattle/OKC message board wars crack me up. Seattle will solve the viaduct issue because they have no choice. Keep in mind that Seattle has nearly completed the first phase of a multi-billion dollar light rail project which goes from Seatac airport to Downtown and includes some rather daunting tunnel work. There is also a bill on the November ballot for a 20 billion dollar phase II extension, taking it out to The University of Washington, across the lake to Microsoft and points further south. Right now OKC can't even figure out how to run two rubber-tire trolley's, so get real. We've come a long way, but the reality is that we're still way behind and need to step it up even more. When we do, I'll be right here chipping in my tax money just like you.

[Laramie]

Doug, great shots!

Someone posted this (NY Times) on the Seattle Times Forum "NBA in Seattle." This was a plus in more ways than one for Oklahoma City.

Can't wait for National Geographic's Attraction to come out with on Monday.

Our image will take time to change. Reputable print from these types of media outlets really help. The NBA will help to boost our true image.

[bornhere]

Part of the reason the new oil boom seems more sober than the eighties boom is that in the eighties, we actually had two booms: the oil boom and the irresponsible banking boom. The irresponsible banking boom was probably bigger, and fueled a lot of the 'helicoptering to the OU game' excess of that era.

By the time the dust had settled, the banking industry in the two big metro areas had pretty much imploded, and the guys who were so free-wheeling with loans were run out of the business (although you might get the impression a lot of them landed at Countrywide and Bear Stearns).