4 Oklahoma cities in Fortune's 100 Best Places to Live 2010

[Spartan]

35 Edmond
67 Stillwater (huh)
70 Norman
81 Broken Arrow

I am surprised Norman is ranked THAT low. Edmond has risen in the polls, though. It seems like Oklahoma has way more cities in the Top 100 this year than average, especially for a state with 3.5 mil people. Peer states seem to have 1 or none.

[Midtowner]

We have more suburban concentrations of wealth I guess. Is that really a great thing?

[Spartan]

Well, depends on what you value. This ranking is obviously much more intended for families than for creative class, and yeah, just about the only state with more ranked cities per capita on here is probably Utah and North Dakota. Considering that a handful of the cities on this list aren't really suburban, and Norman and Stillwater are more classified as college towns, or podunk backwaters in the case of Stillwater--it doesn't necessarily speak to the state of suburbs in Oklahoma. Edmond is always a given, and BA is even though BA is overrated and really not any nicer than Moore.

[SOONER8693]

The Kansas City metro area has 4 all by itself, and all in the top 50. Two on the Kansas side and 2 on the MO side.

[GoThunder]

I am a student at OSU and was quite surprised to see Stillwater on the list. Great school, not a top 100 town...

[onthestrip]

Considering that a handful of the cities on this list aren't really suburban, and Norman and Stillwater are more classified as college towns, or podunk backwaters in the case of Stillwater--

Podunk backwaters, oh my god that is hilarious... Lame, unfunny humor aside, this does seem to be more of a "best place to raise a family" list, and its not surprising at all to see Stillwater make it. Ive heard many residents, former and current, comment on how Stillwater is a great family city. And I totally agree.

[Bunty]

What makes Norman people and fans madder? That Stillwater outranks it by a bit, or that Edmond outranked it by a bunch? Maybe Money Magazine evaluators never heard of "Don't Edmond my Norman."

Interesting that Money put the Stillwater population at 53,000. Stillwater Mayor Bates placed it at 51,000 a couple or so months ago.

[venture]

I love you people who obsess over these polls. Always a fun read. :-P

[Andrew4OU]

Uhmm. How did Norman drop from #6 all the way to #70 in just two years?

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/money...PL4052500.html

[skyrick]

Uhmm. How did Norman drop from #6 all the way to #70 in just two years?

Multiple BCS chokes?

[okcpulse]

35 Edmond
67 Stillwater (huh)
70 Norman
81 Broken Arrow

I am surprised Norman is ranked THAT low. Edmond has risen in the polls, though. It seems like Oklahoma has way more cities in the Top 100 this year than average, especially for a state with 3.5 mil people. Peer states seem to have 1 or none.

3.7 million live in Oklahoma. Sorry, but I have to nit-pick when it comes to listing the latest and greatest stats

[pickles]

podunk backwaters in the case of Stillwater

Unless things have changed, I recall Stillwater being the state's most educated and ethnically diverse city, per capita. With low crime rates, good public shools and affordable housing, it seems an unsurprising addition to this list.

You may have spent too much time on sports-oriented message boards, sharing time with people who have never ventured 20 miles beyond the city limits of Ardmore, Ada or Clinton.

[adaniel]

podunk backwaters in the case of Stillwater

Unless things have changed, I recall Stillwater being the state's most educated and ethnically diverse city, per capita. With low crime rates, good public shools and affordable housing, it seems an unsurprising addition to this list.

You may have spent too much time on sports-oriented message boards, sharing time with people who have never ventured 20 miles beyond the city limits of Ardmore, Ada or Clinton.

Whoa there...don't get me wrong, I actually like Stillwater and I'm an OU grad. Its probably only one of a couple of small towns I would actually live in OK. But ethnically diverse? Isn't Stillwater like 83% white (vs. 60 ish percent for the US)? And highly educated? Edmond has both Norman and Stillwater beat in terms of people with their bachelors, and it would surprise me if one of the smaller Tulsa suburbs is higher than that.

Like I said Stillwater is a neat little town, but its still in Payne County. Lets not get carried away.

[Bunty]

Whoa there...don't get me wrong, I actually like Stillwater and I'm an OU grad. Its probably only one of a couple of small towns I would actually live in OK. But ethnically diverse? Isn't Stillwater like 83% white (vs. 60 ish percent for the US)? And highly educated? Edmond has both Norman and Stillwater beat in terms of people with their bachelors, and it would surprise me if one of the smaller Tulsa suburbs is higher than that.

If you haven't already seen it, there's a lot of stuff on Stillwater at: http://www.city-data.com/city/Stillwater-Oklahoma.html

[OKCisOK4me]

3.7 million live in Oklahoma. Sorry, but I have to nit-pick when it comes to listing the latest and greatest stats

Is this the 2000 census count or a rough estimate?

[pickles]

And highly educated? Edmond has both Norman and Stillwater beat in terms of people with their bachelors, and it would surprise me if one of the smaller Tulsa suburbs is higher than that.

Like I said Stillwater is a neat little town, but its still in Payne County. Lets not get carried away.

You are incorrect. 48 percent of Stillwater residents hold at least a bachelors degree. 47.8 percent of Edmond residents can claim the same, while Norman is currently at 39.8 percent.

[Spartan]

I have nothing against Stillwater, one of my favorite little local stores in the state is the Stillwater Summit Company. They have a very cool scene up there. But let's get real...it's the most isolated Big 12 college town and the only one that doesn't even have a small airport with commercial service, and Stillwater is not Edmond or Jenks..

Apparently they have Wal-Mart, I'm not sure what else they have. I'll bet the college is a good demographic for retailers though. Does anyone know if Stillwater capitalizes on the knowledge-based demographic for tech industries like Norman?

[Bunty]

Oklahoma Tech Park http://www.oktechpark.com/ has been established to try to move Stillwater away from being a blue collar college town. But its ambitious claims for attracting new jobs to Stillwater in coming years have been cut by 50%. Something like this was needed to deal with Stillwater being forced to become less of a blue collar college town from lay offs and plant closures.

No, Stillwater isn't the most isolated city in the Big 12, due to its fairly close proximity to Oklahoma City and Tulsa. It surely helps explain why Stillwater doesn't have passenger air service. Look at Manhattan, KS. It's over 100 miles away from Kansas City, MO. Columbia, MO, from being in the middle of Missouri, is also over a 100 miles away from large metro areas.

Stillwater doesn't have A Wal-Mart. It has two of them. Best Buy recently opened. And Target may quit stalling one of these days.

[mugofbeer]

35 Edmond
67 Stillwater (huh)
70 Norman
81 Broken Arrow

I am surprised Norman is ranked THAT low. Edmond has risen in the polls, though. It seems like Oklahoma has way more cities in the Top 100 this year than average, especially for a state with 3.5 mil people. Peer states seem to have 1 or none.

I don't know if it is still this way but when I was in college a million years ago I stayed the summers and worked in downtown Norman. On Friday evenings the mental hospital used to release a number of patients to roam the area for the weekend. Sunday evening they were all supposed to head back to the hospital. The point is, if this is still the practice, downtown Norman may have an inordinate number of transient, homeless types that could detract from it's quality of life.

When the time comes for me to move back to OK, Norman will definitely be on my list to look at. This last brief time around it didn't even cross my mind but it will in the future.

[Spartan]

Well, the thing going against them is just the culture there. If you went to school in Norman like I did, Stillwater just has such a ... backwaters feel to it. OU students sometimes need to be reminded that they DO NOT go to school at SMU, so they should stop acting like it. OSU just feels much less cultured, much less happening, a lot less hip.. not to mention in appearance it is just more similar to UCO than OU. Very little landscaping, the "cool" area which is The Strip seemed to be geared towards rednecks and drunks, and less sense of place that you just get around OU.

I guess that's my explanation for the "huh?" comment I left next to Stillwater. I recognize that it is a great school with a huge list of prominent alumni, and that in terms of pride and tradition they are certainly on the same level as OU. I just don't think Stillwater feels like a nice college town, like Norman, Athens, Fayetteville, Lawrence, Boulder, etc. I think Stillwater seems to be thumbing their nose at those "hoity toity" places and probably prides themselves on being different from those kinds of places. That's great for them, but they lose points AND RESPECT in my book. That's just the way it is, a town that lacks good aesthetics is just an ugly town to me, and that's the way it is.

[okcpulse]

Is this the 2000 census count or a rough estimate?

2000 Census count was 3,450,654. In 2009, the estimate was 3,687,000+. I'm sure by July 2010 that has surpassed 3.7 million. The actual census counts for 2010 won't be released until next year, so right now the best source of data is the annual July estimate released from the U.S. Census Bureau.

[BG918]

Is Stillwater more connected to Tulsa or OKC? They are about the same distance apart (64 miles from downtown Stillwater to downtown OKC vs. 62 miles to downtown Tulsa) but I've always felt Tulsa seemed more connected to OSU with their Tulsa campus and OSU Medical Center.

Norman is a great city, I wonder why they dropped so much from just a couple years ago.

[Bunty]

I am a student at OSU and was quite surprised to see Stillwater on the list. Great school, not a top 100 town...

Why? Because there's no cool place to shop and eat? No enclosing shopping mall, you know. And because Boomer Lake is a pretty sorry excuse for a city park?

[Bunty]

Well, the thing going against them is just the culture there. If you went to school in Norman like I did, Stillwater just has such a ... backwaters feel to it. OU students sometimes need to be reminded that they DO NOT go to school at SMU, so they should stop acting like it. OSU just feels much less cultured, much less happening, a lot less hip.. not to mention in appearance it is just more similar to UCO than OU. Very little landscaping, the "cool" area which is The Strip seemed to be geared towards rednecks and drunks, and less sense of place that you just get around OU.

So lower the drinking age to 18 and OSU, can take back the strip from the drunks and rednecks, ah, or at least the rednecks, maybe, LOL

[venture]

Norman is a great city, I wonder why they dropped so much from just a couple years ago.

Probably didn't pay enough to the sponsors of the poll. :-P