G. Walker, I thought you moved to Moore?

I think Norman is doing quite a bit in terms of economic development. It may not be as well known but it is there.

I actually don't disagree with ou48's statement that Norman can be a bit hard to do business with. I've dealt with it first hand. IMO that's the biggest reason a lot of retail development deflected to Moore.

But since we are talking about high paying jobs, are you familar with the CCEW through OU? There have been several startups that have come from this, and one of my fraternity brothers is actually a CEO of a nanotech company that was started by the CCEW and a team of OUHSC researchers. Sure most of these comapnies probably only have 4-5 employees but these are jobs that have a lot of future potential and probably won't bail to a neighboring state the minute some tax incentives are dangled out in front of it.

I also know that both Astellas and Hitachi expanded their workforce over the past year and a half as well.

All small stuff here and there, very organic-type growth, but over time it adds up. Its important to note that the vast majority of growth in Norman has come from people who work in OKC. So there's litte net benefit to Norman to convince an OKC company to plop down a huge corporate campus out in some corn field.

A 15 story office building was planned off of West Lindsey some time ago (I was still at OU, so it was before 2009). Obviously the ship for speculative office space anywhere sailed the minute Lehman Brothers crashed. I HATE the stupid little "garden offices" that have popped up all over suburban OKC, but they are very attractive and affordable to small firms that would be attracted to Norman.