My Inside Outsider's Perspective

[y_h]

Hello, OKC. I just got back to St. Louis yesterday and I'm already Oklahomesick! Having visited for the first time in twelve years, I thought it might be interesting to compile some of my thoughts and opinions regarding my perceptions of the area and some of the issues frequently discussed on this board. During the compilation process it quickly became apparent that I had a lot to say. Therefore, rather than post 7 pages of text here, I've opened a blog page with my comments. Feel free to peruse them at your leisure and I am certainly eager for any feedback and thoughts you may have. Please post the feedback here, however, not on the blog itself. That way everyone can see the responses without having to continue to go back to the blog. It's there purely for the sake of saving space here.

yhokcblog

I've put a bunch of disclaimers on the site itself but I will reiterate once more that this was done as a labor of love and is in no way meant to be critical (in a negative sense) or judgmental. If it comes off that way nonetheless, I apologize profusely and beg forgiveness.

yh

[Easy180]

Very nicely written y_h...Nice to get some perspective from someone who hasn't visited OKC in many years

The Blazers should do much better when high school, OU and OSU football ends..They are still up near the top in league attendance I believe

[Spartan]

Wow you went all out on those posts. Very well written, thanks for that.

[stlokc]

YH,
Thank you for the excellent post on our hometown. I too am an OKC "expatriate" living in St. Louis (Rock Hill). Seems we left about the same time, I went to college at Mizzou in 1992.

If someone were to ask me the biggest differences between OKC and STL, I would tell them that:

People in OKC are more optimistic than people in STL. If you went to downtown STL and asked 10 people to be brutally honest, "Are St. Louis's best days as a city relative to the rest of the country in front of it, or behind it, they would have to say "behind it." STL will never again be as dominant a player as it used to be. No old, industrial city is. If you went to OKC and asked the same question, they would say the opposite. OKC is gaining on the cities in the middle (KC, Indy, etc.) STL is at best holding it's own.

There is much more potential for upward social mobility in OKC. In STL it's all about where you went to high school, who your family is. It is much harder to establish yourself without some kind of long pedigree. If I were ever inclined to try to join a premier country club in STL, which I'm not, it would probably never happen, even though I have lots of "old school" STL friends. Country clubs are a silly example, but this translates into a general atitude here.

What STL has that OKC doesn't is a true urban ethic. It is possible to live in a 20 story condo, take the train to work, dine at different locally-owned restaurants every day of the year. STL also has an appreciation for education and culture that OKC sometimes struggles with. The proportion of people that go to the symphony, art museums, or even are members of book clubs has to be far higher in STL in OKC.

STL also has jobs. This can not be overstated. It's not just the presence of more, and more diverse, Fortune 500 HQ. It's everything that goes with it: big ad agencies, Big 4 accounting firms, larger law firms, better hospitals, more industry, etc. If OKC had more of these types of jobs, I might possibly move home. Since OKC is flush with money right now due to oil/gas, and flush with optimism, this is the exact time to be focused on such recruitment.

Someone at work asked me recently: Do you think Oklahoma City will ever surpass St. Louis? I don't know, but the chances are infnitely greater than they were 10 years ago.

Anyway, thanks for the post.

[Karried]

Excellent read.. thank you for taking the time to post for us to read..

[floater]

There is much more potential for upward social mobility in OKC.

I agree, and economic development-wise, this a great quality attractive to newcomers. You can come in and start making a difference...except when downtown development is concerned.

It's not just the presence of more, and more diverse, Fortune 500 HQ. It's everything that goes with it: big ad agencies, Big 4 accounting firms, larger law firms, better hospitals, more industry, etc.

Amen. Overreliance on energy and utilities is a major hurdle OKC must clear. Oklahoma Citians need to be starting more businesses capable of growing. It needs a more vigorous entrepreneurial spirit. The more 100+ employee firms there are, the richer (as in substance) individual sectors and their subcontractors will be. We need more people developing ideas/things instead of processing/assembling them. Sorry for the tangent...

[Doug Loudenback]

Outstanding blog post, y_h! And, nicely complimented by yours above, stlokc!

[metro]

Great post. Did you get a chance to check out Midtown and the Asian District? If not you certainly missed out.

[y_h]

Great post. Did you get a chance to check out Midtown and the Asian District? If not you certainly missed out.

We drove through the Asian district a couple of times but didn't take the time to stop anywhere. We missed out on Midtown and the Paseo altogether. Both of our trips got cut a bit short - my friend had some last minute church obligations that put him back on a plane at 8 a.m. Sunday morning and I booked an earlier flight out in order to get out ahead of the forecasted storms. Thus we lost out on about 6 hours of tourist time that we previously thought we were going to have.

We're planning to revisit in '08 - quite possibly spring when we can catch a Redhawks homestand and hopefully a Blazer playoff game or two. The plan is to stay at the Skirvin or Colcord and spend more time in the Arts District. By then I'm hoping that there's even more to see and do in Automobile Alley and Midtown, not to mention seeing how everything else has grown over the span of another two years.