OKC gets low marks in recent study on sprawl

[Pete]

Study just released by Smart Growth America shows 73% of the Metropolitan Statistical Areas of the U.S. have less sprawl than Oklahoma City.

http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/do...prawl-2014.pdf

Measuring “sprawl”
This study analyzed development in 193 census-defined Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSAs)—or metro areas—as well as 28 census-defined Metropolitan Divisions, which comprise MSAs, in the largest 11 MSAs. All of the analyzed areas had at least 200,000 people in 2010. MSAs with populations less than 200,000 people were not included in the study. This study also analyzed development in 994 metropolitan counties.


The four factors
Development in both MSAs and metropolitan counties was evaluated using four main factors: 1) development density; 2) land use mix; 3) activity centering; and 4) street accessibility. These factors are briefly explained below.2


Development density
Development density is measured by combining six major factors: 1) total density of the urban and suburban census tracts; 2) percent of the population living in low-density suburban areas; 3) percent of the population living in medium- to high-density areas; 4) urban density within total built-upon land; 5) the relative concentration of density around the center of the MSA; and 6) employment density.

Land use mix
Land use mix is also measured through a combination of factors: the balance of jobs to total population and mix of job types within one mile of census block groups, plus the WalkScore of the center of each census tract.

Activity centering
The proportion of people and businesses located near each other is also a key variable to define an area. Activity centering is measured by looking at the range of population and employment size in different block groups. MSAs with greater variation (i.e., a wider difference between blocks with a high population and a low one) have greater centering. This factor also includes a measure of how quickly population density declines from the center of the MSA, and the proportion of jobs and people within the MSA’s central business district and other employment centers.

Street accessibility
Street accessibility is measured by combining a number of factors regarding the MSA’s street network. The factors are average length of street block; average block size; percent of blocks that are urban in size; density of street intersections; and percent of four-way or more intersections, which serves as a measure of street connectivity.

Scoring
Researchers used these factors to evaluate development in all 221 MSAs and 994 counties. These four factors are combined in equal weight and controlled for population to calculate each area’s Sprawl Index score. The average index is 100, meaning areas with scores higher than 100 tend to be more compact and connected and areas with scores lower than 100 are more sprawling.

[warreng88]

And we're still behind Tulsa...

[RadicalModerate]

Anytime that I see a foreign survey on Oklahoma City and low marks . . .
I have to wonder just how far up the other end of the digestive tube
said surveyors have their collective heads.

(sorry . . . I saw that episode of the X-Files involving The Fluke Creature . . .
I'm happy he survived to become a remote surveyor.)

[bchris02]

Our "Activity centering" score is what kills OKC in this rating, at least as compared to Tulsa. OKC is a very fragmented city with multiple centers of activity spread far apart from each other.

[PWitty]

I'd be curious to see that list shrunk down to only the 52 largest metros of 1 million+. It really throws the rankings out of perspective when a lot of the metros on the list are much smaller.

[RadicalModerate]

Our "Activity centering" score is what kills OKC in this rating, at least as compared to Tulsa. OKC is a very fragmented city with multiple centers of activity spread far apart from each other.

Prior to reading this analysis of actual reality, I thought I knew what total bullsh!t was.
Thank you for reminding me that I was wrong . . . or at least underinformed.

[Just the facts]

I think the study confirms what we already knew, all this did was quantify it. For example, we already knew OKC has one of the worst connected street networks in the country because in the vast majority of the city all traffic is funneled onto major arterials with almost no connectivity with a 1 sq mile block. If the whole city was built at the block density of the urban core and first ring streetcar suburbs our score would have improved drastically.

[jonathan]

yea this makes sense. Downtown just feels dead to me most of the year.

[mkjeeves]

Our "Activity centering" score is what kills OKC in this rating, at least as compared to Tulsa. OKC is a very fragmented city with multiple centers of activity spread far apart from each other.

Bingo. The base assumptions are fouled up. We have decentralized jobs. No way can we, or would we want to put all our jobs and people in one central location. Best to figure out how to work with what we have rather than attempt to cram our square peg in someone's theoretical round hole.

[Dubya61]

Bingo. The base assumptions are fouled up. We have decentralized jobs. No way can we, or would we want to put all our jobs and people in one central location. Best to figure out how to work with what we have rather than attempt to cram our square peg in someone's theoretical round hole.

I agree. To be honest, though, we have a lot of decentralized jobs because of sprawl, no?

[SoonerDave]

I think the study confirms what we already knew, all this did was quantify it. For example, we already knew OKC has one of the worst connected street networks in the country because in the vast majority of the city all traffic is funneled onto major arterials with almost no connectivity with a 1 sq mile block. If the whole city was built at the block density of the urban core and first ring streetcar suburbs our score would have improved drastically.

Worst connected street networks in the country? Huh?

I'm no world traveler or expert, but based on my limited travels to places like Dallas, Houston, and LA, I'd say the opposite is true. I can't think of too many other cities where you can get from the southern edge of town to the northern edge on either city streets or one of several highways. You hardly have to be an OKC resident very long to get a pretty good handle on how to get from Point A to Point B merely by knowing a numbered, east-west cross street and one of the corresponding N/S streets. If someone gets a basic familiarity with Shields, Santa Fe, Walker, Western, Penn, May, Portland, Meridian, Rockwell, and Council, you can become a successful navigator here is short order.

I've talked to people who visited here and were STUNNED how easy it was to get across town. They'd contrast their own experience back home with their poor road/city layouts, and would talk about "the same kind of trip across town (back home) would take at least an hour."

I have no desire to shove OKC into someone else's notion of what amounts to some urban nirvana, because we're not NYC, Dallas, or any of those places. And trying to say that our street system doesn't provide access just doesn't pass the sniff test to me after 30+ years of driving these streets.

[Rover]

It is interesting that all top ten best big cities are confined on one side by water. Hmmm. Maybe it has a little to do about commerce emanating out from a point from which was the origin of their commerce. And, they couldn't spread out equally to all directions. Here in OKC, we have no real geographical restrictions.

[Just the facts]

Worst connected street networks in the country? Huh?

I'm no world traveler or expert, but based on my limited travels to places like Dallas, Houston, and LA, I'd say the opposite is true. I can't think of too many other cities where you can get from the southern edge of town to the northern edge on either city streets or one of several highways. You hardly have to be an OKC resident very long to get a pretty good handle on how to get from Point A to Point B merely by knowing a numbered, east-west cross street and one of the corresponding N/S streets. If someone gets a basic familiarity with Shields, Santa Fe, Walker, Western, Penn, May, Portland, Meridian, Rockwell, and Council, you can become a successful navigator here is short order.

I've talked to people who visited here and were STUNNED how easy it was to get across town. They'd contrast their own experience back home with their poor road/city layouts, and would talk about "the same kind of trip across town (back home) would take at least an hour."

I have no desire to shove OKC into someone else's notion of what amounts to some urban nirvana, because we're not NYC, Dallas, or any of those places. And trying to say that our street system doesn't provide access just doesn't pass the sniff test to me after 30+ years of driving these streets.

You are thinking about it from an automobile point of view. The study was done looking at the world as a pedestrian. The difference is scale. OKC is scaled to the automobile (just look at the streets you listed which are all 1 mile apart). Cities that scored well are scaled to the human.

One of the best ways to identify sprawl is to count the number of 4 way intersections per sq mile. OKC doesn't have very many.

[Snowman]

It is interesting that all top ten best big cities are confined on one side by water. Hmmm. Maybe it has a little to do about commerce emanating out from a point from which was the origin of their commerce. And, they couldn't spread out equally to all directions. Here in OKC, we have no real geographical restrictions.

There seems to also be some correlation with being a larger cities before the automobile was common

[Spartan]

The defensiveness on this forum in the face of facts is absurd. It's called anti-intellectualism.

Are you all really surprised that OKC is sprawly?!? **** idk what to say then...

[PWitty]

The defensiveness on this forum in the face of facts is absurd. It's called anti-intellectualism.

Are you all really surprised that OKC is sprawly?!? **** idk what to say then...

Nobody was denying OKC is sprawled, besides maybe RM. All anyone pointed out are obvious statements about why the least sprawling cities exist as they do. Feel free to take a chill pill my friend.

[bchris02]

You are thinking about it from an automobile point of view. The study was done looking at the world as a pedestrian. The difference is scale. OKC is scaled to the automobile (just look at the streets you listed which are all 1 mile apart). Cities that scored well are scaled to the human.

One of the best ways to identify sprawl is to count the number of 4 way intersections per sq mile. OKC doesn't have very many.

One thing I don't understand about OKC is why even so many of the older neighborhoods lack sidewalks and streetlights. It's understandable that newer neighborhoods lack them but there is no reason why neighborhoods built before 1950 should not have them. This is clearly a city that was built around and for the automobile since the very beginning, even before other cities abandoned walkability for sprawl.

[Snowman]

One thing I don't understand about OKC is why even so many of the older neighborhoods lack sidewalks and streetlights. This is clearly a city that was built around and for the automobile since the very beginning, even before other cities abandoned walkability for sprawl.

You can see sidewalks around the old streetcar and interurban routes, the split seems pretty drastic in older homes about most pre US entering WW2 having sidewalks and those after it ended not. How much longer would you say it was till other parts of country had shifted?

[boitoirich]

I would like to disabuse some poster here of the notion that because there is decentralization of jobs, the city sprawls. That is a absolutely a false association. Decentralization of jobs is actually a desirable trait of dense cities. Compact, decentralized patterns can be found in places with outstanding spatial orientation such as Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Oklahoma City sprawls because we're still building crap further and further out for no good reason.

[Just the facts]

I would like to disabuse some poster here of the notion that because there is decentralization of jobs, the city sprawls. That is a absolutely a false association. Decentralization of jobs is actually a desirable trait of dense cities. Compact, decentralized patterns can be found in places with outstanding spatial orientation such as Tokyo and Hong Kong.

Oklahoma City sprawls because we're still building crap further and further out for no good reason.

Let me add that until the last 10 to 15 years places like London and Paris didn't have any mass concentration of employment either, and really for the most part still don't. It wasn't until La Defense (Paris) and Canary Warf (London) that either city even had a discernible skyline.

[OSUFan]

The defensiveness on this forum in the face of facts is absurd. It's called anti-intellectualism.

Are you all really surprised that OKC is sprawly?!? **** idk what to say then...

I'm reading this thread and this comment seems totally out of place.

[GaryOKC6]

What does all this mean? I see people relocating to OKC in the thousands every month. I see the lowest unemployment in the country. I see no traffic congestion for the most part (except 8:00am & 5:00pm). I see one of the lowest costs of living in the country. I see companies calling us for relocation help into OKC and we are always on their short list. This is a place where people want to live and raise a family, including me.

[Pete]

Oklahoma City sprawls because we're still building crap further and further out for no good reason.

And the City itself is the biggest culprit by building four-lane roads and even highways in the middle of cow pastures, then rubber-stamping any and all rezoning requests from agriculture to housing/commercial, and also providing utility, fire and police services out in the middle of nowhere.

Every single week there are a bunch of new housing plats approved in the most out-lying areas, without discussion or even any type of basis for legitimate review.

Hopefully some of this will change through the Plan OKC process but the City itself is by far the biggest enabler of far-flung sprawl and it's going to get a lot worse before it gets better.


And of course there are still plenty great places to live in and around Oklahoma City, but at the same times huge areas that were considered "nice" just a generation ago have fallen off greatly, not only in appearance and up-keep but in crime. And this is a trend that does not seem to be slowing at all. When lots of people now consider the PC North area (let alone PC or PCW and almost all of the OKC PS district) as a place they no longer wish to raise children, we have a very serious problem as a City.

Think about this: Virtually all neighborhoods inside the Kilpatrick Turnpike and I-240 loop are now considered less desirable (and for most those neighborhoods, that is being kind) than everything outside of them. And that happened in just the last 20-30 years.

[Just the facts]

Maybe a visual reference will help. Here are two 1 sq. mile section of OKC. The green dots represent 4 ways intersections and the red dots represent dead-end streets. If you had to walk to a friends house which area do you think would be the easiest and fastest. If you had to drive to a friends house which do you think would be the easiest and fastest. Which area do you think can handle traffic better. Hint: The answers are all the same one.

Bad:


Good:

[Jeepnokc]

Maybe a visual reference will help. Here are two 1 sq. mile section of OKC. The green dots represent 4 ways intersections and the red dots represent dead-end streets. If you had to walk to a friends house which area do you think would be the easiest and fastest. If you had to drive to a friends house which do you think would be the easiest and fastest. Which area do you think can handle traffic better. Hint: The answers are all the same one.

Bad:


Good:

The top example looks to be a residential area which begs the question....which one would you want to raise your kids in? I would want the top one with dead end streets. I lived at NW 21st and Robinson and before that I was on NW 21st just east of McKinley. I dealt with all the drive through traffic that basically would gun it to see how fast they could get from one stop sign to the next. The "bad" example hinders drive through traffic flow which is what I want in the neighborhood where my kids are playing outside. This along with the poor quality of OKC Schools are the two primary reasons we moved out of the inner core and moved to the burbs.