Population Growth for OKC

[BG918]

Thanks for the numbers. Holding that rate steady for the OKC metro until 2030 would show an increase of 10.73% from 2020 to 2030. That would be the lowest growth rate since 1930-1940 at 10.1%. Not saying that's the number we'll be at in 2030, but that's the start we are off to mathematically, at least. Not what I would have expected.

Compared to the Top 55 largest metros the growth in OKC and Tulsa is pretty decent, in the Top 16. Slower growth is going to be a National issue that we’ll all have to deal with over the next few decades unless immigration really picks up again.

[PoliSciGuy]

If it’s all about politics and the associated national reputation, why is Texas growing so much faster than we are?

Because Texas (and Florida) is the main destination of choice for disaffected conservatives from blue states. That’s the crowd OK could court too if our reputation and state institutions (education, healthcare, taxes) were similar.

That being said I think OKC will see a bit of a boost in the middle of the decade as the Texas metros get too expensive/clogged for some folks.

[PhiAlpha]

Because Texas (and Florida) is the main destination of choice for disaffected conservatives from blue states. That’s the crowd OK could court too if our reputation and state institutions (education, healthcare, taxes) were similar.

That being said I think OKC will see a bit of a boost in the middle of the decade as the Texas metros get too expensive/clogged for some folks.

That’s always been my thought/hope as well.

[Jake]

Among a ton of other reasons, those states are just geographically superior to Oklahoma and they can offer things the state just can’t. Places with coasts > Places without coasts to the vast majority of people on planet Earth.

When you’re a landlocked state like OK, you have to do great things around the margins to attract people instead. However, not only has the state not done that, they’ve made a lot of their institutions worse and less marketable to people.

[PhiAlpha]

Among a ton of other reasons, those states are just geographically superior to Oklahoma and they can offer things the state just can’t. Places with coasts > Places without coasts to the vast majority of people on planet Earth.

When you’re a landlocked state like OK, you have to do great things around the margins to attract people instead. However, not only has the state not done that, they’ve made a lot of their institutions worse and less marketable to people.

What coast is Dallas/ft worth, Austin, or San Antonio on? Most of the population centers within Texas are as landlocked as Oklahoma.

[chssooner]

Didn't you hear? Texas is so superior in every way to Oklahoma. Better highways to get stuck in massive traffic on. Infinitely better schools and Healthcare, as well, amirite?!

Texas has one advantage: money. They have used it to basically bribe companies to move and relocate there. Which has led people to move there. It's smart. I wish Oklahoma had that kind of money, and those kinds of oil reserves. Gotta spend money to make money.

I really want someone to say that Texas schools are so much farther ahead of Oklahoma schools. They aren't, FYI. Especially in college.

[mugofbeer]

What coast is Dallas/ft worth, Austin, or San Antonio on? Most of the population centers within Texas are as landlocked as Oklahoma.

Tax laws, lnternational Airports and The Hill Country.

[Jake]

Texas exported 486 billion dollars worth of products in 2022 and was by far the biggest exporter of all US states, which was around 25% of all US exports as a whole. More than California and New York put together.

This attracts companies, which attracts jobs, which attracts people.

*shrugs*

[Teo9969]

Texas exported 486 billion dollars worth of products in 2022 and was by far the biggest exporter of all US states, which was around 25% of all US exports as a whole. More than California and New York put together.

This attracts companies, which attracts jobs, which attracts people.

*shrugs*

Exported internationally or across state lines+internationally?

[Jake]

Exported internationally or across state lines+internationally?

Internationally.

[Rover]

Tax laws, lnternational Airports and The Hill Country.

And good infrastructure to sea ports. Also, better school systems and universities.

[Rover]

Didn't you hear? Texas is so superior in every way to Oklahoma. Better highways to get stuck in massive traffic on. Infinitely better schools and Healthcare, as well, amirite?!

Texas has one advantage: money. They have used it to basically bribe companies to move and relocate there. Which has led people to move there. It's smart. I wish Oklahoma had that kind of money, and those kinds of oil reserves. Gotta spend money to make money.

I really want someone to say that Texas schools are so much farther ahead of Oklahoma schools. They aren't, FYI. Especially in college.

Yeah… last report had OK at 50 of 51. And Texas wasn’t 51. Lol.

[soonerguru]

What coast is Dallas/ft worth, Austin, or San Antonio on? Most of the population centers within Texas are as landlocked as Oklahoma.

It should go without saying what those cities offer and why they are growing, and it's not merely economics:

Austin - Vibrant, young, progressive city with outsized amenities: food, outdoors, music, culture. Tech-based economy. Capital of the 2nd largest state. World-class university with a massive student enrollment. Unlike in Oklahoma, Texas has worked to help the university commercialize its research, which helped spawn this boom (along with people like Michael Dell).

Dallas - Major international airport (something most cities do not have), connected to large sister city. Multiple international HQs (which causes its own momentum). Fully diversified economic base.

San Antonio - Has been a top 10 city in terms of population for decades. Virtually unmatched cultural significance, with the most important Texas shrine. Major tourism economic base for decades. "Affordable" among growing cities in Texas. Vibrant Latino population that rivals any American city.

There are pluses and many minuses to the cities above not mentioned. Austin is already one of the least affordable cities in the US (I remember when it was cheap and a real destination for artists and musicians to live; it still is to a much lesser extent but I know well-paid professionals who have had to move places like Bastrop because they can no longer afford Austin or its insanely high property taxes). Austin also has very limited public transportation and lacks an infrastructure to handle the growth that it's experiencing.

Dallas is still vibrant and growing but has a host of problems along the way.

San Antonio's problems in some ways remind me of OKC's: air service, sprawl, etc. and it is also becoming much less affordable.

[oklip955]

I was looking the other day at an article about Sioux Falls SD growth. It has a list of the 50 projected fasted growing areas between now and 2040. Sioux Falls was at 37. I looked at he other cities on the list and no cities in Oklahoma were on it. Was that just a mistake or could it be reality?????

[SEMIweather]

I was looking the other day at an article about Sioux Falls SD growth. It has a list of the 50 projected fasted growing areas between now and 2040. Sioux Falls was at 37. I looked at he other cities on the list and no cities in Oklahoma were on it. Was that just a mistake or could it be reality?????

If we're measuring in terms of percentage growth, Sioux Falls is almost certainly going to grow faster than OKC between now and 2040. Keep in mind that the Sioux Falls Metro has grown by 20%+ over the past three decades and is still short of 300,000 residents.

[josefromtulsa]

If we're measuring in terms of percentage growth, Sioux Falls is almost certainly going to grow faster than OKC between now and 2040. Keep in mind that the Sioux Falls Metro has grown by 20%+ over the past three decades and is still short of 300,000 residents.

Cities in the upper midwest are all probably going to see huge increases in pop. in the next decade. I would not be surprised to see climate refugees from cities like Phoenix, which has reached temps over 100 for the last 31 days, begin to move to places like the Twin Cities.

[UrbanistPoke]

My novel post - at the end of the day, if you create desirable cities that people want to move to, they can overlook things (like politics) everything in life is a give/take analysis – nowhere is 100% perfect for everyone unless you’re a trust fund kid with no ties and unlimited money. When I moved back to Oklahoma, I had to weigh politics (I'm not conservative) but being closer to family, being able to try to advocate for change, etc. were all appealing things that overweighted somewhere like DC or other places I had lived (at this point in life, it wouldn’t have years ago).

Change doesn't happen overnight, the political environment in Oklahoma County as an example has changed a lot in the past 20 years. I hear people discuss how much more liberal Tulsa is a lot in person (not necessarily on here), but everyone has been sleeping on the changes occurring in the OKC MSA. Tulsa voters have become very unengaged and is a significant issue statewide too (moderates/independents aren’t showing up either) The fringe conservative voters never fail to show up to the polls in Oklahoma. If people just started voting and stopped bitching all the time, things would be surprisingly different. When 50% of the democrats and independents don’t show up to vote it’s easy to figure out why they lose nonstop here. BTW, the registered Republicans (1,154,000) in Oklahoma is only slightly more than Democrat/Independent voters combined (1,051,000). There’s still more Democrats registered in Oklahoma (656,000 Dem & 395,000 Ind) than there were Republicans who voted for Stitt for example (Stitt got 639,000 votes). The issue – Dems/Ind don’t show up and vote – more fun to get on the internet and complain nonstop about how Oklahoma sucks, OKC sucks, Tulsa sucks – it’s a hot bag of smelly garbage and no one should ever think of moving here, right?

It’s not a mystery to me how Joy was leading or tied in polling and then flopped in the election, the people who want change sat on their hands and then threw a fit afterwards (again I’m a Democrat but I actually voted). If you don’t like our politics, make it a mission to get your friends registered to vote and educate them on if they actually show up things might start changing faster. You can look up people’s registration too – find out if your friends are registered, if they aren’t, get them to register. You can do it online now; the form is literally like one page too if you fill it out in person. It takes longer to get a cup of coffee at Starbucks, there is no excuse to not be registered to vote. You spend more time complaining on here than it would take to get a couple friends to go vote too.

Not trying to re-open specific political debates just pointing out some facts about statistics and voter registration/turnout in Oklahoma. Both OKC and Tulsa MSAs are adding give or take 20,000 people a year each on average or more (40,000 +/- total), while rural areas are losing population. Stitt won by 150,000 votes – because of rural Oklahoma and ex-urban areas. Not hard to see that if voters actually become engaged, particularly in the urban areas, in a decade Oklahoma could be much closer to a swing state than anyone seems to realize.

If trends keep the way they are and as it seems that population growth is trending up particularly in Tulsa/NE Oklahoma, if Panasonic and some other things pan out, Oklahoma may not look that different than Colorado, Virginia, etc. in 20 years. Are Colorado or Virginia mirrors to Oklahoma, no. But it’s interesting to see how much the demographics changed after Denver blew up in population and the DC suburbs did as well. Denver didn’t blow up in population because Colorado was a “liberal paradise”, Denver changed Colorado. Both states have similar rural demographics to Oklahoma – but long-term urban population growth/politics can and do win out. It happens much faster in smaller population states that have growing urban centers, Oklahoma is lucky to have two and not just one. Texas it will happen too, demographic shifts/trends are apparent in Austin, Houston, DFW, San Antonio, El Paso. Rural Texas is significantly larger and still has a lot of population that shows up to vote too. A shift in Oklahoma can occur much faster because of just the total numbers. Stitt won by 150,000 votes while Abbott won by 888,000 – both similar in percentage win though (mid 50s% to low 40s%).

An interesting thing I saw from the Tulsa Chamber in terms of biggest outbound changes - two of the top net loss outbound for Tulsa were Waco (Baylor) and Blacksburg (VT). Blacksburg was the surprise for me as there was a net outbound of about 600 people, with 0 inbound, in the past 10 years. In migration to Tulsa was primarily from California and believe Texas was second with Illinois, Arkansas and Missouri in the top five. Tulsa is seeing a fair amount of inbound population from Chicago. Having net inbound population from those states is a good thing. There was a surprising number of people moving to Oklahoma and Tulsa from places like Amarillo, etc. too. Tulsa also had some significant inbound population from Joplin, Ft. Smith, Little Rock and even has net inbound from NWA. It's kind of fascinating to see that Tulsa is pulling in population from smaller cities to the east while OKC is pulling in from west and places like Wichita/north.

[Dob Hooligan]

Oklahoma is part of the Confederate South that has been socially conservative for over 150 years. The elected leadership of Governor, Lt. Governor, and Attorney General, are not inferior to those in Texas and the other Southern States.

[BoulderSooner]

Oklahoma is part of the Confederate South .

nope not at all

[BG918]

nope not at all

Not a Confederate State but Indian Territory sided with the South

[mugofbeer]

Since OK was not organized in any way in the mid 1860s but was a conglomeration of territories and reservations, l don't think you can term that it sided with the south.

[Bunty]

Short term wise Oklahoma has been doing good. For 2022, it was the 14th fastest growing state for population. It was even ahead of a couple of states associated with strong population growth with that being Colorado and Washington. I think the mayor of OKC and to a lesser extent Tulsa, unlike leadership at the State Capitol, have been doing great in encouraging population growth for Oklahoma. If only the State Capitol would focus squarely on economic issues, rather than ridiculous cultural war issues, it would have done more to help the entire state of Oklahoma. For instance, the state sales tax on groceries should have been repealed. It would help consumers and businesses a lot. Maybe that can happen next year. Anyway, it's interesting for the short term how a state like Oklahoma with a bunch of low quality of life statistics didn't keep it from being a top 15 state for population growth in 2022. I would sooner population growth in Oklahoma does not speed up, in order to help keep inflation down.

Meanwhile, a tour of up to10 small towns in northwest Oklahoma where OKC has been supposedly getting some of its new people. It's mostly the small Oklahoma towns under 10,000 or 5,000 in population that have been suffering the most for a long time.

[BoulderSooner]

Not a Confederate State but Indian Territory sided with the South

the tribes did ..... but that means about nothing for OKC and how it was settled ..

[MagzOK]

This is a good article regarding Indian Territory and the Civil War:

https://www.normantranscript.com/opi...9404cbe9a.html

[PhiAlpha]

the tribes did ..... but that means about nothing for OKC and how it was settled ..

It actually had nearly everything to do with how OKC and the unassigned lands were settled but I get your point.