Population Growth for OKC

[Pete]

I first went to the Deep South when I was in my mid-20s and I was absolutely shocked by the difference in culture. And this was Atlanta, one of the most progressive southern cities.

I also had a friend who was working in Memphis and it too was vastly different culturally than Oklahoma. I've always had a flat accent and I got a bunch of 'where you from boy??' reactions the entire time I was there.


We are most like Texas and they are a Southern state, but there is still a big difference between Oklahoma and almost all the former Confederate states.

[PhiAlpha]

I first went to the Deep South when I was in my mid-20s and I was absolutely shocked by the difference in culture. And this was Atlanta, one of the most progressive southern cities.

I also had a friend who was working in Memphis and it too was vastly different culturally than Oklahoma. I've always had a flat accent and I got a bunch of 'where you from boy??' reactions the entire time I was there.


We are most like Texas and they are a Southern state, but there is still a big difference between Oklahoma and almost all the former Confederate states.

It's always a fun debate. Parts of OK can legitimately fit into the Southwest, Midwest and to a lesser extent the South/Deep South (thinking far southeastern OK).

[SEMIweather]

It's always a fun debate. Parts of OK can legitimately fit into the Southwest, Midwest and to a lesser extent the South/Deep South (thinking far southeastern OK).

Agree with this. I always like to bring up that you can drive an hour southeast of OKC and start to see forests that are very reminiscent of those in the Deep South, whereas if you drive an hour northwest of OKC, you start seeing the first subtle mesas and canyons that become more and more common as you approach the Rocky Mountains. Topography-wise, we are fortunate to be located in an incredibly unique and diverse region of the country. It really does feel like the crossroads of everything in that regard.

[PhiAlpha]

Agree with this. I always like to bring up that you can drive an hour southeast of OKC and start to see forests that are very reminiscent of those in the Deep South, whereas if you drive an hour northwest of OKC, you start seeing the first subtle mesas and canyons that become more and more common as you approach the Rocky Mountains. Topography-wise, we are fortunate to be located in an incredibly unique and diverse region of the country. It really does feel like the crossroads of everything in that regard.

No doubt. Texas is probably the most topographically/biologically(at least by amount of vastly different biomes) diverse state but if adjusted for diversity per square mile of land area, OK has to be at or near the top.

[TheTravellers]

No doubt. Texas is probably the most topographically/biologically(at least by amount of vastly different biomes) diverse state but if adjusted for diversity per square mile of land area, OK has to be at or near the top.

I just poked around for my own curiosity and both OK and TX have 12 level III ecoregions and OK has 46 level IV, but TX has 56 level IV. Haven't investigated what delineates each level, but interesting...

https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/lev...oregions-state

[PhiAlpha]

I just poked around for my own curiosity and both OK and TX have 12 level III ecoregions and OK has 46 level IV, but TX has 56 level IV. Haven't investigated what delineates each level, but interesting...

https://www.epa.gov/eco-research/lev...oregions-state

That’s about twice as many as i thought. Lots of great national, state, and local parks, forests, grasslands, wildlife refuges and recreation areas to experience all of that. I was very fortunate to grow up in a family from which multiple generations have been very involved in Boy Scouts so that gave me an easy opportunity to spend a bunch of time in many of those parks, etc. Even for people that aren’t outdoorsy, you’re really doing yourself a disservice if you don’t try to get out and experience some of those places every year.

One of the few good side effects / cool things that I saw during thick of the pandemic in 2020 was the massive increase in attendance at the state parks we hiked around that year. Couldn’t help but hope that being semi-forced to be outside for a year might have inspired some people who didn’t have those opportunities growing up or possibly didn’t even realize they were available until a plague made them (or their exhausted parents at wits end from being stuck in the house for weeks) look lol. I know it made me rediscover how cool some of those places are.

[Harbinger]

I absolutely love Joe and Nic's Road Trip. It's an eye-opening and insightful glimpse into U.S. migratory patterns. And the guy's actually from Oklahoma.

[Harbinger]

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.

I absolutely love Joe and Nic's Road Trip. It's an eye-opening and insightful glimpse into U.S. migratory patterns. And the guy's actually from Oklahoma.

[Bowser214]

USA Today article list the fastest growing metro areas since 2019. OKC ranks no. 12
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money...9/70659464007/

[HOT ROD]

interesting to see where we rank in terms of housing units for our 1.5m metro size (kinda low actually). 565K units.

Now, bring on the 9XX units from Dream, the two Rose Rock developments downtown, the 2XX unit Hallow, the 2XX unit former Holiday Inn, the CORE Bank apartments - just downtown will add several thousand to our total to get us closer to 600K.

[Anonymous.]

So I noticed the data collection says if someone answered YES to if they moved into current home in 2019 or later. Is that even meaningful, a lot of people have moved in the last 3 years. If I moved across the street in 2020, I would be counted in that data.

Not sure how useful that is unless it specifically means people moved into that metro since 2019.

[soonerguru]

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.

Wow. Get out of my brain. This post is dead on and something I've said for years and have personally witnessed.

But, people saying Tulsa is more liberal than OKC are living in 1998. Oklahoma County is the bluest part of the state and getting bluer faster. Maybe because it's also growing faster than Tulsa County. For some reason, Tulsa isn't changing as much politically as Oklahoma County.

I thought Joy could win because I thought she would perform better in Tulsa County but she didn't do much better than Drew did there, despite being a Tulsan. (I also thought Stitt's beef with the tribes would cost him more rural votes. To your point, people here just don't vote. If more did, this would at least be a competitive state, which is honestly all I hope for right now.)

But, everything you say from demographics to voting patterns is absolutely spot on, including the states you reference as examples.

I think it might be better to compare Oklahoma's situation to Arizona and Georgia, however. Those are essentially red states that are becoming purple, whereas Oklahoma is still red. There are seemingly a lot of cultural and demographic similarities between Oklahoma and those two states, and perhaps more so than Colorado and Virginia.

[BG918]

I would put Oklahoma politically more in Tennessee’s camp. Still very conservative but the effects of having more liberal urban voters starting to carry more weight.

[Laramie]

[Shortsyeararound]

He is great, been watching him for years.

[fortpatches]

He is great, been watching him for years.

That vid is only 2mo old. I wonder where they got the energy stats? Because from what I can tell, our ranking of "5th cheapest" utilities plummeted over the last couple years. Like, the average utility bill in OK is only about $50/mo cheaper than California.

[Laramie]

[Bunty]

Who wants to move to very rural Oklahoma? She does and with God's urging! It's where there are more cows than people with barely any cops! But the subject of this thread isn't about how wonderful life is good in rural Oklahoma. But I guess the older and longer a thread gets the more liable it is to stray away to find something new, but hopefully still within the state.

[oklip955]

I live on an acreage just outside Edmond city limits. The area is growing in small lot subdivisions. Not my cup of tea. Its getting so much traffic that I have even been hit while on my riding mower spraying in my front bar ditch. (i keep it like my lawn) How is one who has a horse property and built this 40 yrs ago suppose to get out and ride or drive the roads? What am I to do when the land next to be sells for development? folks will not respect my fence and will come and "explore" my land and barns. What about the liability if someone gets hurt. My friends just down the road have had their fence cut by people so that they could come on their land and ride 4 wheelers. They have also found people "exploring" their shop buildings. The excuse was we just wanted to see what is back here. They live off the road. I also live off the road. I moved and built my place to be out in the country so that I could have horses, cows and garden. Now what am I to do?? I am not into the urban life style. Its fine for those folks who want to live it. Its just not for me. I need the open spaces even if its treed to walk, and ride/drive (ie horse cart). I dont want to be way out an hour from doctors or stores but do want to have land on good roads and be able to drive in within a reasonable time. Some of us just dont want to buy all our food from he grocery stores. Some of us like being about to saddle a horse and ride. Seriously thinking about moving out of state to farm country near a smaller city.

[stlokc]

I certainly respect what you are writing. Vandals and trespassers should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Gently though I would remark that time marches on. Properties that are "out in the country" in one generation are no longer that in the next generation. That's one consequence of a growing metro area. At some point you may have to make a choice between either being close to doctors/stores and having good roads or being far enough in the country to have the rural lifestyle you crave.

One good consequence of this from your point of view should be that your land is likely escalating in value? I hope so.

[Rover]

I live on an acreage just outside Edmond city limits. The area is growing in small lot subdivisions. Not my cup of tea. Its getting so much traffic that I have even been hit while on my riding mower spraying in my front bar ditch. (i keep it like my lawn) How is one who has a horse property and built this 40 yrs ago suppose to get out and ride or drive the roads? What am I to do when the land next to be sells for development? folks will not respect my fence and will come and "explore" my land and barns. What about the liability if someone gets hurt. My friends just down the road have had their fence cut by people so that they could come on their land and ride 4 wheelers. They have also found people "exploring" their shop buildings. The excuse was we just wanted to see what is back here. They live off the road. I also live off the road. I moved and built my place to be out in the country so that I could have horses, cows and garden. Now what am I to do?? I am not into the urban life style. Its fine for those folks who want to live it. Its just not for me. I need the open spaces even if its treed to walk, and ride/drive (ie horse cart). I dont want to be way out an hour from doctors or stores but do want to have land on good roads and be able to drive in within a reasonable time. Some of us just dont want to buy all our food from he grocery stores. Some of us like being about to saddle a horse and ride. Seriously thinking about moving out of state to farm country near a smaller city.

You don't have to move out of state just to prove a point. There's plenty of picturesque farms all around OKC and Oklahoma. What you describe though is to be close to a stagnant city so you can be close in but not a chance of it growing out to you in 40 years. It doesn't seem like that is an attractive venue for most people, but to each their own.

This might show you where you can find some slow growth or stagnant cities/metropolitan areas: https://eig.org/city-population-2023/

[Bunty]

I live on an acreage just outside Edmond city limits. The area is growing in small lot subdivisions. Not my cup of tea. Its getting so much traffic that I have even been hit while on my riding mower spraying in my front bar ditch. (i keep it like my lawn) How is one who has a horse property and built this 40 yrs ago suppose to get out and ride or drive the roads? What am I to do when the land next to be sells for development? folks will not respect my fence and will come and "explore" my land and barns. What about the liability if someone gets hurt. My friends just down the road have had their fence cut by people so that they could come on their land and ride 4 wheelers. They have also found people "exploring" their shop buildings. The excuse was we just wanted to see what is back here. They live off the road. I also live off the road. I moved and built my place to be out in the country so that I could have horses, cows and garden. Now what am I to do?? I am not into the urban life style. Its fine for those folks who want to live it. Its just not for me. I need the open spaces even if its treed to walk, and ride/drive (ie horse cart). I dont want to be way out an hour from doctors or stores but do want to have land on good roads and be able to drive in within a reasonable time. Some of us just dont want to buy all our food from he grocery stores. Some of us like being about to saddle a horse and ride. Seriously thinking about moving out of state to farm country near a smaller city.

Try putting up NO TRESPASSING signs, if you haven't already. Unless you're finished with Oklahoma as a state, nice looking farm country is as close as on highway 105 just east of Guthrie. But don't know of any for sale.

[David]

I live on an acreage just outside Edmond city limits. The area is growing in small lot subdivisions. Not my cup of tea. Its getting so much traffic that I have even been hit while on my riding mower spraying in my front bar ditch. (i keep it like my lawn) How is one who has a horse property and built this 40 yrs ago suppose to get out and ride or drive the roads? What am I to do when the land next to be sells for development? folks will not respect my fence and will come and "explore" my land and barns. What about the liability if someone gets hurt. My friends just down the road have had their fence cut by people so that they could come on their land and ride 4 wheelers. They have also found people "exploring" their shop buildings. The excuse was we just wanted to see what is back here. They live off the road. I also live off the road. I moved and built my place to be out in the country so that I could have horses, cows and garden. Now what am I to do?? I am not into the urban life style. Its fine for those folks who want to live it. Its just not for me. I need the open spaces even if its treed to walk, and ride/drive (ie horse cart). I dont want to be way out an hour from doctors or stores but do want to have land on good roads and be able to drive in within a reasonable time. Some of us just dont want to buy all our food from he grocery stores. Some of us like being about to saddle a horse and ride. Seriously thinking about moving out of state to farm country near a smaller city.

You clearly should have purchased all that land that now has subdivisions on it to prevent their development.

[HOT ROD]

You don't have to move out of state just to prove a point. There's plenty of picturesque farms all around OKC and Oklahoma. What you describe though is to be close to a stagnant city so you can be close in but not a chance of it growing out to you in 40 years. It doesn't seem like that is an attractive venue for most people, but to each their own.

This might show you where you can find some slow growth or stagnant cities/metropolitan areas: https://eig.org/city-population-2023/

Lincoln County is probably a very good option. That part of the metro is stagnant, I can't imagine Lincoln ever getting 'developed'.

[jn1780]

40 years was a good run. Probably time to move further away again. There are not a lot of states where it would be "better" though. Sprawl is common everywhere.