Why is Oklahoma City not a "Boom Town"?

[adaniel]

[QUOTE=KilgoreTrout;555400][QUOTE=ljbab728;555304]There isn't a city in the country that isn't viewed in a negative light by some for various reasons.

I agree, but, unfortunately, the stereotypes against OKC are a lot worse than other most other cities. Having said that, there's not much OKCitians can do about stereotypes, but continue improving the city.

There's one thing people of OKC can do: stop being so thinned skinned and learn to weed out constructive criticism from the trolling.

Pete is right. People bash other cities all the time, particularly ones in "flyover country".

I, for one, am not going to get worked up about what some bitter posters on the Huffington Post think about OKC.

[Pete]

We are going to get a lot more vocal critics simply because OKC IS being put forward as an up-and-coming city, so that will prompt lots of: "Oklahoma City??? Who the H would want to move there??"

Or now that the Thunder is kicking the crap out of most the NBA, we are going to get more and more: "Yeah, but you have a small, boring town".


I will tell you this: When I moved to Southern California 20 years ago the only thing anyone knew about Oklahoma City was that it was in the same state as OU football. One of my friends from the east coast would only half-jokingly introduce me this way: "This is Pete. He's from one of those big rectangular states somewhere in the middle." And when I told anyone I was from Oklahoma, I would frequently get a response like, "Hey, I know a guy from Nebraska!"

I can assure now most people know about Oklahoma City due to the Thunder but even beyond that, they see the city much, much differently. At the very least, the fact we even have an NBA team implies we are really a city on the way up.

Last month I was on an LAX parking shuttle which was shared with a bunch of teenage kids and a couple of adults; turned out they were a group from HS bound for a cruise. They asked me where I was headed and when I told them Oklahoma City, they said, "Cool! You gonna get to see the Thunder?" Having answered that same question dozens of times on many different LAX trips I can tell you the usual response had always been, "Why are you going there??"


There is also an air of superiority by many from bigger cities and they like to keep other cities down. The more good press and PR we get, there is also going to be increased criticism. Beats the heck out of people not even knowing where OKC is.

[CaptDave]

I think we are better off not being a boomtown regardless of the perception of OKC on the coasts. Steady, sustainable growth will be our best path to being perceived as a peer city to the others on various "best of" lists.

[WilliamTell]

I think we are better off not being a boomtown regardless of the perception of OKC on the coasts. Steady, sustainable growth will be our best path to being perceived as a peer city to the others on various "best of" lists.

Ditto.

I've really never understood why so many people want OKC to become a boom town? So we can get hordes of people looking for work, driving up the cost of living, using up resources, increasing traffic, increasing crime,etc,etc,etc. I personally like the size of the city and how (besides long distances)its easy to get around and easy to live here. If you want congestion and to live with a bunch of hippies go find somewhere to do that.

BUT my biggest problem with a boom town is that there is always a bust.

We already have tons of building going on in the surrounding suburbs (because thats what builders do) while we have all this urban space that is just empty. Do we want that on steroids so we end up like Vegas or florida, or any of the other 'boom' towns that went bust leaving millions of people around the country in houses that they cant get out of with a 400k loan and the current value is only 120k. Massive numbers of unemployed because the citizens of that town demand so much money because the cost of living is so high, Cities that are declaring bankruptcy because they got caught up in it all.

If you want that nonsense go somewhere else.

[dcsooner]

Ditto.

I've really never understood why so many people want OKC to become a boom town? So we can get hordes of people looking for work, driving up the cost of living, using up resources, increasing traffic, increasing crime,etc,etc,etc. I personally like the size of the city and how (besides long distances)its easy to get around and easy to live here. If you want congestion and to live with a bunch of hippies go find somewhere to do that.

BUT my biggest problem with a boom town is that there is always a bust.

We already have tons of building going on in the surrounding suburbs (because thats what builders do) while we have all this urban space that is just empty. Do we want that on steroids so we end up like Vegas or florida, or any of the other 'boom' towns that went bust leaving millions of people around the country in houses that they cant get out of with a 400k loan and the current value is only 120k. Massive numbers of unemployed because the citizens of that town demand so much money because the cost of living is so high, Cities that are declaring bankruptcy because they got caught up in it all.

If you want that nonsense go somewhere else.

Best way to explain away the lack of attention is to say you don't want to be like the pretty girl with all the friends because they will just turn on her later/

[Pete]

I think we are better off not being a boomtown regardless of the perception of OKC on the coasts. Steady, sustainable growth will be our best path to being perceived as a peer city to the others on various "best of" lists.

But that's what we've been doing for the last 50 years.

You can't blame people for wanting things to ramp up.

[CaptDave]

I agree Pete. I have only lived here since 2002 and the change / progress has been tremendous. The formula used to change OKC for the better has mostly worked extremely well and I prefer not to jeopardize future progress by becoming impatient. But having HUGE changes like the Devon tower has been a lot of fun to watch. Just my two cents.