GDP Growth in 2023

[stlokc]

Is this getting any play locally? OKC ranks #1 in the United States for Growth in GDP!

[bison34]

OKC needs to get into the 100s, soon.

Not sure what will get OKC there quickly, but it needs to happen. The fact Richmond has 13 billion more is rough.

[Jake]

*good thing*

“Yes but have you considered negative thing?”

[bison34]

*good thing*

“Yes but have you considered negative thing?”

I never said anything was negative. At all. Quite contrary. The 100s are in sight. I never would have thought that. But being complacent is something Oklahoma is good at, so the focus needs to be onwards and upwards.

[stlokc]

The point I take from this is not our absolute size at the moment but our rate of growth. We have beat out Austin, Nashville, the Florida markets, all the places that are widely sold to us as being "hot."

Bison wants us to be in the 100s...so do I. We'll get there. Do we look "small" compared to the Top 50 metros? Yes...but guess what...we are on the "small side" compared to most of the Top 50. How many hundreds of metros are behind us? I'd rather be towards the small end of the Top 50 than the high end of lists that aren't even compiled.

[Rover]

Is this getting any play locally? OKC ranks #1 in the United States for Growth in GDP!

We should get excited when we are near the top in absolute growth not percentage since we are starting with a low number. We are 44th in GDP per capita. We do beat states like Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama, Kentucky, West Virginia, Idaho and South Carolina. If we can't grow fast percentage wise from a very low number, heaven help us. Percentage is what you brag about when you are at the bottom.

Imagine where we would be without natural resources like Oil and Gas to pad our numbers.

[Jake]

I never said anything was negative. At all. Quite contrary. The 100s are in sight. I never would have thought that. But being complacent is something Oklahoma is good at, so the focus needs to be onwards and upwards.

True, I shouldn't have reacted the way I did.

Richmond may be a peer city with OKC in population but definitely not financially. The Richmond area has 8 Fortune 500 companies alone.

[Jake]

The point I take from this is not our absolute size at the moment but our rate of growth. We have beat out Austin, Nashville, the Florida markets, all the places that are widely sold to us as being "hot."

Bison wants us to be in the 100s...so do I. We'll get there. Do we look "small" compared to the Top 50 metros? Yes...but guess what...we are on the "small side" compared to most of the Top 50. How many hundreds of metros are behind us? I'd rather be towards the small end of the Top 50 than the high end of lists that aren't even compiled.

It's good to see OKC doing well. Yes, you can acknowledge OKC has a long ways to go yet still be encouraged by these things. Methodology may not be the tightest but neither are the Lawnmower.com listicles that get posted here from time to time decrying OKC's shortcomings.

[OKCRealtor]

I haven't seen anything related to that but irregardless of the overall size that is a very solid rate of growth! Quite frankly I think OKC has probably faired better over the last couple years than a lot of other places. Cost of living overall still comparatively low compared to most other major cities with a very good local economy and extremely low unemployment rate. If we want to be higher up on overall #'s and we'll get there everybody also needs to realize cost of living likely to go way up as well along with it.

[stlokc]

It's good to see OKC doing well. Yes, you can acknowledge OKC has a long ways to go yet still be encouraged by these things. Methodology may not be the tightest but neither are the Lawnmower.com listicles that get posted here from time to time decrying OKC's shortcomings.

Well..this is from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis so it's definitely not in the same league as a Lawnmower.com article. The people chewing over this data on the urbanstl website are certainly taking it seriously.

I get everybody's point about starting from a low number and all the work the city has to do to overcome the trainwreck of a state that we are part of. But I also think that over 6% growth is an unabashed "good" and the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater because OKC is more modestly-sized at the moment.

[Jake]

Well..this is from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis so it's definitely not in the same league as a Lawnmower.com article. The people chewing over this data on the urbanstl website are certainly taking it seriously.

I get everybody's point about starting from a low number and all the work the city has to do to overcome the trainwreck of a state that we are part of. But I also think that over 6% growth is an unabashed "good" and the baby should not be thrown out with the bathwater because OKC is more modestly-sized at the moment.

Yes, sorry, not comparing this data to the "Top 10 STINKIEST Cities" listicles. Just that certain people on here look at those lists as some scarlet letter for the city in the past.

Anyway, the city is doing well. It can do better, but almost everything that is holding the city back are things out of OKC's control.

[Rover]

Yes, sorry, not comparing this data to the "Top 10 STINKIEST Cities" listicles. Just that certain people on here look at those lists as some scarlet letter for the city in the past.

Anyway, the city is doing well. It can do better, but almost everything that is holding the city back are things out of OKC's control.

We need to quit accepting small victories as winning the war. If you look at OK from inside out you can celebrate the small victories with narrow perspectives. If you dare to be honest enough to look at OK from the outside in you realize that we have a long way to go and need lots of help and leadership that we don't yet have. We need to quit being happy with crumbs and go bake a whole cake. People need to get outside their echo chambers.

[Jake]

Was digging to see where Tulsa would rank and found these cool graphs on the St. Louis Fed site:

Tulsa: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP46140

OKC: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP36420

[stlokc]

We need to quit accepting small victories as winning the war. If you look at OK from inside out you can celebrate the small victories with narrow perspectives. If you dare to be honest enough to look at OK from the outside in you realize that we have a long way to go and need lots of help and leadership that we don't yet have. We need to quit being happy with crumbs and go bake a whole cake. People need to get outside their echo chambers.

We can certainly all agree with that. Nobody should be happy with crumbs and if I implied anything different than I'm sorry. I really was just trying to celebrate a very specific piece of excellent economic data. The truth is that OKC does need to have many more skilled, technical and corporate places of employment that pay real wages ($100K and up). I think we have about all the warehouses and Wal-Marts we need. When I think about my best friends here in St. Louis, many of them have jobs that simply don't exist in OKC - or, to be more clear, they may exist but they don't exist in sufficient enough numbers.

[Rover]

Was digging to see where Tulsa would rank and found these cool graphs on the St. Louis Fed site:

Tulsa: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP46140

OKC: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP36420

OKC is 132nd in the country for GDP per capita and Tulsa is 150th. BTW, in 2005, OKC was listed as the 75th best GDP per capita in the world among metro areas over 1 million people. Progress?

[Jake]

OKC is 132nd in the country for GDP per capita and Tulsa is 150th. BTW, in 2005, OKC was listed as the 75th best GDP per capita in the world among metro areas over 1 million people. Progress?

Have a source for that 2005 statistic? I'd be interested to see it.

[Rover]

Looks strangely like the political map, doesn't it?

[dcsooner]

Oklahoma and OKC have relatively low tech manufacturing, low salary jobs and service jobs. Until the State places more emphasis on primary, secondary and College level education it will continue to attract jobs requiring little technical skill which generally equals to lower pay. Continued failure to attract locations (branches not headquarters) or relocations ala Texas from fortune 5oo companies because of (pick a reason) inhibits GDP growth (not percentage rate of growth). Politics of the State don't help as well. Bottom line there are those in Oklahoma that prefer the State remain a slow growth State. Just my opinion

[BoulderSooner]

Looks strangely like the political map, doesn't it?

not really at all

[Rover]

not really at all

Smh. People have eyes. Reality still exists.

[BoulderSooner]

Smh. People have eyes. Reality still exists.

yes a map that shows alaska north and south dakota .. nebraska texas and wyoming being the same as colorado and california ..

seems just like a political map ..

[PhiAlpha]

yes a map that shows alaska north and south dakota .. nebraska texas and wyoming being the same as colorado and california ..

seems just like a political map ..

this

[April in the Plaza]

Oklahoma and OKC have relatively low tech manufacturing, low salary jobs and service jobs. Until the State places more emphasis on primary, secondary and College level education it will continue to attract jobs requiring little technical skill which generally equals to lower pay. Continued failure to attract locations (branches not headquarters) or relocations ala Texas from fortune 5oo companies because of (pick a reason) inhibits GDP growth (not percentage rate of growth). Politics of the State don't help as well. Bottom line there are those in Oklahoma that prefer the State remain a slow growth State. Just my opinion

Damn it. I thought we had run you off of here?

[BDP]

Was digging to see where Tulsa would rank and found these cool graphs on the St. Louis Fed site:

Tulsa: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP46140

OKC: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/NGMP36420

What's crazy is how much the gap between the two cities grew over that time. The percent difference between the two basically doubled.

[Urbanized]

^^^^^^^^^^^^
One could make a case that when a city repeatedly invests in itself other investment follows.