BS Argument between Albuquerque and OKC

Hey all, I've been lurking a long time but figured it was time to join in on the party.

Anyway, I was on a forum earlier today having this discussion about which city most deserves a pro sports franchise. There was some general chatter about OKC and Albuquerque, then someone posted the following comment.

"These Arguments are pointless.

OKC is a great city i have been there before, how ever it also has its ghettos
and some areas are poorly taken care of.

Wow big deal OKC has a 36 foot tall skyscraper.
its not something to complain about!

By 2011 Three New Buildings will be nearly Compleated in ABQ
One of them 30 stories, 28 Stories And lastly Taller than OKC Building A 38 story building.

-Albuquerque is a way older city founded in 1706. It stopped growing in the 70's with a population of 294,998. Today its
-OKC has been growing for the last 40 years making it much larger.
-However now Albuquerque is now the 3rd fastest growing city in the country.
So dont compare, beacuse albuquerque barley started to grow.
And will be faster growing for the next 10 years.

OKC has a current population of 541,500
Albuquerque has a pop. of 514,099

-By the end of this year The City of Albuquerque is expected to have
535,191
-OKC? will only have 547,067? what a increase? huh?

Albuquerque will pass OKC in the next 3 to 5 years.

So dont say Albuquerque is not big enough to have a National team!

The Pit Area Holds Nearly 20,000 People!
There are 5 other areas they may not hold as many but at least we have!

Also Albuquerque is getting 3 new tv studios! were the next hollwood!!
does OKC have any movie or film industry? NO they dont even like to film there!

We were the #1 city for business in 2005 and now we are currently #2
is OKC on the top 5 or top top 10 or top 20 list? NO

Iam tired of people putting down Albuquerque!
ITS A GREAT CITY! Were i live its so damn peacefull.
And the schools and parks and the downdown is wonderful!

So dont say ****ty things about us! How about u move here for 3 years and get to know the place then u can talk all the **** u want!"


My response to that was:


"So OKC has ghettos but ABQ doesn't? I was in ABQ this summer and there are many nice areas, such as those around Tramway, but the area around the airport where we were staying had me skidish.

OKC metro is much larger than ABQ. 1,172,339 compared to 816,811. Who gives a rip about city proper populations. Not to mention OKC has much more land to expand into than ABQ.

OKC has 4 likely markets it could cater too. Wichita, Tulsa,NW ARK/Ft. Smith and Lawton. Their metros sit at: 592,126 (2 1/2 hr drive). 897,752 (1 1/2 hr drive). 420,876 (3-4 hr drive). 288,818 (3 hr drive). and 109,181 (1 1/2 hr drive). respectively and maybe Wichita Falls at 145,528 (2 1/2 hr drive).

You also have many large towns nearby as well. Ardmore at 24,535 (1 1/2 hr drive). Enid at 46,514 (1 1/2 hr drive). Stillwater at 44,818 (1 hr drive). and Muskogee at 40,004 (2 hr drive).

The only markets is see ABQ catering to are itself, Santa Fe with 142,407; Las Cruses at 193,888 and maybe El Paso at 736,310.

Outside of those markets in NM you have Carlsbad at 25,410 (5 hour drive). Clovis at 33,258 (3 1/2 hr drive). Roswell at 45,582 (3 hour drive). Hobbs at 29,292 (5 hour drive) and Farmington at 43,573 (3 hour drive).

If you want a wonderful downtown look at OKC after the core to shore is completed. It's going to be state of the art.

Don't get me wrong, I'm sure there are nice areas in ABQ but show me a place there that looks nicer than Edmond or Norman. It feels like you're getting real close to Mexico in ABQ.


I did try to make this post as objective as possible without favoring my home town. I did check census.gov for all my stats and looked at maps for the drive times.


Conclusion:

Metros: OKC
Nearby markets: OKC
Smaller towns nearby: OKC (ABQ has more but much farther away)"


Then the response from the jackass:


"ok wow u really did ur research didnt u.. however ur population numbers are uhhhhhh wrong hahahah albuquerque took a population count for the year 2008 already!.. now take a guess the city was at 514,000 at the last poulation count in 2006 do u wanna know exactly how many ppl live in abq to date acoring to the albuquerque planning and zoning commission abq has 529,918 its metro has 895,279 ppl isnt that one hell of an increase? next time do better research and dont say stuff that u cant back up cuz i know my uncle is a city councilor..and i ahve been to OKC its not better than albuquerque i will tell u that much. and of corse abq has ghettos! ....central is ghetto do i have to go into details the older parts of the city are ghetto we all know that ...as well as the fact abq is the 2nd fastest growing city OKC couldnt grow this fast or match up to abq's population booommmm! and of corse a metro area of OKC is going to have 1,172,000 its been growing for years ...abq barley started to grow again..and were talking about CITY LIMITS not metros obviously abq will pass OKC in the next two years, now i dont really care if they do put major teams here or not were still going to grow! and OKC doesnt have growing space...not like albuquerque ....OKC has sourounding cities to make it look big but thats whats blocking OKC to grow... havent u beeen to the west side of ABQ?

it has so much land they could build houses in abq for the next 40 years and still have space...

and oh another thing i know why abq doesnt have tall buildings.. to match up to this so called okc area...in a study taken abq couldnt build a building over 20 stories cuz of were the down town is located, its located on a 20 square mile swamp so there is skyscraper answer."


And my following response:


"My statistics aren't wrong, they're the July 2006 estimates. Albuquerque had 504,949 at that time, the census doesn't lie http://www.census.gov/popest/cities/...EST2006-01.csv

How exactly did I say stuff I can't back up? I checked the stats straight from census.gov, it doesn't get more factual than that. If you're going to come in here and criticize my stats, the least you could do is use proper grammar.

OKC hasn't been growing that long. It was settled on April 22, 1889 during the land run. Albuquerque was founded in 1706 according to the chamber. So don't say we've been growing a lot longer.

For f-ing crying out loud! OKC doesn't have room to grow? What a bunch of BS! You realize that less than half of our city limits are developed and we don't have other towns all around us sucking up the population. Read a map. I want to see Albuquerque try to grow to the east.

We have surrounding cities to make us look big? Yes, that's true. In that case lets take your precious Rio Rancho out of the equation and look at the Albuquerque growth stats after that. It's only fair if you disregard our suburbs do disregard yours. Saying that you have the bigger "city" is so off base when all that really matters is the metro.

This is amazing to me, I present an objective argument (even compliment your city) and you come in here and trash everything I say. Not to mention use, quite possibly, the worst grammar I've ever seen. That's very mature, you must be 13 years-old."


All, in all, how do you think I did?

Yaaaaaay! Forum wars!

Just make sure all your points are correct and you will have no problems. Personally, speaking forum wars are kinda dumb unless your making a point and its a good point, which you are. I drove to ABQ for a wedding, only thing nice I saw about the town was the campus of new mexico ( I think), their duck pond area was nice, but alittle too new I guess would be the correct wording. Granted I didnt see much more of the town (wasn't there long enough). Anywho, nothing wrong with your statements. If you really wanna talk him down, ask him why his beloved city has water rationing problems. If ABQ is going to expand so well they will need water I believe. Maybe Big Boone Pickens water line is going through that town. Who knows, now I'm rambling.

Well, they do have this: Sandia Mountains Panorama by ~so1rfan on deviantART to look at

I don't believe I have ever heard of Albuquerque ever being mentioned as a major league city.

What a crock! Oklahoma City may or may not acquire a major league team, but I guarantee Albuquerque will not. OKC's metro population is 500,000 greater than that of Albuquerque. To cite city limit populations is inane---for instance if you go by city limit populations OKC is bigger than such cities as St. Louis and Kansas City.

By that standard, OKC is also bigger than Pittsburgh, Minneapolis, and Atlanta!

Boston
Chicago
Indianapolis
and the list goes on and on.

Both OKC and ALB have a lot going for them. As for me, I love mountains, but I detest heat. I can get decent, not grandiose, but decent, vertical rise terrain within 1.75 hours of OKC in a couple of directions. I deal with less oppressive heat in OKC. May mean little to others but for me, fewer 100+ temperature days = Ding, I have a winner.

Why do people engage in these ridiculous internet battles?

Personally, Albuquerque rocks! I absolutely love New Mexico. But how the Duke City could pull a pro team is beyond me.

I went to the New Mexico Bowl last December and was a bit surprised by the lack of interest....even for the home team Lobos.

I just can't see Alb. pulling a pro anything.

Agreed

Wow, the guy really acts like a 5 year old. Illogical arguments and endless run on sentences.

ABQ's mountains are pretty ugly. I've spent some time there, and I don't like it at all as a city. I'd rather have OKC's flat and green than ABQ's desert mountains.

OKC has a larger MSA population and a larger corporate base. Given that, I find the comparison a bit odd.

Albuquerque will never be a major league city because not enough people can spell it.

Actually, according to my wife who used to live in New Mexico, the city was named for Spain's Duke of Alburquerque (note the extra R), so the city's name is already misspelled.

Sorry for joining this discussion a little late but what was the actual forum if you dont mind me asking? I lived in both cities and can tell you that the Pit is one hell of a college basketball arena but it is mostly bleacher seating, not chair back. The arena that the city uses for most everything other than Lobo basketball is the Tingley. Tingley seats about 11k and its a piece of trash. Next time you talk to that person from ABQ ask them how often they drive through the south valley.

ABQ is fairly nice but when it comes to ghetto's they have OKC beat hands down.

It would also be interesting to see the MSA crime statistics compared with OKC.

I like ABQ I hope they do grow, I also like Santa Fe. But the cost of living is more expensive out there and the jobs dont pay tha tmuch more if at all.

ABQ is doing some building, thats good, so is OKC :dunno:

Also OKC is far more spread out (for better or worse) than most other cities in this nation. So things aren't as dense anywhere, including downtown.

Hmm... just a few things, Filming.. not so far in the distant past, wasn't there legislation passed to help cut the cost of filming in Oklahoma? 2nd, Film Row???

Another point, in size of square miles, Oklahoma, off the top of my head, is ranked 7th largest. We have plenty of room to expand.

mmonroe, the legislature passed laws that allow for incentives for filmmakers that shoot in Oklahoma several years ago. These are merely enough to make us competitive with what other states offer. However it hasn't been enough to get us to the level of activity that states like Louisiana, Texas, and North Carolina have.

Why are we debating with ALBQ? Who cares what anybody from ALBQ thinks about OKC. ALBQ is a nice quaint city but come on, we are better than this debate.

thanks for clarifying jbrown.

Whew, some good laughs in there. Since when did movie studios and skyscrapers have anything to do with getting sports teams??? What a noob.

Albuquerque has Rail Runner Express commuter trains.

On Don Grissom's latest documentary video, Albuquerque transit officials explain that Gov. Richardson decided to go with rail -- and "went on ahead" -- without "a big study."

The officials indicated weariness with previous studies that were "designed to fail." That business is a well studied "racket," as we've seen all too well here in Oklahoma.

Plainly, most central Oklahoma highways parallel the routes of the historic rail lines that actually built the city and state. Just as plainly, it is far easier and less expensive to use longstanding transport corridors, set up prior to dense development, than to superimpose all-new corridors on pre-existing development.

Compare the map of OKC's rail lines on the opening page of North American Transportation Institute's web site (check your search engine) -- to some of ODOT's "triumphs -- like, for instance, roller-coaster I-44 north -- like a bowl of debris-sprinkled spaghetti -- including that wonderful, dangerous, expensive "bridge over nothing," the fabulous Belle Isle.

Like all rail system startups, Rail Runner has its detractors -- the sort of people who might have complained that Joe Montana, at age 2, "didn't throw much of a pass...".

As has long been noted, transit systems are like forests: The time to plant one is 70 years ago -- but if you didn't do it then, the time is now. However, in the latter case, don't be complaining next year about the lack of shade -- or because you can't yet hang a swing or a treehouse in the young trees.

Like forests, transit systems take time. Like trees, we plant transit systems for our grandchildrens' use. Just one of the reasons it's important to start now -- with what's available to us now.

Who believes we can afford to allow the highway lobby to send us futher backwards before we can get some kind of a start?

Fortunately for central Oklahomans, our great grandparents' generation left us the best potential multimodal hub in the West -- in OKC Union Station's grand, expansive rail yard and terminal.

But are we wise enough to use it reverently? (Or will we, like Esau, sell our birthright for a single meal? Paul the Apostle, commenting, says, "Don't be a profane man like that one...")

Surely, in any case we can clearly see our grandchildrens' need of it. We're leaving those kids "$40 billion in unfunded highway maintenance need," a depleted social security trust fund, etc. Maybe we should ask ourselves what qualifies this generation of "merry debt producers" to deny the gifts of our forbears to our own children and grandchildren.

...but, then, that might require thinking about something higher than "basketball..." (Help me -- help me -- I'm starved for entertainment...)

TOM ELMORE

Holy hell people... ALB is an effin pit! Ugly town with a lot of nasty gang/crime problems. I had a friend live there for about a year and while he said the area he was in (Rio Rancho) was nice, most of the rest of the area sucked majorly.

I myself have been through it many times and haev never liked stopping there.

ALB will never, ever (foreva eva?) get a major-league team. Haha.