Where Cities Are Growing Faster Than Their Suburbs - CityLab (http://www.citylab.com/housing/2014/06/where-cities-are-growing-faster-than-their-suburbs/372656/)

I can see where the nature of OKC can skew this type of study (not knowing all the criteria) as much of what would be considered "suburban areas" are within the city limits of OKC unlike most major metros. For areas like Dallas and Denver which are ringed with their own incorporated suburban areas the growth is more constrained. Even though I am more suburban minded I do get excited about the growth in the urban core and resurrection of close-in neighborhoods.

I can see where the nature of OKC can skew this type of study (not knowing all the criteria) as much of what would be considered "suburban areas" are within the city limits of OKC unlike most major metros. For areas like Dallas and Denver which are ringed with their own incorporated suburban areas the growth is more constrained. Even though I am more suburban minded I do get excited about the growth in the urban core and resurrection of close-in neighborhoods.

I would tend to agree with this, but as of last decade, weren't the suburbs in OKC growing faster than the city proper? Obviously it's much easier for a place like OKC to add population given the city limits are about 40 miles wide, but I did see the majority of the metro's growth is now occurring in Oklahoma County.

Much of what is in Edmond's mailing address is really OKC or Oklahoma County.

Oklahoma City is pretty unique in that many far flung suburban areas are still within the city limits and that many parts of OKC proper are in suburban school districts, be it Edmond, Putnam City, Deer Creek, Moore, etc.

I think it is pretty clear that the recent growth in OKC city limits is happening in the inner city areas and downtown moreso than the suburban tracts given all of the construction and recently opened residential in and around downtown.

Sure OKC has large suburban tracts; I don't think it is necessarily anything to be ashamed of. Just because OKC has 6XX square miles of municipal control doesn't mean that growth happened equally within said area. What we need is growth in all built-up areas of the city instead of just the suburban areas and that is what's taking place now, with downtown/inner city moving ahead (and rightfully so since it's easier to add density in a core area).

I think with proper regional government implementation, we can begin to spin off unnecessary rural watershed areas that will never be developed (and could be better run by the county/metro govts) but I'd imagine OKC would still be some 400 square miles (which is exactly what LA happens to me. ...