Population Growth for OKC

[jerrywall]

A number of us are deeply devoted homebodies at heart. My family and myself never moved more than a county or two further away than where we were born.

Shoot, my family still has our dugout on our settlement in Perry.

[BG918]

A number of us are deeply devoted homebodies at heart. My family and myself never moved more than a county or two further away than where we were born.

Not saying this applies to you but the most close-minded people I've ever met have never left their hometown/county.

Interesting map showing the transient nature of the West and the less-transient nature of the South and Midwest, although states like Georgia and North Carolina are rapidly changing.

[OKCRT]

Dallas has milder winters, is marginally more green (though I'm not sure how much of this is due to climate or better beatification), and has a lower tornado threat compared to OKC. The big thing there though is the entire DFW metroplex has over twice the population of the entire state of Oklahoma. Dallas proper, in my opinion, feels like another world compared to OKC. It has a very different culture. It's really hard to believe the two places are only three hours apart. On the other hand, parts of the metroplex, particularly on the Ft Worth side, have an more of an OKC feel to them. DFW is naturally going to have significant draw due to its size, still relative low cost of living, and major hub airport.

In regards to Anaheim, Mesa, and Arlington, first of all those are suburbs of major metro areas and not core cities. Edmond and Norman should be compared to those places, not OKC proper. Most suburbs lean conservative compared to their core cities.

Dallas and OKC are pretty dang similar IMO. OKC just smaller. 70s Dallas is where OKC is now pretty much IMO. Seems like Dallas had it's growth spurt starting in the 70s. But 70s Dallas was very similar to where OKC is today but it was still quite a bit larger and then really started to boom.

[josh]

Dallas and OKC are pretty dang similar IMO. OKC just smaller. 70s Dallas is where OKC is now pretty much IMO. Seems like Dallas had it's growth spurt starting in the 70s. But 70s Dallas was very similar to where OKC is today but it was still quite a bit larger and then really started to boom.

I’m. Not sure what your end point here is?

Are you saying in 50 years, OKC will have a metro population similar to the DFW metroplex? The DFW metro stands at 7.4 million people.

Between 1970 and 1980, Dallas grew by an average of 60,000 people a year. Between 2008 and 2017, OKC grew by an average of 17,000 a year. In order for OKC to hit 7.4 million at a liberal 20,000 a year, it would take 300 years. Let’s get crazy and say OKC will grew by 40,000 a year, that’s 150 years. For shoots and giggles, 80,000 a year? OKC will be as large as Dallas in 40 years.

Are you simply saying OKC is 50 years behind Dallas so comparisons are nonsensical?

I’m genuinly unsure what you were trying to convey?

[OKCRT]

I’m. Not sure what your end point here is?

Are you saying in 50 years, OKC will have a metro population similar to the DFW metroplex? The DFW metro stands at 7.4 million people.

Between 1970 and 1980, Dallas grew by an average of 60,000 people a year. Between 2008 and 2017, OKC grew by an average of 17,000 a year. In order for OKC to hit 7.4 million at a liberal 20,000 a year, it would take 300 years. Let’s get crazy and say OKC will grew by 40,000 a year, that’s 150 years. For shoots and giggles, 80,000 a year? OKC will be as large as Dallas in 40 years.

Are you simply saying OKC is 50 years behind Dallas so comparisons are nonsensical?

I’m genuinly unsure what you were trying to convey?

Was saying that OKC was very similar to Dallas back in the 70s just smaller,closer to Ft. Worth. Still similar today in some ways but not nearly like it was back then. I doubt OKC ever has a population explosion like that area has.

[Johnb911]

Not saying this applies to you but the most close-minded people I've ever met have never left their hometown/county.

Interesting map showing the transient nature of the West and the less-transient nature of the South and Midwest, although states like Georgia and North Carolina are rapidly changing.

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. The one that sticks out to me most is Texas. Perhaps just cause my sister and a bunch of her friends moved there, but I felt like most of the people I met when visiting didn't actually grow up there.

[gopokes88]

Very interesting, thanks for sharing. The one that sticks out to me most is Texas. Perhaps just cause my sister and a bunch of her friends moved there, but I felt like most of the people I met when visiting didn't actually grow up there.

Transplants tend to hang with other transplants. The data probably shows something to the effect of Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio have lots of transplants but every other part of Texas is heavily local.

[hoya]

I’m. Not sure what your end point here is?

Are you saying in 50 years, OKC will have a metro population similar to the DFW metroplex? The DFW metro stands at 7.4 million people.

Between 1970 and 1980, Dallas grew by an average of 60,000 people a year. Between 2008 and 2017, OKC grew by an average of 17,000 a year. In order for OKC to hit 7.4 million at a liberal 20,000 a year, it would take 300 years. Let’s get crazy and say OKC will grew by 40,000 a year, that’s 150 years. For shoots and giggles, 80,000 a year? OKC will be as large as Dallas in 40 years.

Are you simply saying OKC is 50 years behind Dallas so comparisons are nonsensical?

I’m genuinly unsure what you were trying to convey?

20,000 a year would be moderate growth for OKC today. Nothing spectacular, but okay. It's a hair higher than what we're averaging right now. But as the city grows, that 20,000 becomes a smaller and smaller percentage. According to Wikipedia, the Dallas metro population was 1.5 million in 1970. That's basically where we are today. Does that mean we're going to experience the same population boom that they have? No. But it does mean that we're very comparable to where Dallas was in the early 70s.

[BG918]

Transplants tend to hang with other transplants. The data probably shows something to the effect of Dallas, Houston, Austin, San Antonio have lots of transplants but every other part of Texas is heavily local.

Exactly. Texas is a big state with a lot of small towns. And my experience is that a lot of Texans never even think about living outside Texas, even the ones that go to college at OU or OSU. I'm originally from Texas but grew up in OK so I don't really identify as "Texan" but I'm also considered a transplant in OK.

[hoya]

As far as what needs to be done to encourage future growth, there are several things. But it all boils down to two strategies.

1) Quit making bad headlines.
2) Make some good stuff and advertise it.

How do we quit making bad headlines?

First, the state Democratic party needs to pull their head out of their ass (and I say this as a Republican). When legislators like Sally Kern can run completely unopposed, it's because your opposition party is utterly incompetent. Hopefully this election will see some actual serious challenges to bad legislators. Any state rep or state senator who proposes a bunch of idiot bills guaranteed to make national headlines needs to draw a well funded opponent in the next election. It's a sad state of affairs where you have to rely on a sex scandal to get rid of somebody like Ralph Shortey.

Second, we need to get off the "bottom 10" lists. When you're 49th in education funding, you get a bunch of negative press. When you're 38th, nobody notices. The numbers I found are a few years out of date (2015), but some back of the napkin math indicates that if we spent another $1000 per student, we'd go from 49th up to about 37th. We have about 700,000 students, so we'd need about $700M for that. That's about a 10% increase to the state budget. This isn't including the increase we've had in the latest budget. We need to do the same thing with mental health funding, and we need to lower incarceration rates. Stop showing up in "worst places for XYZ group" lists.

None of these problems are insurmountable. In many of these lists, there's not that much difference between #50 and #30. Everybody is bunched up together. But it's a beauty contest and nobody cares about the person who talks about how "unfair" or "superficial" everything is. You just really really don't want to be at the bottom.

As far as good things we're doing, the city is making great progress on that. We are a very business-friendly place, and with the MAPS projects and the planned metro area rail system (if it comes to pass), we are adding significant quality of life improvements. We've got a lot of local investors who really believe in this city, and looking at everything that's been happening downtown proves that. This is just going to continue. Compare OKC today to what it was when I was in college, in the late 90s. In 20 years it has become a far more attractive place to live.

We aren't going to boom overnight. But as our downtown districts begin to grow into one another, and they get connected with the streetcar, it's going to appear as though it's a more vibrant, better connected city. When I can go from Bass Pro up to St Anthony, and the whole area is completely developed, it will feel much more like a "real city" to people from around the country. If we can get a MAPS 4 that is as ambitious and game-changing as MAPS 3, we'll be poised for big things. Then the city just needs to market the hell out of that.

Do all this, we won't have any problem attracting new people to the state.

[Urbanized]

Trying to be Dallas is a fool's errand. Even most larger American cities cannot be Dallas. Not from a land use standpoint of course, but as an economic engine, it is easily comparable to cities like LA, NYC, Chicago. It is not replicable here for a number of reasons. Dallas' economic success is to some extent a result of happy accidents or coincidences:

• American Airlines moving to Dallas from NYC in 1979
• Subsequent changes to the airline industry which created the primacy of hubs and which also caused many mergers and left American on top of the heap. Being the home city and largest hub of the largest airline in the world simply cannot be understated as something which attracts business.
• Formation of Texas Instruments (which originated in the oilfield, by the way). After years of seismic and communications/defense work, in the 50s one of their employees, Jack Kilby, invented the integrated circuit and essentially overnight created the tech industry in Texas.
• Being the most dynamic city in a state full of a substantial number of other dynamic cities. This is why we need to root for Tulsa instead of see them as competition. But at the same time we need about 5 more Tulsas.
• Inertia. The law of things in motion tending to remain in motion while stationary objects tend to remain stationary. Dallas attracts companies and business simply because it is Dallas.
• Frankly, good old fashioned Texas bluster. For 150 years they have crowed to anyone who would listen that Texas is something special. Bigger. Better. More Texas-ier. Even when it wasn't always true. It's annoying AF but it is some pretty powerful self-talk and if you say stuff like that often enough someone is going to believe it. Culturally Oklahoma has been modest to a fault for its century+ of existence. Almost apologetic for being here. These things DO make a difference.

Regarding the point on tech, by the way, TI and subsequent companies and partners supercharged the electrical engineering program at Texas A&M and the computer science program at UT. Ripples of this are still being felt, even in Austin, which benefits from UT's readily-available graduates and from the success of their own homegrown company, Dell, which happened to peak as the larges CPU manufacturer in the world at the height of the Windows-based personal computing explosion.

This in turn lured a huge presence from Microsoft, which brought other companies. I got a major education on Austin a couple of weeks ago on a ULI trip, and once again it is a situation perhaps less random than a lightning strike, but not much. Downtown Austin didn't begin to show signs of life until 1998. That's a DECADE after there was some concerted effort in OKC's downtown. Five years after MAPS passed here. They had like 4 downtown projects in 1999 (if memory serves). Their population was comparable to OKC's and the population was actually SMALLER than OKC's in the early 90s. Now DIRT in Austin's CBD is going for $1000 sq/ft. In many ways that city's economy has more in common with places like Seoul or Singapore than it does with OKC or even Dallas (which is much more diverse than Austin economically). It is mostly a one-industry town. Except their industry is only expanding. Tech has no forseeable end, and due to a number of well-timed coincidences they are now 20 years into their version of a supercharged oil boom, in an industry that may not have a bust in our lifetimes.

These things aren't replicable. All you can do is tend to your garden, invest in education and higher education, make quality of life investments to keep your homegrown talent, HOPE that someone innovates and strikes gold in your back yard, and then nurture those homegrown businesses as much as possible. We need to nurture the Paycoms, and hope someone here invents the next thing that changes the world as much as the integrated circuit did. That's it. There is much work involved, of course. But there is also some luck required to be a freakish success like Dallas or like Austin.

I think we'd be much better off if we try to pattern ourselves after and base our expectations on cities like Nashville, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, Denver, even Omaha. Even those cities, as successful as they are, can't hope to be Dallas. It's like wishing to be NYC or LA. It's like me as a fat 50 year old guy trying to get into shape. I can strive to be in great shape, have six-pack abs, whatever. But it would be pretty silly to aspire to be Mr. Universe or a Calvin Klein model. I think our proximity to Dallas makes it an obvious aspirational target, but doing this also belies a misunderstanding of just how massive that city's economy is.

[BG918]

Good points Urbanized. I would also add that the major infrastructure improvements undertaken by planners and local/state governments in DFW greatly contributed to growth there, and has been a major factor in continuing to enable high growth and expansion.

[bchris02]

As far as what needs to be done to encourage future growth, there are several things. But it all boils down to two strategies.

1) Quit making bad headlines.
2) Make some good stuff and advertise it.

How do we quit making bad headlines?

First, the state Democratic party needs to pull their head out of their ass (and I say this as a Republican). When legislators like Sally Kern can run completely unopposed, it's because your opposition party is utterly incompetent. Hopefully this election will see some actual serious challenges to bad legislators. Any state rep or state senator who proposes a bunch of idiot bills guaranteed to make national headlines needs to draw a well funded opponent in the next election. It's a sad state of affairs where you have to rely on a sex scandal to get rid of somebody like Ralph Shortey.

Second, we need to get off the "bottom 10" lists. When you're 49th in education funding, you get a bunch of negative press. When you're 38th, nobody notices. The numbers I found are a few years out of date (2015), but some back of the napkin math indicates that if we spent another $1000 per student, we'd go from 49th up to about 37th. We have about 700,000 students, so we'd need about $700M for that. That's about a 10% increase to the state budget. This isn't including the increase we've had in the latest budget. We need to do the same thing with mental health funding, and we need to lower incarceration rates. Stop showing up in "worst places for XYZ group" lists.

None of these problems are insurmountable. In many of these lists, there's not that much difference between #50 and #30. Everybody is bunched up together. But it's a beauty contest and nobody cares about the person who talks about how "unfair" or "superficial" everything is. You just really really don't want to be at the bottom.

As far as good things we're doing, the city is making great progress on that. We are a very business-friendly place, and with the MAPS projects and the planned metro area rail system (if it comes to pass), we are adding significant quality of life improvements. We've got a lot of local investors who really believe in this city, and looking at everything that's been happening downtown proves that. This is just going to continue. Compare OKC today to what it was when I was in college, in the late 90s. In 20 years it has become a far more attractive place to live.

We aren't going to boom overnight. But as our downtown districts begin to grow into one another, and they get connected with the streetcar, it's going to appear as though it's a more vibrant, better connected city. When I can go from Bass Pro up to St Anthony, and the whole area is completely developed, it will feel much more like a "real city" to people from around the country. If we can get a MAPS 4 that is as ambitious and game-changing as MAPS 3, we'll be poised for big things. Then the city just needs to market the hell out of that.

Do all this, we won't have any problem attracting new people to the state.

This exactly. Getting Oklahoma off the bottom 10 (or even bottom 5) lists where it consistently stays alongside states like Mississippi and Louisiana will go a long way towards improving the national perception of this state. Most people don't know a lot about Mississippi but they tend to have a negative perception of it because it's at the top of every bad list and bottom of every good list. Oklahoma, along with Arkansas and a few others, is one of the "Thank God for Mississippi" states. Increasing Oklahoma's ranking up into at least the 30s would do wonders.

[dankrutka]

Elimination of SQ 640, increased teacher pay, school consolidation, increased higher education funding, allowing ODOT to take on debt to get projects done in a more timely manner, a GPT hike, and a public smoking ban is where I would start. I would also loosen the petition requirements to make it easier to get petition initiatives on the ballot. Candidates aren't talking about any of this. Instead, they are pushing the same old tired right-wing ideology responsible for getting the state into the mess it's currently in. "Cut spending, lower taxes" sounds good to the low-information conservative voter but there's only so far you can go before you start "cutting into the bone" so to speak.

These are all issues worthy of discussion, but notice how they had nothing to do with the reasons you gave in your previous post where I asked for specifics. If you know me, I disagree with Oklahoma's conservative bent, but Oklahoma politics are not drastically different than most other states... largely because ALEC writes legislation for legislators in all these states (which by the way is such a threat to the very idea of federalism and state control. Most of these legislative proposals are hatched half way across the country. It's such a threat to our democracy.) However, the issues you actually raised here are fair game. For me, Oklahoma has shown less of a commitment to public education (K-12 and higher ed) than other similar states and it's really hurting the state on multiple fronts. However, even this isn't unprecedented as Oklahoma is basically following in the footsteps of Kansas' failed tax cutting that gutted public education funding until recent responses. But North Carolina has huge education problems and despite the good pay we often hear about for teachers in DFW, Texas has a number of education problems and controversies too.

Anyway, my big point is: these discussions are more productive if we can identify specific areas where Oklahoma is failing compared to other states and then use them as examples to advocate for changes.

[dankrutka]

Incredible post, Urbanized. As always. Your expansive knowledge on so many topics and then convey those ideas here always impresses me. Just wanted to say that.

[adaniel]

I don’t post much on here (sorry!) but I guess I’m not understanding the point of this whole current discussion. Population growth is a lagging indicator of economic performance and the economy was quite poor in this area from 2015-16, so population growth in 2016-17 is going to be soft. It’s actually pretty impressive OKC grew as much as it did, and from all observations, at least from a now-outsider, it seems that the economy is doing much better. I like to look at BLS statistics to get a snapshot of an area. Job growth in this area is now above the national average and, pertinent to this thread, the labor force has grown about 2.6% between April of this year and last. For comparison sake, the metro labor force grew by 0.4% from April 2016-17. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that growth was underwhelming but it already seems that things are turning around.

I have never understood the comparisons to DFW on here. I doubt you’ll see folks in Nashville or Charlotte hyperventilate about Atlanta, nor do you see Indy constantly bemoaning Chicago. Y’all, can I burst some of your bubbles? I’ve lived in Dallas for four years and I want out. Beyond having a good job here and being close to my family, it’s really not that great. The growth you are seeing here is because of jobs…that’s nothing to scoff at. This area in terms of business growth is wildly successful for reasons Urbanized laid out (and DFW did things in the past that I’m not so sure can be pulled off in today’s more global-oriented economy).

But some of the thoughts of this place are laughable. I loathe the Oklahoma legislature just as much as anyone but I have honestly *never* heard anyone reference Dallas some sort of open minded utopia. Where are you all getting that? Dallas County votes more “blue” because it is majority-minority. Move outside 635 that and the attitudes are no different than what you see in most of OK. There’s a lot of social blind spots here that would never be tolerated in most large cities; lately, there’s been a spade of physical attacks in Oak Lawn against gay couples and “progressive” Dallas had to be shamed to do anything about it. Texas has had multiple rounds of education funding cuts and teachers haven’t seen a raise here in years. Also, the politics are atrocious. It’s already been touched on here so no need to rehash it. Sometimes I remind myself that I traded OK’s embarrassingly bad legislature for noted homophobe Dan Patrick stomping around in his cowboy boots and “dad jeans” and Greg Abbott being a twitter troll. Not an improvement, in my opinion.

More detrimental than that, this area is just becoming a pain in the ass to live in. Namely, it has gotten very expensive here…I have coworkers commuting 1.5 hours *each way* on very pricey toll roads because that’s how far they had to drive to find a home under $300K. Note that property taxes on a $300K home down here are going to run you about $6K or more, depending on the city. High property taxes means the incoming SALT limitations are really going to hurt a lot of people here, sadly. At least by one measure I’ve seen, Dallas is currently the least affordable big city housing market in the nation that is not on a coast. At least once every other week, there’s an article in the DNM from local leaders fretting about this area’s rapidly declining affordability. And they should. I can just say personally, I make a pretty nice living and I am priced out of anything livable within 15 miles of me. It’s depressing.

The future of Dallas is something that looks a lot like Seattle, Denver, or Austin (minus those cities livability and amenities). All three of those cities now act as repositories of coastal-generated equity. If you have it, then you're great! If not (or not the doctor/lawyer/RE agent/CPA to these people) then you are screwed. I am using those three cities because they have all seen their growth slow markedly in the past few years as housing prices have surged in all 3 places. If OKC were smart, it would adopt the Boise/Salt Lake City model, who are currently drawing people from Seattle and Portland, who in turn are being priced out from people moving in from California. As an aside, I’d like to see OKC market itself much better than it has in the past. It can counter a lot of foolishness that comes from the state capitol.

Like I said, the l am no fan of the lawmakers here, but should not be the excuse that some make it out to be. Case in point: Nashville TN. Awesome, growing, thriving city (I am actually considering it myself) despite having no airline hub, crappy weather, a location in what is a somewhat poor state, and subject what may be the worst legislative body in the United States. Sound familiar? I was in Nashville last month and, oddly enough, they consider OKC to be a “peer metro” so go figure. Now it is true that they have a cultural niche in country music recording that other places don’t have. But they’ve had it for years and only in the past decade or so has the city really taken off. Also, most people moving there wouldn’t be caught dead listening to country and western. Look to Nashville, OKC.

[adaniel]

I found this interesting. It’s a list by U-Haul tracking all the one way arrivals in the country used by their moving service.

Houston was number 1. My hometown of San Antonio was number 5. OKC was number 36.

Here’s the list.

Metrics like this are bad. A number that says how many people rented one thing from one company tells us nothing.

Counterpoint--Houston's growth have slowed considerably, and Harris County is actually experiencing net outflow. No surprise as Houston was hit just as bad as OKC by the energy downturn.

https://kinder.rice.edu/2018/04/10/h...ris-county-not

This does not even factor in the several thousand people who have left the gulf coast after Harvey (although to be fair, I don't know how many people actually left Houston vs. Beaumont or Port Aransas). LOTS of people from that area around me in Dallas now.

[gopokes88]

I don’t post much on here (sorry!) but I guess I’m not understanding the point of this whole current discussion. Population growth is a lagging indicator of economic performance and the economy was quite poor in this area from 2015-16, so population growth in 2016-17 is going to be soft. It’s actually pretty impressive OKC grew as much as it did, and from all observations, at least from a now-outsider, it seems that the economy is doing much better. I like to look at BLS statistics to get a snapshot of an area. Job growth in this area is now above the national average and, pertinent to this thread, the labor force has grown about 2.6% between April of this year and last. For comparison sake, the metro labor force grew by 0.4% from April 2016-17. So it shouldn't surprise anyone that growth was underwhelming but it already seems that things are turning around.

I have never understood the comparisons to DFW on here. I doubt you’ll see folks in Nashville or Charlotte hyperventilate about Atlanta, nor do you see Indy constantly bemoaning Chicago. Y’all, can I burst some of your bubbles? I’ve lived in Dallas for four years and I want out. Beyond having a good job here and being close to my family, it’s really not that great. The growth you are seeing here is because of jobs…that’s nothing to scoff at. This area in terms of business growth is wildly successful for reasons Urbanized laid out (and DFW did things in the past that I’m not so sure can be pulled off in today’s more global-oriented economy).

But some of the thoughts of this place are laughable. I loathe the Oklahoma legislature just as much as anyone but I have honestly *never* heard anyone reference Dallas some sort of open minded utopia. Where are you all getting that? Dallas County votes more “blue” because it is majority-minority. Move outside 635 that and the attitudes are no different than what you see in most of OK. There’s a lot of social blind spots here that would never be tolerated in most large cities; lately, there’s been a spade of physical attacks in Oak Lawn against gay couples and “progressive” Dallas had to be shamed to do anything about it. Texas has had multiple rounds of education funding cuts and teachers haven’t seen a raise here in years. Also, the politics are atrocious. It’s already been touched on here so no need to rehash it. Sometimes I remind myself that I traded OK’s embarrassingly bad legislature for noted homophobe Dan Patrick stomping around in his cowboy boots and “dad jeans” and Greg Abbott being a twitter troll. Not an improvement, in my opinion.

More detrimental than that, this area is just becoming a pain in the ass to live in. Namely, it has gotten very expensive here…I have coworkers commuting 1.5 hours *each way* on very pricey toll roads because that’s how far they had to drive to find a home under $300K. Note that property taxes on a $300K home down here are going to run you about $6K or more, depending on the city. High property taxes means the incoming SALT limitations are really going to hurt a lot of people here, sadly. At least by one measure I’ve seen, Dallas is currently the least affordable big city housing market in the nation that is not on a coast. At least once every other week, there’s an article in the DNM from local leaders fretting about this area’s rapidly declining affordability. And they should. I can just say personally, I make a pretty nice living and I am priced out of anything livable within 15 miles of me. It’s depressing.

The future of Dallas is something that looks a lot like Seattle, Denver, or Austin (minus those cities livability and amenities). All three of those cities now act as repositories of coastal-generated equity. If you have it, then you're great! If not (or not the doctor/lawyer/RE agent/CPA to these people) then you are screwed. I am using those three cities because they have all seen their growth slow markedly in the past few years as housing prices have surged in all 3 places. If OKC were smart, it would adopt the Boise/Salt Lake City model, who are currently drawing people from Seattle and Portland, who in turn are being priced out from people moving in from California. As an aside, I’d like to see OKC market itself much better than it has in the past. It can counter a lot of foolishness that comes from the state capitol.

Like I said, the l am no fan of the lawmakers here, but should not be the excuse that some make it out to be. Case in point: Nashville TN. Awesome, growing, thriving city (I am actually considering it myself) despite having no airline hub, crappy weather, a location in what is a somewhat poor state, and subject what may be the worst legislative body in the United States. Sound familiar? I was in Nashville last month and, oddly enough, they consider OKC to be a “peer metro” so go figure. Now it is true that they have a cultural niche in country music recording that other places don’t have. But they’ve had it for years and only in the past decade or so has the city really taken off. Also, most people moving there wouldn’t be caught dead listening to country and western. Look to Nashville, OKC.

So what you’re saying is, the OK legislature acts as a buffer against okc growing too fast? So it grows but not too much and stays fun. Great!

(That’s a joke before anyone melts down)

[Bunty]

The state should allow Oklahoma cities to be in better control to shape their own destinies. The law that bans all Oklahoma cities from raising minimum wage should be repealed. Omaha and Lincoln don't appear to be hurt from their minimum wage of $9 an hour with both having a somewhat lower unemployment rate than Oklahoma City. It would probably be more fair to Oklahoma cities, if the state min. wage was raised to $9. At the same time the law banning Oklahoma cities from raising min. wage could remain, if desired. I would expect any change in the min. wage to require a successful petition for a vote.

The law that bans cities from banning fracking should be repealed. There probably is a bunch of other laws that go against cities that need repealed. Repealing such laws might help towns in rural areas to do better.

[jerrywall]

This would need a constitutional rewrite I believe. However, that could become a careful what you ask for situation.

[TheTravellers]

Yep, what Jerry said. OK is a Dillon's Rule state, and that is most likely enshrined in the Constitution. I don't like that theory, but can kind-of, sort-of, somewhat, maybe see the point of it sometimes. And there is no way in hell that we want any kind of rewrite of our constitution, not in this environment/atmosphere. If we could just amend the constitution to make OK home rule, that would work, but there's no way that will ever happen.

[jackirons]

Interesting stats.

http://bloom.bg/2H3sVwD

Here are the cities that saw the biggest gains in the percentage of the population under 18:

- Austin (7.9 percent)
- Oklahoma City (5.8 percent)
- Houston (5.5 percent)
- Raleigh (4.9 percent)
- San Antonio (4.3 percent)

[hoya]

Interesting stats.

http://bloom.bg/2H3sVwD

Here are the cities that saw the biggest gains in the percentage of the population under 18:

- Austin (7.9 percent)
- Oklahoma City (5.8 percent)
- Houston (5.5 percent)
- Raleigh (4.9 percent)
- San Antonio (4.3 percent)

Really expensive cities cost a lot for a reason -- a lot of people want to live there. There are cool things to do and that attracts people. But eventually they hit the point where you can't afford to live there anymore. No matter how cool they are, the cost is prohibitive and you have to look for somewhere else to live.

Being on the other end of the extreme isn't necessarily a good thing. For a long time Oklahoma City had one of the lowest costs of living in the nation. But part of that is because nobody wanted to live here. There was nothing to do, so you didn't have people coming in and buying property. We don't want that either. I think the fact that we're second in this "biggest gains under 18" category shows that this is beginning to change. We've got some people moving here, and hopefully we can keep them here. This city is changing, becoming a place that has opportunities, has good jobs, has fun things to do. And yet we're still affordable.

I wouldn't want to live in New York City. Way too crowded, way too expensive, and the people always seem pissed off. Now I wouldn't mind living in TV New York, where people have unrealistically large apartments that they can afford on their barista salary, everyone lives in a trendy cool area, and the neighbors are quirky and endearing. You can always find a parking spot, it doesn't take four hours to drive across town, and you can actually afford to do fun things and go to nice places even when you're a struggling young person fresh out of school. That wouldn't be bad at all.

Personally, I think that should be our goal with OKC. Build a place that lets people experience something like the "TV big city" lifestyle. Oh, sure, we're not going to be able to mandate that everyone be attractive and interesting, but we can make walkable streets, build to moderate density, give good job opportunities, and keep prices affordable. If recent OU grads can move into Oklahoma City and get 90% of the fun stuff that New York or Chicago could offer, at 1/3 the price, why wouldn't they stay?

[Pete]

If you think about it, a growth in the percentage of population under 18 means the percentage of 18+ is shrinking as a percentage.

Makes sense for OKC where it's affordable to have kids and have a bunch of them but then we have to keep them here.

[jonny d]

If you think about it, a growth in the percentage of population under 18 means the percentage of 18+ is shrinking as a percentage.

Makes sense for OKC where it's affordable to have kids and have a bunch of them but then we have to keep them here.

How so? If the overall population increased, it could be the same % overall, just the total <18 has gone up compared to the PY. Or am I thinking of it wrong?