Population Growth for OKC

[Bunty]

Rover, you're using census figures from 2021 to 2022. I was looking at census figures from 2020 to 2022.

Nevertheless, 283 out of 589 towns in Oklahoma from 2021 to 2022 actually being able to grow is a lot to me.

[fortpatches]

A difference without a distinction. What point are you trying to make? You think people are moving to OK to move to small towns and farms? Come on. SMH 臘*♂️

No? I literally said that I would assume otherwise, and that another conclusion would be "quite unlikely".
At least respond to what I said if you are going to respond.

[soonerguru]

Duplicate post

[soonerguru]

Here is the link to the city population data. OKC remains number 20 and is growing by about 6,500 people a year — just in city limits — to a population of 694,000 in 2022.

Tulsa is continuing to lose population within its city limits although the decline is not substantial, about 1k a year.

https://www2.census.gov/programs-sur...22-ANNRNK.xlsx

[Anonymous.]

OKC is in good company for growth. The amount of Texas cities on that list that are increasing significantly is so wild.

[Laramie]

.


List of United States cities by population:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._by_population

20. Oklahoma City, OK - (2022) 694,800 - (2020) 681,054 = 13,746/2 = 6,873
47. Tulsa, OK - (2022) 411,867 - (2020) 413,066 = 1,199/2 = 599.5

Tulsa lost very little population within its city limits; they increased their MSA population for the same perod:

List of United States cities by Metropolitan Statistical Area population:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrop...atistical_area

42. Oklahoma City, OK MSA - 1,459,380 - 1,425,695 = 33,685/2 = 16,842
54. Tulsa, OK MSA - 1,034,123 - 1,015,331 = 18,795/2 = 9,396

[soonerguru]

.


List of United States cities by population:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o..._by_population

20. Oklahoma City, OK - (2022) 694,800 - (2020) 681,054 = 13,746/2 = 6,873
47. Tulsa, OK - (2022) 411,867 - (2020) 413,066 = 1,199/2 = 599.5

Tulsa lost very little population within its city limits; they increased their MSA population for the same perod:

List of United States cities by Metropolitan Statistical Area population:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metrop...atistical_area

42. Oklahoma City, OK MSA - 1,459,380 - 1,425,695 = 33,685/2 = 16,842
54. Tulsa, OK MSA - 1,034,123 - 1,015,331 = 18,795/2 = 9,396

You'll note that I stated that Tulsa's city limits population decline is not substantial. Not sure why you feel the need to post things in giant typography to get your point across.

I think you would agree that people on this forum would be concerned if OKC lost any number of people in any single year, though, let alone in two successive census counts.

[G.Walker]

^
hey watch out now, I like the way Laramie posts, that is his niche! He has been doing it for a long time.

[T. Jamison]

No Laramie slander allowed. I don't make the rules.

[Plutonic Panda]

No Laramie slander allowed. I don't make the rules.

Agreed. Laramie is the sh!t. You wanna go through him? Gotta go through me first. Laramie you are awesome!

[Mississippi Blues]

You'll note that I stated that Tulsa's city limits population decline is not substantial. Not sure why you feel the need to post things in giant typography to get your point across.

I think you would agree that people on this forum would be concerned if OKC lost any number of people in any single year, though, let alone in two successive census counts.

I didn’t take his post as implying you were wrong or as trying to correct you. It’s not uncommon for Laramie to focus on a specific point or even phrase in a larger post and add some form of descriptive statistics to contextualize it.

[oklip955]

Just wondering about the Tulsa numbers, is it possible that some or all of the decline is due to people getting older? What I mean is that instead of a household with 2 parents and say 2 or 3 kids, the kids are grown and not living in Tulsa, maybe moved to a suburb or to another state? Now its just empty nesters and possibly an older adult who has lost their spouse. So instead of 5 people living in that house, there is only 1 or 2. Add with that not a lot of new housing vs what is torn down. Just a random thought. Okc has lots of land and lots of new housing stock being built so attracts young people starting families or who have families.

[BG918]

Just wondering about the Tulsa numbers, is it possible that some or all of the decline is due to people getting older? What I mean is that instead of a household with 2 parents and say 2 or 3 kids, the kids are grown and not living in Tulsa, maybe moved to a suburb or to another state? Now its just empty nesters and possibly an older adult who has lost their spouse. So instead of 5 people living in that house, there is only 1 or 2. Add with that not a lot of new housing vs what is torn down. Just a random thought. Okc has lots of land and lots of new housing stock being built so attracts young people starting families or who have families.

All of those things. Not enough new “family” neighborhoods to offset these losses. Though that will likely change in the next decade with the anticipated growth with the Gilcrease Loop in NW Tulsa and Fair Oaks in east Tulsa, as well as increased infill in midtown and downtown. Tulsa is nearly built-out in its south and west sides where most of the recent growth has been happening in Jenks/Bixby/BA.

[April in the Plaza]

The MSA population numbers >> City proper population numbers (especially given OKC’s footprint)

I can see why Holt pimps that number, but the IKEAs of the world care about the MSA.

[chssooner]

The MSA population numbers >> City proper population numbers (especially given OKC’s footprint)

I can see why Holt pimps that number, but the IKEAs of the world care about the MSA.

No, he pimps it because his Job is to monitor OKC news. His job doesn't really concern itself with anything else.

[Rover]

This is like watching a pillow fight.

[PoliSciGuy]

You'll note that I stated that Tulsa's city limits population decline is not substantial. Not sure why you feel the need to post things in giant typography to get your point across.

I think you would agree that people on this forum would be concerned if OKC lost any number of people in any single year, though, let alone in two successive census counts.

My dude you don't need to make everything about you, especially when you're targeting one of the most genuine and helpful people this forum has to offer

[Laramie]

Soonerguru; My post wasn't aimed at you. I couldn't open your link (technical on my end). I viewed a number of threads posted above your post and saw the city population 694,800.

Recall seeing that figure. I only posted the results from the Wikipedia sites because both had City and Metro areas for 2020 - 2022.

TULSA, I'm rooting for our sister city; glad to see the potential the Tulsa area will have--many city populations are in decline or slow to negative city population growth. Among the top 32 cities, 9 had gains--San Antonio, Austin, Jacksonville, Fort Worth, Columbus, Charlotte, Seattle, OKC and Las Vegas..

Tulsa only lost 600 a year, (not 1k a year). Also wanted to highlight Tulsa's MSA population strength. Oklahoma has two major MSA cities with much promise for the next 3-5 years.

We will see T-town rebound with some promising developments for Pryor and Inola on the horizon. Predict Tulsa will show a city population
gain come 2026.

[shavethewhales]

Tulsa city proper population will shoot up again when they fill in the east side around the Lynn Lane Reservoir. This is a huge area mostly slated for residential that just needs the infrastructure improvements to really take off. There have been masterplans in the works for awhile. A huge new sewer interceptor should go in soon if it hasn't started already that will allow development to follow. With the new Inola plant going in, I predict developers are frothing to start a bunch of new neighborhoods in this area. A few downtown projects are also well underway that will bring a few hundred units in. Not explosive growth in Tulsa proper, but definitely a bit more room to fill in. As others have said, the MSA is still chugging along with huge growth in Bixby, Jenks, Owasso, BA and Glenpool, not to mention steady growth in Sapulpa, Sand Springs, etc.

Nothing will stop the OKC freight train as far as in-city population goes with those borders. So much land to fill. Has anyone done a calculation of how large OKC proper would be if all the current borders were filled with standard single family residential density? I didn't even realize the city limits encircled Mustang to such a great degree and went all the way NE to Luther!?

[PhiAlpha]

Yeah it's probably been said but Tulsa proper's population change from 2020 to 2022 probably has a lot more to do with people in the core and those moving here opting to take advantage while interest rates were low on better prices for newbuilds with more land in the suburbs over packing into midtown/south Tulsa. Also I know a bunch first hand who prefer to add some more distance between themselves and others after Covid, especially given most companies' newfound willingness to let people work from home more often. I feel like that might be playing into that a bit as well. Tulsa's city limits are tiny compared to OKC's and much of it is already developed and built out (other than some areas in east Tulsa as mentioned above). There is still a shortage of for sale and rental housing available in Midtown/South Tulsa so it is still a little hard to believe the estimated decline. That said with some of the efforts to redevelop areas of downtown in addition to building up east Tulsa, I would imagine that is about to correct itself.

One thing that Tulsa has done way better than OKC to date, partially due to available building stock, is office building to apartment conversions in the CBD. OKC had Park Harvey, The Montgomery, and Carnegie Centre for years that was it until First National opened last year. The Harlow and Holiday Inn about to undergo conversions also will help but there's been a big missed opportunity for that between the CBD (including some building that Sandridge KO'd) and upper floors in Bricktown. Tulsa has at least 10 conversions in the CBD alone with two more being redeveloped right now and opening later this year. It made a massive difference for downtown street life for awhile though unfortunately the business crowd reduction post-Covid has really hurt many of the street level retail/restaurants so we're in a bit of a weird transition period right now. Where Tulsa is way behind is on newbuild apartment buildings on vacant lots in the districts around the CBD though slowly but surely developers are starting to catchup.

All of that to say that downtown apartment vacancy rates are very low and new complexes keep filling up despite fewer people needing to be downtown for work so that will also help reverse that negative estimated trend.

[Rover]

Spent a fair amount of time Sunday in downtown Tulsa. Having lived at Center Plaza years ago. I was really disappointed with how little real progress has been made with making it a connected urban area. It is basically the same as it was 40 years ago with a smattering of new buildings. Whereas Bricktown, Automobile Alley, Innovation District, Midtown, Arts District, Automobile Alley, and Scissortail Park are all pretty connected and encourage infilling between and around, Tulsa's Blue Dome, 15th Street, and downtown are really disconnected. Lots of dead spaces in downtown and little weekend activity. Tulsa central has a long way to go.

I went to the river park in Tulsa and was impressed in what it had become vs. the riverside of old, but between it and Scissortail, there were way more people yesterday at Scissortail.

Tulsa really is behind where it needs to be to attract people to a vibrant core, IMO. And I didn't find any developments like Wheeler anywhere. Suburban developments were pretty standard. I saw no "lifestyle" centers in my drive around... maybe just missed some.

On the great for Tulsa side, we went to Philbrook for a very good exhibition. What a great facility and grounds. OKC has no grounds like it. The Trees, hills and vegitation does make certain parts of Tulsa outstanding to the eye. And Utica Square is still very nice.

There's a reason OKC is attractive to move-ins, whether inter or intra state. It's good to go some other places and then come back and appreciate just how far OKC has come in the last two decades. It seems on a great trajectory.

[PhiAlpha]

Spent a fair amount of time Sunday in downtown Tulsa. Having lived at Center Plaza years ago. I was really disappointed with how little real progress has been made with making it a connected urban area. It is basically the same as it was 40 years ago with a smattering of new buildings. Whereas Bricktown, Automobile Alley, Innovation District, Midtown, Arts District, Automobile Alley, and Scissortail Park are all pretty connected and encourage infilling between and around, Tulsa's Blue Dome, 15th Street, and downtown are really disconnected. Lots of dead spaces in downtown and little weekend activity. Tulsa central has a long way to go.

I went to the river park in Tulsa and was impressed in what it had become vs. the riverside of old, but between it and Scissortail, there were way more people yesterday at Scissortail.

Tulsa really is behind where it needs to be to attract people to a vibrant core, IMO. And I didn't find any developments like Wheeler anywhere. Suburban developments were pretty standard. I saw no "lifestyle" centers in my drive around... maybe just missed some.

On the great for Tulsa side, we went to Philbrook for a very good exhibition. What a great facility and grounds. OKC has no grounds like it. The Trees, hills and vegitation does make certain parts of Tulsa outstanding to the eye. And Utica Square is still very nice.

There's a reason OKC is attractive to move-ins, whether inter or intra state. It's good to go some other places and then come back and appreciate just how far OKC has come in the last two decades. It seems on a great trajectory.

AND YOU DIDN'T CALL ME?!? JK JK.

I think Tulsa has been working toward and doing a decent job of connecting downtown to the Blue Dome, Brady, and Pearl Districts over the last 10 years and that really has been most of the focus. The East Village is evidence of that and it didn't really exist at all about 10 years ago. In addition, developer focus has been redevelopment of existing historic buildings to add residents/hotel guests to the CBD (which you don't really see because the buildings look the same but just have people in them all the time now) which I'm all for because it's Tulsa's best selling point over OKC. It's CBD is frankly just cooler and has more of a big midwestern city feel (especially when people are down here) than OKC's CBD due to not near as much of the original core being razed during urban renewal. Outside of the CBD though, especially east and south of downtown, it's and urban development waste land of parking lots that are finally starting to fill up on the east side...where Santa Fe Square is well underway in the Blue dome and the impending development of the PAC lot (finally will take out a massive surface lot and help further connect the CBD to the blue dome). OKC's development of everything around it's CBD has blown past Tulsa's over the last two decades.

Tulsa really needs to actively work toward connecting the core to midtown as little has been done in the sea of parking to the south. I hope the city takes a cue from OKC and turns a bunch of those lots into a park that would connect downtown to Cherry Street/Maple Ridge. Those lots aren't getting developed anytime soon so making them a massive park would go a long way toward encouraging development in the other vacant lots down there.

As far as weekend activity, similar to OKC back when Bricktown was all it had going, most of that is in the Brady/Bluedome/Greenwood Districts around the ball park. I was down there most of the weekend and there was a lot of activity. I wouldn't judge downtown activity or attendance at the gathering place on memorial day weekend though as it was uncharacteristically quiet here for such a nice weekend. Comparing the two cities over the last few years, it really seems like people don't stick around the city on summer holiday weekends in Tulsa as much as they do in OKC. There were a ton of people all over the place over the last two weeks for Mayfest and the Ironman back to back weekends and especially will be will be nuts all over the central part of the city gearing up for Tulsa Tough over the next two weeks.

But yeah in general OKC has lapped Tulsa in things to do and places to go in and around the core.

[shavethewhales]

Spent a fair amount of time Sunday in downtown Tulsa. Having lived at Center Plaza years ago. I was really disappointed with how little real progress has been made with making it a connected urban area. It is basically the same as it was 40 years ago with a smattering of new buildings. Whereas Bricktown, Automobile Alley, Innovation District, Midtown, Arts District, Automobile Alley, and Scissortail Park are all pretty connected and encourage infilling between and around, Tulsa's Blue Dome, 15th Street, and downtown are really disconnected. Lots of dead spaces in downtown and little weekend activity. Tulsa central has a long way to go.

I went to the river park in Tulsa and was impressed in what it had become vs. the riverside of old, but between it and Scissortail, there were way more people yesterday at Scissortail.

Tulsa really is behind where it needs to be to attract people to a vibrant core, IMO. And I didn't find any developments like Wheeler anywhere. Suburban developments were pretty standard. I saw no "lifestyle" centers in my drive around... maybe just missed some.

On the great for Tulsa side, we went to Philbrook for a very good exhibition. What a great facility and grounds. OKC has no grounds like it. The Trees, hills and vegitation does make certain parts of Tulsa outstanding to the eye. And Utica Square is still very nice.

There's a reason OKC is attractive to move-ins, whether inter or intra state. It's good to go some other places and then come back and appreciate just how far OKC has come in the last two decades. It seems on a great trajectory.

^I agree in principle on all that, but there has been a good amount of development in certain parts of downtown over the past decade. The blue dome and arts districts are almost unrecognizable from a decade ago. I kind of agree that they aren't well connected, but they are connected and I frequently walk between the blue dome and arts districts on weekend nights. The development of the View apartments helped make Elgin feel like a better connector street vs. the warehouses 5 years ago. Blue dome just filled in a massive empty parking lot with a new office tower, new hotel, new apartments, and new retail spaces (still partly under construction).

There's a lot more to go, and I agree that it's all very important in creating a vibrant atmosphere that people will actually want to move to. Tulsa did invest heavily in river parks, Gathering Place, the new river dams and white water course, and Turkey Mountain, so that's where a lot of the lifestyle efforts have gone, and OKC doesn't have a lot to match it yet, although obviously the OKC white water course is amazing and the parks along the Oklahoma River are coming along.

Ultimately what OKC and Tulsa need more of to build vibrancy are the big time entertainment amenities like other major cities have. Frontier City and Paradise Beach are dinky parks regardless of the recent efforts to fix them up. Both metros are getting a lot of pickle ball courts and breweries, but that's just filling the void that the previous generation filled with Applebee's and bowling, lol. At least OKC has the Criterion and an NBA team. Those are hard for Tulsa to match.

[KayneMo]

Has anyone done a calculation of how large OKC proper would be if all the current borders were filled with standard single family residential density?

If The Village's 2020 population density of 3,743 filled up OKC's land area, OKC's population would be 2,270,000.

The square mile bounded by N Penn, NW 150th, N May, and NW 164th has a population of 5,623. That would equal an OKC population of 3,410,000.

[ComeOnBenjals!]

Great discussion - OKC proper has nearly unlimited population growth potential, especially if things ever start to densify.

One interesting note - the Census estimates for Tulsa proper leading up to 2020 predicted a fairly significant population loss. Instead Tulsa gained something like 22,000. I'm not sure if there's a reason why Tulsa's estimates are negative.. will be interesting to see if they're incorrect again in 2030.

I agree with several of the posts regarding CBD/Midtown flow. I've always though OKC has a great flow from midtown to downtown, there's not a lot of dead space. Tulsa has a long ways to go in that regard. The IDL poses major challenges to the north and south, but progress is slowly being made.