How poor a city is Tulsa?

[Renaissance]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

quote:Originally posted by TheArtist

Not to get too rancorous here. But I can only speak of the areas and cities I have visited and thus compare that to Tulsa. I go to Dallas a lot for instance. I have friends that live in Addison, Grapevine,Plano and the other various areas that are essentially Dallas. I have wandered around all of those areas many times... often lost lol.

1. I have never seen areas as poor looking as what one would consider the average area of Tulsa to look like.

...

I'm not sure what that means. What's average-looking? Maple Ridge? Red Fork? What? I'm suspicious that your "average" look has a far different take than mine.

And apparently you've never been to St. Louis, Chicago, Milwaukee, Cleveland, Detroit, Peoria, Memphis, San Bernardino, Flint, New Orleans ... I could go on. All of those cities have pockets of far-worse-looking "average" areas than any of Tulsa's.

And I've never seen a worse-looking place than several in the metro-east area of St. Louis -- East St. Louis, Venice, Brooklyn, Alorton, Fairmont City, Washington Park, Centreville and probably a few others that I'm forgetting.

We're talking about a deadly stew of drugs, gangs, crumbling infrastructure, chronic crime, corrupt local officials, a collapsing tax base, horrific unemployment, schools that make TPS look like a garden district, and toxic waste leftover from the long-abandoned factories.

I knew a woman from Brooklyn, N.Y., who thought she was tough and thought she saw blight until she saw East St. Louis and was positively terrified. There are more than 1,000 abandoned houses in East St. Louis alone. These are areas in which "normal" is an aberration.

I'm not trying to top anyone here. But to say that Tulsa's "normal" areas are worse-looking than anyone's is simply wrong. And it signifies to me that you need to get out more and stop whining.

Cheers.

[TheArtist]

All good points. I am pretty well convinced. The combo of those other cities having larger populations of "urban dweller" types probably spurs the construction of those shiny apartment and condo buildings, and also the "trendy" areas are larger too because of the larger number of young urban dwellers in the city. My perspective on "average" must also be skewed in that I likely dont go to all areas of those cities, but yet do know all the areas in Tulsa. So even if I go to an area thats say, larger than most of Tulsa in and around Dallas, I should still remember its not ALL of Dallas.

I have seen photos of other cities online, especially some back east, that show huuuge swaths of depressed areas. Often with abandoned buldings that we would treasure here... well should, theoretically, treasure. When I have seen those pics, there is so much blight that it seems insurmountable to even consider imagining redevelopment and infill like we do here.

[cannon_fodder]

Wow, did you have a bad day Artist?  I appreciate your opinion, but disagree strongly with much of your sentiment.

Poverty is decided on a national scale.  A thresh hold is set for a family of a certain size and that number placed over a map.  A family making $20,000 a year in Tulsa is directly compared to a family making $20,000 a year in San Francisco, as if everything was equal.  So most Midwestern cities, where wages and property values are lower, have a high poverty thresh hold.  Still not a good thing, just sayin' those numbers are skewed towards costlier coastal cities.

On a side note, the "poverty" guidelines do not take any assistance into account.  $20,000 a year is a lot of money if you don't pay for food, housing, transportation, student loans, daycare, taxes, or health care.   Not rich by any means, but in "poverty" making $20K a year in the US is still better off than 85% of the world.

BUT, while we are on the subject and if Poverty levels are your measure of success - in Dallas about 14.9% of families (4 points higher than Tulsa) and 17.8%  of the population (3.7% higher) were below the poverty line, including 25.1% of those under age 18 (4.6% higher) and 13.1% of those aged 65 (4.2% higher) or over.  So there is significantly more poverty by percentage & actual numbers in Dallas than in Tulsa.  More for average families, more for the elderly, and more for children.

So you want to talk about disparity?  Apparently the "average" areas you see in Dallas are being offset by much larger, and much poorer areas of the metroplex that you failed to visit.  Or, perhaps, they aren't average.  Which makes sense, if there are more and a higher percentage of poor people in Dallas...

For shear wealth Dallas/Tulsa:
Per Capita - 22,000/21,500
Median Family - 41,000/44,500

So averaging out the wealth, Tulsa is on par per capita but ahead by family unit.  Take what you want from "average" numbers, but it doesn't indicate that Dallas is a far wealthier city.  In fact, taken with the poverty figures it would seem to indicate there is much more income disparity in Dallas than in Tulsa.

The grass is always greener...

[edit]
In my opinion, many cities have vast areas of prosperity and equally large areas of poverty.  Tulsa hides some poverty on the North Side, but much of the "working class" (how does that mean poor?) is mixed in between the richer areas.  So you can't visit and/or live your life in a bubble of prosperity in Tulsa - there are no illusions that everyone lives as well as you do.   Just my guess on why this notion persists.
[/edit]

[cannon_fodder]

Yay Dallas!
http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/wfaa/latestnews/stories/wfaa080509_jh_disdcollege.e5ca60c9.html

75% of kids graduating from Dallas Independent School District this week can not read "proficiently at an 8th grade level."  Their math skills are no better.  Of the kids graduating from DISD who take advantage of community college programs, 80% have to take remedial course before being allowed to take college courses.

Lets make DAMN sure TCC's programs don't get put in a place where they are having to educate people UP TO the high school level as their mainstay.  That's just a sad state of affairs.

/sorry for the tangent, I didn't want to start a thread just for this

[sauerkraut]

quote:Originally posted by Floyd

Check out South Dallas some time.  Oak Cliff and the Bishop Arts district.  Greenvile Avenue for that matter, and the Vickery Park area.  They're exactly like Tulsa.

What you are describing as so "nice" in Dallas is actually the suburbs (Addison, Plano) and it's pure white flight--much worse than in Tulsa.  North Dallas makes it possible to wrap yourself in rich suburban whiteness and never get a peek of the real world.  

Don't want to say you're wrong, but I think your travels give you a too-rosy picture of the rest of the world.

That's correct, There are alot of bad areas in the D/FW area I use to live there, I dunno what it's like now but when I lived there in the 1980's I seen alot of bad areas. There are also alot of dangerous high crime areas.

[okcpulse]

quote: Oklahoma as a state is poor

I disagree.  In 2007, Oklahoma ranked 33rd in the nation in per capita personal income.  I would say Oklahoma as a state is average.  

You have to look at components of a state - rural vs. metro - to find that in every state, rural counties are poorer than metro counties.