Tulsa population 391,906!

[Townsend]

How do we change the attitude of those who are more prone to move to one of our suburbs and commute into the city to work to want to move to Tulsa and work in Tulsa?

Remove the expressways.

[Red Arrow]

Remove the expressways.

Same old arguments. 

Many jobs don't need to be in the city so if you remove the expressways, the jobs will go to the burbs.

[Townsend]

Same old arguments. 

Many jobs don't need to be in the city so if you remove the expressways, the jobs will go to the burbs.

You really think my statement was said in any seriousness?

I'd also like them to take religious movements out of Oklahoma politics.  T'aint gonna happen.

[nathanm]

How do we change the attitude of those who are more prone to move to one of our suburbs and commute into the city to work to want to move to Tulsa and work in Tulsa?

We need better transit and to change the economics of commuting such that it ends up being less expensive to use the transit system than it is to drive a car into town every day. Part of that is making it more feasible to walk. Even where I am walkability is poor because the needs of pedestrians were pretty much forgotten as soon as the trolley was ripped out, leading to 70 years of development that ignored that need.

[carltonplace]

I'd agree that with denser infill rather than sprawl, a larger economic base is important and would actually allow an expansion of infrastructure.  However, Tulsa's pattern the last 30 years has been that of a city where people work then return to their suburban community to shop, eat, buy necessities, and sleep.

How do we change the attitude of those who are more prone to move to one of our suburbs and commute into the city to work to want to move to Tulsa and work in Tulsa?

1. Change the perception of TPS and improve TPS so that it is a better choice than suburban school systems.
2. Provide the types of urban living choices that young people prefer
3. Improve the mass transit system to allow easy access within Tulsa city limits
4.Shout louder than the Realtors that keep pushing suburban choices over urban choices to our new comers.

Urban living is obviously not for every one, but it has an appeal in that you can be close to everything.

[Conan71]

You really think my statement was said in any seriousness?

I'd also like them to take religious movements out of Oklahoma politics.  T'aint gonna happen.

Sally Kern was in a story on Ch. 6 this morning... my eyes, my eyes!!!

[Townsend]

Sally Kern was in a story on Ch. 6 this morning... my eyes, my eyes!!!

Ugh, I know.

Anyway, on topic, I agree with Carlton.

[Conan71]

Ugh, I know.

Anyway, on topic, I agree with Carlton.

That makes two of us.  I like his solution-oriented approach.

[cannon_fodder]

+1 william and conan.

Population growth is important for economic growth, degelopment, and most importantly density.  If you aren't growing at a min of a certain rate you aren't even retaining children that grew up here.

Tulsa has gain 100000 people AND gone backwards in density, ammenities, quality of infrastructure, mass transit, and other things as we sprawl out.

NPR had a report on Portland today.  Lower wages, higher un employment, taxes are high, expensive living... but high quality of life.  That's the key.

We need smart population growth.

[Red Arrow]

You really think my statement was said in any seriousness?

Maybe not by you but it has been said in past threads in what appeared to be all seriousness.

I agree that transit needs to be made more usable.  Good transit from the suburbs would unload many demands on roads and parking, freeing parking areas in town for something better.  School improvements, or at least the reputation, are a must.  I believe there has been discussion here that some of the Magnet schools are doing as good or better than some suburban schools. While I don't wish to live in an urban environment, it should be readily available for those that do.  Making it affordable is another issue with many threads here.

[DTowner]

If you want more/better public transportation options, then Tulsa needs to grow and grow a lot.  The simply fact is Tulsans are not going to get out of their cars and use public transit in large numbers unless it is at least as convenient/efficient as driving.  Even on a bad traffic day, it is still much quicker to drive from south Broken Arrow using 169 and the BA to get to downtown that it would be to drive to a parking lot, park and walk to a rail station, wait for a train, ride the train down the median of the BA to a station somewhere along the tracks in downtown and then walk to your office building blocks away (wouldn't that be fun in August).  Of couse, that assumes everyone commuting from BA to Tulsa wants to go downtown or somewhere close to the tracks leading into downtown.

Until Tulsa's growth generates longer/more difficult commutes, it will be a tough sell to get people out of their car centric mentality.  Increased infill and density in select areas of Tulsa proper will help that a lot, but such development needs more people - especially people who are not looking for suburban houses with large yards, suburban schools and towne centers.  In other words, we need a lot more of the kind of people who don't live here now in large numbers.

[YoungTulsan]

There are more people in Tulsa than that.

[Oil Capital]

NPR had a report on Portland today.  Lower wages, higher un employment, taxes are high, expensive living... but high quality of life.  That's the key.

We need smart population growth.

Lower wages, higher un employment, taxes are high, expensive living... but high quality of life.   ?   It seems like you must have left something out.   Lower wages, higher unemployment, high taxes, high cost of living  . . .   and high quality of life?  How?  According to whom?

[we vs us]

If you want more/better public transportation options, then Tulsa needs to grow and grow a lot.  The simply fact is Tulsans are not going to get out of their cars and use public transit in large numbers unless it is at least as convenient/efficient as driving.  Even on a bad traffic day, it is still much quicker to drive from south Broken Arrow using 169 and the BA to get to downtown that it would be to drive to a parking lot, park and walk to a rail station, wait for a train, ride the train down the median of the BA to a station somewhere along the tracks in downtown and then walk to your office building blocks away (wouldn't that be fun in August).  Of couse, that assumes everyone commuting from BA to Tulsa wants to go downtown or somewhere close to the tracks leading into downtown.

Until Tulsa's growth generates longer/more difficult commutes, it will be a tough sell to get people out of their car centric mentality.  Increased infill and density in select areas of Tulsa proper will help that a lot, but such development needs more people - especially people who are not looking for suburban houses with large yards, suburban schools and towne centers.  In other words, we need a lot more of the kind of people who don't live here now in large numbers.

This is the nut.  There's just simply no compelling reason for Tulsans to live closer together or to adopt the living and transportation strategies of those who live closer together.  There is no good reason.  I'm hopeful that the current swing back towards urbanism helps Tulsa reclaim some of its past and to make it more sustainable but we have to be clear that at this point in Tulsa's history this swing back towards urbanism is a fad only and will wane as generational preference and economic situations change. 

And the reason it's a fad is that it's still a choice.  We're all still talking about preference.  How the youngsters prefer a walkable city, and prefer condo living to cul de sac living, or prefer transit and bike lanes to everyone being in their car parked on the cloverleaf at 5:30pm.  These are preferences not necessities, and until they are necessities, we are all just paying lip service to passing fashion and it's just as likely that the NEXT generation of desirable young professionals will want to reclaim the cul de sacs, and hunker down in gated communities far from the skyscrapers of downtown and, you know, just telecommute. 

[dbacks fan]

This is the nut.  There's just simply no compelling reason for Tulsans to live closer together or to adopt the living and transportation strategies of those who live closer together.  There is no good reason.  I'm hopeful that the current swing back towards urbanism helps Tulsa reclaim some of its past and to make it more sustainable but we have to be clear that at this point in Tulsa's history this swing back towards urbanism is a fad only and will wane as generational preference and economic situations change. 

And the reason it's a fad is that it's still a choice.  We're all still talking about preference.  How the youngsters prefer a walkable city, and prefer condo living to cul de sac living, or prefer transit and bike lanes to everyone being in their car parked on the cloverleaf at 5:30pm.  These are preferences not necessities, and until they are necessities, we are all just paying lip service to passing fashion and it's just as likely that the NEXT generation of desirable young professionals will want to reclaim the cul de sacs, and hunker down in gated communities far from the skyscrapers of downtown and, you know, just telecommute. 

It's interesting that you bring up telecommuting. Here are two articles on the future of telecommuting that bring together the fact that people don't want to give up thier personal phones, wether they have a droid phone, windows phone, iphone (potentially), ipad, the new Motorola XOOM, or other device where you will be able to run two different systems, personal and work, from the same device.

http://www.engadget.com/2010/12/07/work-play-on-a-single-phone-lg-teams-up-with-vmware-to-deploy/#

http://www.vmware.com/products/mobile/index.html

You see the commercials that say "Let's go to the cloud", well with virtual software, VPN, and encrypted VPN, in the next 2 to 5 years, you will no longer have a phone, desk top pc, or home phone, and maybe to an extent a home pc, because it will be moving forward to what you have on a pc now will be stored on a server, or in a server farm somewhere else. Cisco is becoming a business solution and has eclipsed Avaya/Lucent/AT&T as a large business solution..