The real problem for Tulsa's revitalization

[heironymouspasparagus]

You and I belong to another generation.  I don't know about Ronnie. Back before rocks turned to dirt, the public education system seemed to do a better job in my opinion.  I am actually a product of suburban Philadelphia, PA public education.  I don't know if my old school system is any better than the local area systems or not.  When we moved here (1971), my sister was starting 9th grade in Bixby.  It was mostly a repeat of what she had already learned in 8th grade "back east".

I moved to Iowa for four years and when I got back, it took two full years before we caught up here with what I had already done.  I cannot imagine what has happened in Iowa during the intervening years to get them to the horrible place they are now!

Actually, they have always been this way - when in school during one Presidential election, I can remember the little sing-song chant;

Nixon, Nixon, he's our man!
Throw Kennedy in the garbage can!

There was one little girl named Heather whose family were Kennedy supporters.  They were considered to be the agents of the anti-Christ.


Anyway, grandpuppy in Union school did well in spite of it being Union.  Alternatively, she could have gone to BA or even Jenks, but based on results from kids a few years ago, the results would still have been good.  Problem is that the people in Union are in some major league denial about what many, if not most, of their kids are really up to.  There are plenty of drugs, lots of sex in what in our generation were the "smoke holes", and some gang activity (can you spell "shakedown").  But their kids go to a "better" class of school.  LOL, LOL, LOL!!!!

Cracks me up when parents get in this "my little boy or girl wouldn't do THAT" mode!

[Red Arrow]

There was one little girl named Heather whose family were Kennedy supporters.  They were considered to be the agents of the anti-Christ.

There was a lot of anti-Kennedy sentiment because he was Catholic.  I believe he even had to sign some kind of oath that his primary duty was to the USA and not the Pope.  It kind of reminds me of some of the anti Romney rhetoric.  Back to my standard statements, my dad didn't like Kennedy because of the way he wanted to do things rather than his goals. I was still too young to form my own opinions politically.   I remember the elections but the Johnson-Goldwater election is the one I really remember.  Goldwater was painted as the war hawk.  We all know what happened.

[heironymouspasparagus]

There was a lot of anti-Kennedy sentiment because he was Catholic.  I believe he even had to sign some kind of oath that his primary duty was to the USA and not the Pope.  It kind of reminds me of some of the anti Romney rhetoric.  Back to my standard statements, my dad didn't like Kennedy because of the way he wanted to do things rather than his goals. I was still too young to form my own opinions politically.   I remember the elections but the Johnson-Goldwater election is the one I really remember.  Goldwater was painted as the war hawk.  We all know what happened.

Yeah, and Nixon was supposed to be the best choice in '60, too.  Both Johnson and Nixon were catastrophic for a peace loving people tired of killing our kids in useless wars.  Luckily, that wasn't and isn't us!

[Red Arrow]

Yeah, and Nixon was supposed to be the best choice in '60, too.  Both Johnson and Nixon were catastrophic for a peace loving people tired of killing our kids in useless wars.  Luckily, that wasn't and isn't us!

I liked Nixon for one thing, I didn't have to go to Nam. He said enough is enough and said screw it and pulled out.  I'll never forgive him for the 55 mph speed limit.

[heironymouspasparagus]

I liked Nixon for one thing, I didn't have to go to Nam. He said enough is enough and said screw it and pulled out.  I'll never forgive him for the 55 mph speed limit.

You must be a few years younger than I.  The lottery kept me out - # 335 - I stayed out.  Even with a family friend who worked at the draft board and was practically wetting herself to get me drafted.  Close call.

[Red Arrow]

You must be a few years younger than I.  The lottery kept me out - # 335 - I stayed out.  Even with a family friend who worked at the draft board and was practically wetting herself to get me drafted.  Close call.

I kept my college deferment to graduation by making satisfactory progress toward my degree. The year younger than I was only got to complete the semester they were presently in.

Edit:
My number was 38.  I knew I was going.

[Ronnie Lowe]

^These are the quotes I find hard to understand or just disagree with.

Our reputation as a good place to raise a family is fading. Unless you mean the burbs and surrounding villages.

What do you mean 41st and Yale?

Vitalize would mean to energize or create excitement. There is a small core of people trying to do just that, so I am hopeful.  But you're never going to add vitality to a city that is primarily viewed as a good place to raise a family...except for the school system, the traffic, the infrastructure, the lack of high paying jobs, and the reputation as a conservative, fundamentalist hotbed of, hypocrisy, guns and meth. Vitality is associated with young, smart, progressive, well adjusted people. New York has vitality. We have guns, drugs and two separate holiday parades..

You are right about Tulsa's reputation for family raising fading.  But it's still a strength even though it has been diminished.  And I've been spending more time in southeast Tulsa.  There is a concentration of commerce and a lot of energy (in spite of it being ugly) that feels like our "de facto" downtown.  As far as exotic features to attract sophisticates, I'm telling you that those sophisticates in regional centers would trade it in for Tulsa if they could get a good paying "career path" job here.  New York's subways get real old real fast.  Finally, our old downtown is something of a historic district but it's going to take a Devon Tower to make it a contender.

[heironymouspasparagus]

Finally, our old downtown is something of a historic district but it's going to take a Devon Tower to make it a contender.

We got one - it's the old Williams tower.  Just 30% smaller than Devon....

[TheArtist]

  Like I have said before, I would rather have ten more 6 story, mixed-use, pedestrian friendly buildings than one more 60 story tower aaany day.  

 As for downtown revitalization, was chatting with some "in the mix" people the other day about that and the topic of parking came up.  The conversation got a tad bit heated, my fault I am sure for I start to get bug eyed and foam at the mouth when people start talking about building more parking garages and needing more parking downtown.  But anywhoo, someone had mentioned how they went to Charlotte I believe it was, and some other cities to see how they had done things and learn from "best practices", etc.  Which just made me even more exasperated.  

 My feeling is that we need to do something that will make us stand out from the crowd, something that will make us exceptional.  

 Doing what everyone else is doing or has done is not going to do that.
 "Following" what other cities have done and trying to get us to be where they are at will not work... imo, we need to be playing leapfrog, not follow the leader.  

 If city A is 10-15-20 years ahead of us, and we go to that city to emulate their "best practices".  All your assuring is that in 10-20 years you will still be 10-20 years behind.  Now sure our city will be better and improve if we follow those "best practices", but in 10-20 years time we will still be in the same position relative to that competitor city because they too will now have yet another 10-20 years worth of improvements under their belts and we, our young people, businesses, etc. will be looking at them once again as greener pastures out competing us.

 What these people in Tulsa are thinking is this.... Put your left hand on the table in front of you, thats competitor city A.  Now put your right hand on the table in front of you, but say 5" closer to you, thats Tulsa.  City A is ahead of Tulsa.   What these people are thinking is that we should do "a,b,c" so that we can advance like city A has done... now move your right hand forward 5" so that its beside your left, Tulsa up to the level of City A.  Thats what they think will happen and all will be fine and dandy.  Right?   WRONG! thats NOT what will happen.  What will happen is this..... Go back to having Tulsa behind city A, now move BOTH your left hand AND your right hand up 5".   Thats what will happen. As we are advancing year after year, so will our competitors be advancing.  We will once again be behind and wondering what we need to do to "catch up" and be competitive.

 Again, what I think we need to do is, not what everyone else is doing and magically expecting exceptional results, but do something exceptional in the first place.  

 Doing what every other city is now doing or has already been working on for decades, aka building "fake urbanity", won't get us ahead or even catch us up to other cities.  Sure it will get us ahead of where we are now, and you can see that as beeing good if you want.  But I see it as us just accepting failure once again.  What we should be doing imo is aiming for the end result, what we really want, REAL, superb quality, exceptional, knock their socks off, urbanity.  To do that I don't want to follow Charlotte, or Louisville, or Wichitah, or wherever, to get that type of urbanity,,, I want to chase down and get NYC/Paris quality urbanity.  We had it once, but trying to squash in car culture and pedestrian/transit culture, and spending, over time, way more money by trying to pay for both types of infrastructure, to in the end only get a fake approximation, ain't the game I think we should play.  Unless you like being forever behind as we tend to do.

 I remember in high school when our english teacher asked us to raise our hands if we thought we would me millionaires by the time we were 30.  Believe it or not a majority of students raised their hands.  Being the odd little contrarian I was even then, it started me thinking.  Bet the class before ours had a similar result, and the class after, and likely the other english teachers classes in our school and in others would have too...  And then I also looked around at my friends and saw how heck bent on being like everyone else and following the same paths to success most of them were.  Take ACT's, go to college, get married, wear these brands, have this item, listen to this or that music, etc. etc.   But I knew that only very few people would ever be millionaires by the time they were 30.  So my little epiphany was "What on earth was the likelihood of any of these people, who were all doing essentially the same things, beating the odds?"  All of them weren't going to be millionaires by 30, not even a majority of them, it's a statistical impossibility. You can't do what everyone else does and expect exceptional results.  Thats, high school kid, "magical" thinking. Teens are good at reasoning, but because they lack experience they are not good at reasoning reasonably.  

 So here we are having city leaders wanting us to do what everyone else has done or is working on doing,,, expecting us to somehow, magically have exceptional results.  I just don't see that happening.  I see us continually languishing as per usual.  Perhaps better than we were before, sure.  But still behind and average at best.      

 Instead of spending money on parking garages, lets spend it on transit.  Let's spend the next 10-20-30 years building an urban core that will be the envy of every city our size, and even larger, between NYC and Seattle.  Let's think outside the box and figure out a way to make that work. Lets not spend our time and effort trying to follow what everyone else is doing and expect exceptional results.

 It's really really hard to get that thing that makes your city exceptional and stand out, thats your "catch", the great thing your known for that will pull in the people and businesses.  We are at just the right stage in our downtown development that with the right zoning and development incentives, the right spending choices, we could choose a different route and become exceptional.  The small affordable city with the knock out, wonderful, truly big city feeling, very liveable, beautiful, urban core.

[AquaMan]

Merlot?

[heironymouspasparagus]

William,

Exactly!!



And you must have gone to Jenks schools.  Or one of the Catholic Halls.