Hilti

[heironymouspasparagus]

If our "city fathers" were actually interested in doing something, they would go to Milwaukee to look around and talk with people/places/etc there!  600,000 population - about the same as the vaunted Oklahoma City.  Light years beyond OKC.  And sadly, Tulsa.  Very bike friendly, pedestrian friendly, looks like fairly decent public transportation, and a fantastic "feel" to it....!!  There are rough edges there, too, but downtown is ALWAYS hopping!!

Plus there appear to be some pro sports....Brewers?  Whatever they are....basketball, baseball, or something.... and Bucks, Admirals, Wave.

And even though it is a chain - they have Rock Bottom!!  Some serious beer there!

And in spite of their recent insanity with Scott Walker, there is just an attitude, even if it is Yankee, that seems to motivate overall much more than here.

[Red Arrow]

The two last pieces of the puzzle in my mind are a four year public university in the urban core with affordable student housing situated nearby and a pedestrian-friendly village on the east side of downtown.

We would still need a usable transit system, at least downtown.  Numbers I have seen regarding catching a transit ride are that people are generally willing to walk 1/4 mi. 

[SXSW]

If our "city fathers" were actually interested in doing something, they would go to Milwaukee to look around and talk with people/places/etc there!  600,000 population - about the same as the vaunted Oklahoma City.  Light years beyond OKC.  And sadly, Tulsa.  Very bike friendly, pedestrian friendly, looks like fairly decent public transportation, and a fantastic "feel" to it....!!  There are rough edges there, too, but downtown is ALWAYS hopping!!

Plus there appear to be some pro sports....Brewers?  Whatever they are....basketball, baseball, or something.... and Bucks, Admirals, Wave.

And even though it is a chain - they have Rock Bottom!!  Some serious beer there!

And in spite of their recent insanity with Scott Walker, there is just an attitude, even if it is Yankee, that seems to motivate overall much more than here.

I laud the city leaders for looking at Portland and wish that could eventually have some effect on our urban growth policies.  A peer city though I think we could learn a lot from is Louisville.  While the Arkansas is not the Ohio there are some comparisons and they have nice riverside parks like we do.  They also have a large state university which helps drive growth.  A big part of OKC's recent growth is from OU, both the university and the health sciences center.  That is our missing piece in this puzzle.  TU is a great university but so small, if it were more like TCU or Vanderbilt that would have a big effect.

Unfortunately I think not having non stop flights to Europe and other major markets plays a big role here.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

I see that a lot of the thoughts you all have given are ones that I have thought of from I was living there, and things I have seen since I moved away. I always hoped that what is now OSU Tulsa would have become more after it was originally built, it just seems as more of an extension center (which was the original purpose IIRC) but wanted it to be more of a real campus. (Not knocking TU, and I am glad to see that TU has grown)

Tulsa has always had a lack of a real public transit system, I know that decades ago it was better and don't want to rehash that it's been covered numerous times. I think the biggest issue has been the lack of vision by the leaders, and a lot of it coincides with the "white flight" and the move out of downtown by retail, and by businesses, and the terrible loss of so many buildings over the years, and the whole "Who goes downtown anymore?" attitude of from the late '60s through the '90's. And it's really sad that for years no one tried to change things.

Other cities I have visited and lived in seemed to try and invest in the core of their DT during the lean times, and most had mass transit in mind and planned for transit in the future and improved on things as best they could.

Looking to Portland, Milwaukie, and other cities as models and ideas is great, but JMO Tulsa sat on it's collective donkey and watched businesses leave and just though "It's okay, we know someone will move in a fill the empty space."

Dallas started it's DT resurrection back in the mid to late 80's, Phoenix grew and shrank but continued to try and improve, Portland has gone through times similar to those two, but had already started things before, and has a lot in place that they kept improving on. The other thing about Portland is it is a seaport so it was not as affected as Dallas/Houston/Tulsa/OKC during the early 80's oil fallout. (Houston as a seaport helped them as well)

I think a lot of it goes back to short sightedness of the leaders of Tulsa. I am glad to see that DT is becoming something again, I used to go there in my teens and 20's, and remembered some of it's glory days, and always longed for life to come back to it. I though Main Mall and Williams Center Forum would be that starter back in the 70's.

[dbacksfan 2.0]

Unfortunately I think not having non stop flights to Europe and other major markets plays a big role here.

While a great idea, the unfortunate thing about TIA is that there is not the volume of travelers to have nonstop flight to Europe. In Phoenix there is one flight out and one in on British Airways to Heathrow, KLM tried, but they could not compete with BA since the route was similar, and flying international out of Portland you wind up at Sea/Tac, Vancouver BC, San Francisco, LAX or Phoenix, and the sad thing is depending on how your flight is routed you could wind up in Salt Lake to get to LAX or SFO to get your connection. I won't even try to describe flying out from where I live.

[TheArtist]

I see that a lot of the thoughts you all have given are ones that I have thought of from I was living there, and things I have seen since I moved away. I always hoped that what is now OSU Tulsa would have become more after it was originally built, it just seems as more of an extension center (which was the original purpose IIRC) but wanted it to be more of a real campus. (Not knocking TU, and I am glad to see that TU has grown)

Tulsa has always had a lack of a real public transit system, I know that decades ago it was better and don't want to rehash that it's been covered numerous times. I think the biggest issue has been the lack of vision by the leaders, and a lot of it coincides with the "white flight" and the move out of downtown by retail, and by businesses, and the terrible loss of so many buildings over the years, and the whole "Who goes downtown anymore?" attitude of from the late '60s through the '90's. And it's really sad that for years no one tried to change things.

Other cities I have visited and lived in seemed to try and invest in the core of their DT during the lean times, and most had mass transit in mind and planned for transit in the future and improved on things as best they could.

Looking to Portland, Milwaukie, and other cities as models and ideas is great, but JMO Tulsa sat on it's collective donkey and watched businesses leave and just though "It's okay, we know someone will move in a fill the empty space."

Dallas started it's DT resurrection back in the mid to late 80's, Phoenix grew and shrank but continued to try and improve, Portland has gone through times similar to those two, but had already started things before, and has a lot in place that they kept improving on. The other thing about Portland is it is a seaport so it was not as affected as Dallas/Houston/Tulsa/OKC during the early 80's oil fallout. (Houston as a seaport helped them as well)

I think a lot of it goes back to short sightedness of the leaders of Tulsa. I am glad to see that DT is becoming something again, I used to go there in my teens and 20's, and remembered some of it's glory days, and always longed for life to come back to it. I though Main Mall and Williams Center Forum would be that starter back in the 70's.

Many of the cities that have downtowns that have done well have pedestrian/transit friendly zoning in them.  

The other day I got into a heated debates with one city person here at a meeting, almost got to yelling at each other lol. He was saying he was against any "government intrusion into trying to promote certain types of development"  He said "look at the main mall and what the city tried to do there and it failed, cities all over the country tried it because it was the "fad" it was a complete failure and waste of money" as an example.

I said, "Not every cities main mall areas failed.  Those that also put in pedestrian/transit friendly zoning ended up creating areas that succeeded and are still some of the most active and desirable areas of their cities even today"  Putting in planters, fountains, trees, etc. with no zoning/direction to back it up, was yes, a waste of money.  

Reminds me of this...

"Alice came to a fork in the road. 'Which road do I take?' she asked.
'That depends a good deal on where you want to go?' responded the Cheshire Cat.
'I don't much care where,' Alice responded.
'Then,' said the Cat, 'it doesn't matter which way you go."
"As long as it's somewhere" Alice added as explanation.
"Oh your sure to do that" said the cat.

Our downtown zoning says "I don't care much where,". Yet on the other hand put in planters and fountains etc. "hoping" to get to a certain place.  But then get upset or frustrated when that "I don't care much where" direction/zoning did not take us anywhere we actually wanted to go.  

[SXSW]

While a great idea, the unfortunate thing about TIA is that there is not the volume of travelers to have nonstop flight to Europe. In Phoenix there is one flight out and one in on British Airways to Heathrow, KLM tried, but they could not compete with BA since the route was similar, and flying international out of Portland you wind up at Sea/Tac, Vancouver BC, San Francisco, LAX or Phoenix, and the sad thing is depending on how your flight is routed you could wind up in Salt Lake to get to LAX or SFO to get your connection. I won't even try to describe flying out from where I live.

I understand TIA will likely never have flights to Europe, or a domestic hub operation of any kind.  If something like that is important to a business then they will go where they have those options.  Not saying this is the case with Hilti but could be considering the main HQ is in Europe.  I actually knew a couple people growing up that were from Germany that moved to Tulsa to work for Hilti NA.

As for TIA, I think keeping the existing limited service we have is the first step.  Losing Newark and Washington Dulles for the winter (hopefully returning in the spring) on UA and the downsizing of flights on Southwest to Denver, St Louis and Dallas because of the Wright Amendment ending are not steps in the right direction.  Adding Charlotte is a good move though.  Tulsa could do well with just being served by all of the major airlines with decent frequencies and even some mainline planes on certain routes.  Adding San Francisco and Los Angeles on the west coast and getting a flight into NYC (either JFK or LGA) would have us pretty well covered.  Regional flights to Kansas City, Austin and Nashville would be nice to have but Southwest would likely be the only one to offer those and we wouldn't be able to fill 737's to those non-hub cities.  Increasing frequency to the most popular markets (Dallas, Houston, Denver, Chicago, Atlanta) would be great for business travelers who likely have to connect there anyway.

[nathanm]

Unfortunately I think not having non stop flights to Europe and other major markets plays a big role here.

They've lived without that for how many years now? I'm sure it would help, but the real issue is probably exactly what they say it is, the dwindling talent pool as the young folks flee. It's fine now, but if you're looking to the future, things are looking pretty bleak. People are starting families later and later, and those who do have kids are increasingly likely to opt for a more urban lifestyle. 40some percent of millennials neither own a car nor want one. It will become increasingly hard to attract a diverse pool of talent unless something is done. Unfortunately, at present, the message we (I guess I should start saying you soon, since I'm presently sitting in Florida writing this post) are sending is that we are unwilling to change with the times.

People here on TNF are doing their damnedest to push to make Tulsa a better place, but our fellow citizens have made clear they don't want it. They want more Target in the suburbs. They want to throw away what makes Tulsa unique and turn it into Dallas or any of the other sprawl-monster cities. It would be one thing if there really was a push to let downtown, cherry street, and brookside be the urban(ish) centers they could be, but for whatever reason it seems that those in sprawlville can't brook any part of their fair city being different, so zoning makes it very difficult to achieve that goal outside the IDL. Even simple things that should be nonthreatening like FBC in a small portion of the city are rejected.

And then we get to the transit issue, which again the vast majority of Tulsans have made perfectly clear is not welcome except perhaps in theory. South Florida is by and large sprawl central, but somehow they manage to prioritize having decent (but by no means exceptional) bus service. Take a page from Denver's book. Quit bucking around and build. Oh, that's right, the direct benefit would be realized mostly by the poor. Can't have that. Never mind that companies need workers at all wage levels and it's less than helpful when those at the lower end of the distribution can't get to work on time due to unreliability of the system or are dead tired because of long travel times day in and day out.

[heironymouspasparagus]

I laud the city leaders for looking at Portland and wish that could eventually have some effect on our urban growth policies.  A peer city though I think we could learn a lot from is Louisville.  While the Arkansas is not the Ohio there are some comparisons and they have nice riverside parks like we do.  They also have a large state university which helps drive growth.  A big part of OKC's recent growth is from OU, both the university and the health sciences center.  That is our missing piece in this puzzle.  TU is a great university but so small, if it were more like TCU or Vanderbilt that would have a big effect.

Unfortunately I think not having non stop flights to Europe and other major markets plays a big role here.

I think they just wanted a little "walk on the wild side" by visiting Portland....the basic mind set is diametrically opposed to Tulsa (and Oklahoma), so there really is no way to compare/contrast/evaluate what might even be considered "similar" points....they are too different.

Louisville is a much better choice than Portland...even though has some fundamental differences, KY is much closer to us than the Portland section of the left coast.  And they make baseball bats!! 

Vanderbilt about 6,000 students.  TU - about 3,500.  And tuition at TU is $35,000 this year!!!  Whew!  Am so glad I went there back when it was cheap!! 

[rdj]

I believe they took this group to Louisville several years ago.

[cynical]

Louisville has a large (22,000+ students) state university that has embraced an urban agenda as a needed counterpoint to the U of K. Tulsa has nothing remotely similar. OTOH, Vanderbilt U is in Nashville, home to a good many educational institutions but no large state universities. Nashville is not too shabby a role model IMO. All we have to do is steal the state capitol from OKC in the middle of the night. That plan rings a bell . . .

Portland has a very different vibe than Tulsa, but I think the same is true of most large cities. They became large cities for different reasons, but once there they were positioned to benefit from the new urbanism movement that has arisen over the past ten years or so. Credit has to be given to the political and economic leaders who had the vision and skill to get in on the leading edge of such trends. Compare Pittsburgh to Cleveland or Detroit. All three are rust belt cities that were in decline 30 years ago. Only Pittsburgh nimbly pivoted from being a dirty, slag-heap ridden manufacturing city to being a sparkling financial services/insurance city. It is now a coveted role model, while Detroit and to a lesser extent Cleveland are still looking for a way out.

The problem with Tulsa isn't that it isn't on the coast or in the mountains. It is that its citizens are slow to recognize the need to adapt and are excessively risk-averse. Whether Sauerkraut is a troll, a satirical performance artist, an interesting experiment in artificial intelligence (as odd as that seems), or a genuine, live, red-blooded tea-bagger, is beside the point. He unfortunately voices the sentiments of a great many people who don't hang out in the TNF, but who show up at the polls and vote. So while some Tulsans I know and work with are seeking a way of turning Tulsa into Portland or Pittsburgh, many Tulsans are satisfied with policies that will result in Tulsa becoming Muskogee. They don't seem to understand that in the real world there is no status quo, there is only progress and decline. For all of its conservatism, OKC seems to have grasped that and is making the investments in itself and taking risks on the chance that it may be able to move into the major city/destination category it so badly wants. The use of public investment to nurture private development is central to its efforts. Tulsa used to use public/private partnerships to good advantage, but the current city administration doesn't even know how to get out of its own way.

I think they just wanted a little "walk on the wild side" by visiting Portland....the basic mind set is diametrically opposed to Tulsa (and Oklahoma), so there really is no way to compare/contrast/evaluate what might even be considered "similar" points....they are too different.

Louisville is a much better choice than Portland...even though has some fundamental differences, KY is much closer to us than the Portland section of the left coast.  And they make baseball bats!! 

Vanderbilt about 6,000 students.  TU - about 3,500.  And tuition at TU is $35,000 this year!!!  Whew!  Am so glad I went there back when it was cheap!! 

[Conan71]

Louisville has a large (22,000+ students) state university that has embraced an urban agenda as a needed counterpoint to the U of K. Tulsa has nothing remotely similar. OTOH, Vanderbilt U is in Nashville, home to a good many educational institutions but no large state universities. Nashville is not too shabby a role model IMO. All we have to do is steal the state capitol from OKC in the middle of the night. That plan rings a bell . . .

Portland has a very different vibe than Tulsa, but I think the same is true of most large cities. They became large cities for different reasons, but once there they were positioned to benefit from the new urbanism movement that has arisen over the past ten years or so. Credit has to be given to the political and economic leaders who had the vision and skill to get in on the leading edge of such trends. Compare Pittsburgh to Cleveland or Detroit. All three are rust belt cities that were in decline 30 years ago. Only Pittsburgh nimbly pivoted from being a dirty, slag-heap ridden manufacturing city to being a sparkling financial services/insurance city. It is now a coveted role model, while Detroit and to a lesser extent Cleveland are still looking for a way out.

The problem with Tulsa isn't that it isn't on the coast or in the mountains. It is that its citizens are slow to recognize the need to adapt and are excessively risk-averse. Whether Sauerkraut is a troll, a satirical performance artist, an interesting experiment in artificial intelligence (as odd as that seems), or a genuine, live, red-blooded tea-bagger, is beside the point. He unfortunately voices the sentiments of a great many people who don't hang out in the TNF, but who show up at the polls and vote. So while some Tulsans I know and work with are seeking a way of turning Tulsa into Portland or Pittsburgh, many Tulsans are satisfied with policies that will result in Tulsa becoming Muskogee. They don't seem to understand that in the real world there is no status quo, there is only progress and decline. For all of its conservatism, OKC seems to have grasped that and is making the investments in itself and taking risks on the chance that it may be able to move into the major city/destination category it so badly wants. The use of public investment to nurture private development is central to its efforts. Tulsa used to use public/private partnerships to good advantage, but the current city administration doesn't even know how to get out of its own way.

Perhaps we need to seek out younger candidates for Mayor who appreciate new urbanism.  Bartlet (sic) is old school Tulsa.  He doesn't seem to embrace anything remotely progressive when it comes to development.  Essentially, Plani-Tulsa was shelved from the moment he stumbled into office.

Taylor, on the other hand is a very visionary leader.  She managed to ruffle a lot of feathers with her head-strong style.  If she wanted something, it generally got done.  So where would downtown be without the ball park?  Where would it be without some of her close contemporaries, like George Kaiser? 

I really hated the move of City Hall to OneTech at the time, but now that we are getting quality renewal with the A-Loft to help complete the convention area and we don't have all the deferred maintenance hanging over the city with that old building, I think that's been a winner as well.

Though not a Taylor project, since it was ushered in under LaFortune, can anyone imagine the transformation or viability of downtown without this venue?  Well, I can think of a few people who still seem to think it was a net loss, but they no longer post here.

[DTowner]

The problem with Tulsa isn't that it isn't on the coast or in the mountains. It is that its citizens are slow to recognize the need to adapt and are excessively risk-averse. Whether Sauerkraut is a troll, a satirical performance artist, an interesting experiment in artificial intelligence (as odd as that seems), or a genuine, live, red-blooded tea-bagger, is beside the point. He unfortunately voices the sentiments of a great many people who don't hang out in the TNF, but who show up at the polls and vote. So while some Tulsans I know and work with are seeking a way of turning Tulsa into Portland or Pittsburgh, many Tulsans are satisfied with policies that will result in Tulsa becoming Muskogee. They don't seem to understand that in the real world there is no status quo, there is only progress and decline. For all of its conservatism, OKC seems to have grasped that and is making the investments in itself and taking risks on the chance that it may be able to move into the major city/destination category it so badly wants. The use of public investment to nurture private development is central to its efforts. Tulsa used to use public/private partnerships to good advantage, but the current city administration doesn't even know how to get out of its own way.

That is a good point.  A large percentage of Tulsans across the political spectrum are very complacent about Tulsa and a vision for its future and future growth.  I'm surprised at the number of times I've heard people say they don't want Tulsa to grow larger because they don't want it to become "too big."  We seemed to shake off this slumbering attitude in the early 2000s when Tulsans finally realized that ugly old Oklahoma City was reinventing itself and blowing us out of the water.  Sadly, with the BOK Center and Oneok Field now in place, many of those folks seem to think we've done all we need to do and have fallen back asleep.  Those folks fail to grasp that cities are growing or they are dying.

[cynical]

Taylor, on the other hand is a very visionary leader.  She managed to ruffle a lot of feathers with her head-strong style.  If she wanted something, it generally got done.  So where would downtown be without the ball park?  Where would it be without some of her close contemporaries, like George Kaiser? 

Muskogee.

The Kathy Taylor history is one of my pet peeves. I have heard Republicans say for years "we need to run the city/state/country like a business." Were they serious? Has any business ever cut and slept its way to prosperity? Well, they got exactly what they had asked for with Taylor. She did what successful CEOs do - she set goals and then did what it took to achieve those goals, even carrying out her promise not to run for re-election in order to depoliticize the vote to establish the stadium improvement district. The Republicans on the council didn't much like any of it. I won't paint all Republicans with that brush, but there were councilors who only knew the word "no." They tormented Susan Savage, Bill LaFortune, Taylor, and Bartlett. Though I now believe that their attitude was motivated by pure malice, at the time I attributed it to a Tulsa condition in which people around here are better at telling why an idea won't work than at coming up with any ideas that do work. Taylor had the worst council of them all, and still got stuff done. Amazing.

The only thing that Bartlett has accomplished since taking office was to clear the council of the worst naysayers, though he also got rid of one or two who were correct in saying "no." He also attempted to pack the council with toadies but failed. Nonetheless, with a council in place that could have teamed with him to do good things, he went back to sleep. I don't think Bartlett is malicious. I think he's tired and misses his BBF, Terry Simonson.

Incidentally, while I was typing this, DTowner posted his reply using the same sleepy metaphor. I promise I'm not plagiarizing. It is just the description that fits best.

The irony is that of all Mayors from James Maxwell on, only Jim Inhofe had the same sort of single-minded drive to get it done no matter what. When the voters turned down his low water dam proposal, he worked the land swap with Lincoln Properties to get it done without the voters. Though he lost his mayoral reelection bid to the lowly Terry Young, because he is male, or because he is Republican, or because he is both, he was rewarded with a lifetime appointment to the US Senate. Maybe a similar reward awaits Taylor some day.

[heironymouspasparagus]

The problem with Tulsa isn't that it isn't on the coast or in the mountains. It is that its citizens are slow to recognize the need to adapt and are excessively risk-averse. Whether Sauerkraut is a troll, a satirical performance artist, an interesting experiment in artificial intelligence (as odd as that seems), or a genuine, live, red-blooded tea-bagger, is beside the point. He unfortunately voices the sentiments of a great many people who don't hang out in the TNF, but who show up at the polls and vote. So while some Tulsans I know and work with are seeking a way of turning Tulsa into Portland or Pittsburgh, many Tulsans are satisfied with policies that will result in Tulsa becoming Muskogee. They don't seem to understand that in the real world there is no status quo, there is only progress and decline. For all of its conservatism, OKC seems to have grasped that and is making the investments in itself and taking risks on the chance that it may be able to move into the major city/destination category it so badly wants. The use of public investment to nurture private development is central to its efforts. Tulsa used to use public/private partnerships to good advantage, but the current city administration doesn't even know how to get out of its own way.

This goes to the revelations in recent years about how less educated tend to vote more conservatively - excessively risk averse.

sauer is absolutely voicing the sentiments of most of the people in the state - no doubt about that.  That's how we keep the likes of Inhofe, Kern, Failin', Lankford, etc.
Sadly.