Neighborhood Pride or Elitism?

[waterboy]

I don't know what you guys are arguing about but some historical insights for you. I will give the benefit of the doubt that these builder/developers were just stupid and greedy rather than evil.

You wrote about the real reason folks moved to east Tulsa and the burbs in the late 60's and 70's. My father was in the homebuilding industry and I worked on many of those homes and apartments. Some reputable builders, Never Fail, Jim Nuckolls etc. A lot of crooks though. A few years later I sold real estate and learned the details of that expansion.

That growth was fueled by cheaper land and construction costs. At the urging of these "forward thinking" developers who populated all the boards and commission offices, the new burbs didn't require sidewalks, built cheap slabs on shifting sub-soil, abandoned the grid street pattern in favor of swirling roads that allowed more homes per development and generally did shoddy work. There was a glut of what were called 235 homes because of the government program that encouraged affordable homes for the public. Most are rentals now. The housing surrounding them was devalued because of them.

It wasn't as if the population demanded this type and location of homes. This is what was offered and offered cheap. That is important to repeat. The public did not demand cheap, poorly constructed, poorly served, poorly designed neighborhoods. These same developer/builders did the same thing to south Riverside at 61st. That was prime property that they exploited with overly dense apartments that were built with government assistance. They intended to carve up the Maple Ridge area with a high speed expressway to ease the pain of living away from their downtown jobs.

Broken Arrow began to grow when this first spurt of building began to wear thin. It offered lower property taxes and lax construction oversight as well. So the public was offered cheaper, larger housing with lower property taxes and the city virtually leapfrogged from one hot development area to the next. Cities in the expansion belt have enjoyed the growth but struggled to keep up services and have ended up raising their taxes to prosper. Thus fueling more leapfrogging. It continues today with entire south Tulsa neighborhoods and shopping being leapfrogged every 10 years or so. Thus Jenks. I still remember when 61st and Sheridan was hot, now it has been leapfrogged.

Yes, there were race, class and education issues during that time as well, but they were secondary. Between the Realtors and the builder/developers Tulsa never had a chance to look at any other type of develpment and anyone who suggested it was ignored. I don't know how a monorail would have changed Tulsa but I doubt it would have blunted its growth. We needed leadership that was educated, sophisticated and had a conscience. We got builders.

edit- two other things while I'm at it. The growth of Southeast Tulsa in 69-75 was magnified by the arrival of Cities Service employees to man their new offices-downtown. The older execs opted for nearby Maple Ridge while jr. execs, leary of transfer, opted for new construction that they could sell faster out by 61st & Sheridan or over in newly devleoped Gilcrease Hills. Meanwhile, where did the contractors for these southward sprawl hoods live? Maple Ridge. They knew a bargain when they saw it and were able to maintain the homes. Though they still joined Southern Hills cc just to keep near the builders.

[Chicken Little]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

But here's a question for you, CL.  Do you know the difference between a city and a "metro area"?

Yes, and do you know the difference between a searching for independent confirmation and talking out your hiney?  First-hand accounts are very helpful in general and provide tremendous insight, but internet arguements have lofty standards[].

quote:

quote:Me
Our failure to diversify when the oil industry left caused decades of heartache.  90% of what we've built over the last couple has been one kind of car-dependent suburb.  You don't see a paralell parallel here?

Yes, I do see a parallel.  But be careful what urban density you wish for.  You may find out exactly why people were fleeing the big cities for the suburbs in the first place.

Okay, I'm all for being careful.  But how come we have to be careful when we talk about urban places and we can be just as narrow-minded and irresponsible as we please when it comes to building suburbs?  Suburbs are "new technology" in the history of cities.  Yes, they have become the prevalent form of development in the last 50 years, but as Waterboy points out, it may have little to do with rational decisions about what is best for the city and citizens in the long run.  It may have a lot more to do with the politics of the moment and the pressure from developers seeking the cheapest and quickest way to make a buck.

quote:Here's a thought.  Use your own money to "evolve."

That's exactly what people will do.  If those choices aren't in Tulsa, they'll move someplace else.  You've already said you don't have kids yet, so I'm not surprised that this doesn't bother you.  

quote:

quote:Me

See, that's the thing.  We can never justify a mass transit system in this town unless we are willing to up the densities.  It doesn't have to be everywhere, but we need to have some dense corridors at least.

So, how could low-density towns like Claremore and Pryor and Muskogee ever have existed?  Well, let's just call it "Little House on the Prairie" density.

They were little railroad towns.  The 'original towns' were about a (walkable) square mile.  Tulsa was that way, too.  As Tulsa boomed, it boomed with streetcars.  Places like Cherry Street are often called streetcar suburbs.  With smaller lots, carriage houses, and small apartment buildings mixed in, they were about two to three times denser than how we build today.  Mass transit doesn't work at the densities we build today.

quote:I should be your urban ally, CL... but old wounds run deep...

I've lived easy and rough.  Tulsa is easy and I do like it very much.  What worries me is that you, or anyone, can think that this town is going to stay this way forever.  There are too many variables, i.e, gas prices, age of infrastructure, density, etc..  If we aren't prepared for these changes, we will be in trouble.

[Conan71]

I've lived about a third of my life north of 31st, south of 11th, and between Harvard & Lewis.  So I guess I'm partial to that area of town.  I have a lot of fond memories as a kid and an adult in that area.

The first house I "remember" was around 25th & Delaware where my parents moved when I was four.  That was a very well-planned neighborhood mostly built in the late 1940's.  Based on the construction, I would guess it was supposed to be a little bit of a step-up from the "Veteran Homes" built west of Brookside and up north of downtown.

We lived there until I was almost 12 and we moved to 84th & Toledo- one of the "contemporary" suburbs with split levels, contemporary homes with cedar siding and stucco.  That was my first exposure to "builder dreck".  Our house was built into the side of a hill.  In the haste to build a lot of homes at maximum profit, there was little, if any soil engineering done.  Just about every house on that hill wound up with severe structural problems.  A couple have been torn down and nothing built to replace them.  My mother spent a small fortune keeping the house structurally together.  That was one of the neighborhoods that helped put the Jenks school system on the map.

I lived at Center Plaza before it became condos in my early '20's and remained there for about a year after I got married the first time (I've only been married twice []).  I enjoyed being in the DT skyline, shopping at the Homeland on Denver whilst negotiating past the vagrants, checking in on the re-development of the Brady district, and generally having a great view of "old Tulsa".

The first house I owned was in the shadows of F & M Bank near 15th & Harvard.  I now live on the same block some 18 years later.  I liked the mid-town vibe, gingerbread style, sidewalks, well-built homes with individual pride.  The neighborhood was still slightly seedy around the edges in 1989, but it's improved now.

After that, we moved to the Sungate Addition which is south and east of the Farm Shopping Center.  That was touted as being one of Tulsa's best planned sub-divisions at the time with a neighborhood pool, all utilities buried under-ground, an elementary and junior high co-located on the same plot, side walks, and curved roads, like WB alluded to.  We had a growing family that necessitated more space than we could afford at the time closer in.

After that, we moved to 105th & Yale to escape the traffic of "mid-town", have a larger lot and a larger house that I thought was supposed to reflect to having "made it in life".  It was convenient for my kid's sports activities, and at the time, I officed at home, so we had most every convenience we needed in the area.  Circumstances changed later and I wound up divorced.  The big house went bye-bye and I resumed a much more humble life-style.

I've liked something about each area I've lived in and felt pride at living there.  Personally, I'd like to stay in the area I'm in as long as I'm in Tulsa.  I like the older neighborhoods, the younger vibe of the area I live in and the convenience to all the things that give that area of town a unique cool factor- like re-sale shops on 15th, the Cherry St. restaurants, farmers markets at Cherry St. and the Pearl, the little strip centers along Harvard with mostly locally-owned businesses, etc.  Cherry St. isn't as Bohemian as it used to be, but is there really any part of Tulsa we can call Bohemian these days?

I guess there is a certain snob satisfaction or elitism with saying I live in mid-town.  Part of a person's pride is their house and where they live.

[USRufnex]

quote:originally posted by Chicken Little

We bit off more than we could chew several decades ago. Today, places like Owasso, Jenks, and Glenpool are busy making the exact same mistakes we did decades ago. I don't think they deserve praise, they're their sh*t's just newer than Tulsa's, and that's all. In another 20 years, they'll be in bad shape, too. But I guess that's someone else's problem.

There's no leadership at all on these issues...never has been....ever, ever, ever. "Growth is good", even if it's cheap and unsustainable. It's shameful.

This is the statement that prompted me to post... if you looked at the history of large American cities you'd see all sorts of shenanigans going on that would make Tulsa's "stupid and greedy" developers of the 60s and 70s look like forward thinking philanthropists... lots of studio/one bdr buildings were built on the northside of  Chicago to house the large number of g.i.'s back from WWII out of shortsighted profit motives... but who could predict that 50 years later, budding artists, singers, photographers, and people from the country looking for the excitement of big city life would agree to pay a premium to live in apts/condos with old substandard plumbing, noisy building controlled radiator heat, and high crime... a decade or two after those buildings nearly stood vacant  when huge numbers of Chicagoans moved to the 'burbs...

If Tulsa's erred by making this city too suburban and too affordable?, Chicago erred by putting together the forward thinking concept of building public housing for the poor in huge complexes like Cabrini Green and the Robert Taylor homes... that urban density didn't turn out too well, now did it?

Oh, suburbs AND skyscrapers have been with us for a short time... neither are perfect and nobody has a crystal ball to predict what cities will look like in the next 20 years, let alone 50.  Did urban planners in 1850 have a clue about what life would be like in 1950?

Besides, hasn't there been a nationwide liberal battle cry for years of... "We NEED affordable housing! We NEED MORE affordable housing!"???

Yet when Tulsa developers from previous decades provided affordable housing, it is criticized with terms like "low density," "unsustainable," "cheap and substandard" and those developers are referred to as short-sighted and greedy.  

BTW, my neighborhood in east Tulsa may not appeal to your sense of style, but it DOES have sidwalks on both sides of the streets (unlike Florence Park and half of midtown)... my depression-era shaped grandparents lived for awhile in a "cinder-block house"... they then moved to a little home off Admiral between Sheridan and Memorial... from that tiny home yours truly walked to Burbank Elementary school in a neighborhood without sidewalks... oh, the horror... and I was scarred for life by that experience... /sarcasm.

Sure, I'd love to see something like this in Tulsa... http://www.rogerspark.com/master.htm?

or this... http://www.cityofelgin.org/index.asp?NID=501

And I think the option is attractive enough for certain areas of Tulsa that TIF districts could/should be established to support something like that... after all, a full 30% of Chicago's land mass these days is TIF district... http://www.lincolnsquare.org/document/bid_tif.php

quote:In tax increment financing, future property taxes are used to provide incentives to develop areas which would remain undeveloped if not for governmental assistance—for example, areas that are too costly to develop, are underutilized or include vacant property.

This can be appealing to 20-somethings and "empty-nesters" but the overwhelming majority of large families will continue to live in very safe cities like Broken Arrow and continue to make Rogers County the fastest growing county in the state because they want the best they can afford for their children... like my sister and her husband who choose not to raise their children in midtown, yet they are still real Tulsans.  

Real Tulsans don't have to live in some perceived trendy area to prove their identity.

I don't find the majority of midtowners I've met here so far to be elitist.  But there is a subculture that can be very annoying.  Not elitist, per se.  Just highly provencial and cliquish.

XXXX's and OOOO's,

Ruf

[waterboy]

quote:Besides, hasn't there been a nationwide liberal battle cry for years of... "We NEED affordable housing! We NEED MORE affordable housing!"???

Yet when Tulsa developers from previous decades provided affordable housing, it is criticized with terms like "low density," "unsustainable," "cheap and substandard" and those developers are referred to as short-sighted and greedy.

When a builder of the character that built those apartments along the prime riverfront property of 61st & Riverside, that are now the center of crime in that area, uses government money to build cheap, poorly constructed high density slums under the guise of "affordable" then he is greedy and short sighted. Many of those sub-contractors had difficulty even being paid by the guy. You know what sub-contractors do when that happens? Sh**t work. As little as they can get away with. "Good enough for govt. work". Whatever your points are, don't give these builder/developers of the time so much benefit.

[Chicken Little]

Mr. Neck,

Perhaps the most important point I am trying to make here is that you have to look beyond the sales price of the house to judge what is affordable and unaffordable.  Low density development requires much larger investment per person in roads, water, sewer, stormwater, police, and fire.  Much of this infrastructure is wearing out and getting stretched thin.  Tulsa's policy so far has been to punt, i.e., to defer maintenance to the point where they have billions in backlog repairs.  What seems affordable in the short run is going to cost the taxpayers a lot more in the long run.

On the other side of the coin, building at more efficient densities has been outlawed, here and elsewhere, and has thus become abnormal.  So it should come as no surprise that higher density developments of any lasting quality, so far have been less affordable.

At both ends of the spectrum, the "affordability" of housing has been skewed artificially.  It's an untenable situation, but you seem to think that everything is rosy.

There's nothing inherently sensible about monorails or any form of mass transit so long as we continue to build the way we do today.  We're far too spread out to allow these kinds of systems to operate conveniently or affordably.  The only way those things make sense is if also choose to build at higher densities.

Your strategy is to sit still.  I contend that that can only lead to higher taxes and a diminished quality of life in this city.  If people like you are willing to pay your freight and increase taxes to the point where we can manage our infrastructure, then we have no argument.  But if you aren't willing to let this town evolve into something more efficient, and you aren't willing to pay a premium to maintain what we've got, then I think you are being unreasonable.

[tulsa1603]

quote:Originally posted by USRufnex

quote:originally posted by Chicken Little

We bit off more than we could chew several decades ago. Today, places like Owasso, Jenks, and Glenpool are busy making the exact same mistakes we did decades ago. I don't think they deserve praise, they're their sh*t's just newer than Tulsa's, and that's all. In another 20 years, they'll be in bad shape, too. But I guess that's someone else's problem.

There's no leadership at all on these issues...never has been....ever, ever, ever. "Growth is good", even if it's cheap and unsustainable. It's shameful.

This is the statement that prompted me to post... if you looked at the history of large American cities you'd see all sorts of shenanigans going on that would make Tulsa's "stupid and greedy" developers of the 60s and 70s look like forward thinking philanthropists... lots of studio/one bdr buildings were built on the northside of  Chicago to house the large number of g.i.'s back from WWII out of shortsighted profit motives... but who could predict that 50 years later, budding artists, singers, photographers, and people from the country looking for the excitement of big city life would agree to pay a premium to live in apts/condos with old substandard plumbing, noisy building controlled radiator heat, and high crime... a decade or two after those buildings nearly stood vacant  when huge numbers of Chicagoans moved to the 'burbs...

If Tulsa's erred by making this city too suburban and too affordable?, Chicago erred by putting together the forward thinking concept of building public housing for the poor in huge complexes like Cabrini Green and the Robert Taylor homes... that urban density didn't turn out too well, now did it?

Oh, suburbs AND skyscrapers have been with us for a short time... neither are perfect and nobody has a crystal ball to predict what cities will look like in the next 20 years, let alone 50.  Did urban planners in 1850 have a clue about what life would be like in 1950?

Besides, hasn't there been a nationwide liberal battle cry for years of... "We NEED affordable housing! We NEED MORE affordable housing!"???

Yet when Tulsa developers from previous decades provided affordable housing, it is criticized with terms like "low density," "unsustainable," "cheap and substandard" and those developers are referred to as short-sighted and greedy.  

BTW, my neighborhood in east Tulsa may not appeal to your sense of style, but it DOES have sidwalks on both sides of the streets (unlike Florence Park and half of midtown)... my depression-era shaped grandparents lived for awhile in a "cinder-block house"... they then moved to a little home off Admiral between Sheridan and Memorial... from that tiny home yours truly walked to Burbank Elementary school in a neighborhood without sidewalks... oh, the horror... and I was scarred for life by that experience... /sarcasm.

Sure, I'd love to see something like this in Tulsa... http://www.rogerspark.com/master.htm?

or this... http://www.cityofelgin.org/index.asp?NID=501

And I think the option is attractive enough for certain areas of Tulsa that TIF districts could/should be established to support something like that... after all, a full 30% of Chicago's land mass these days is TIF district... http://www.lincolnsquare.org/document/bid_tif.php

quote:In tax increment financing, future property taxes are used to provide incentives to develop areas which would remain undeveloped if not for governmental assistance—for example, areas that are too costly to develop, are underutilized or include vacant property.

This can be appealing to 20-somethings and "empty-nesters" but the overwhelming majority of large families will continue to live in very safe cities like Broken Arrow and continue to make Rogers County the fastest growing county in the state because they want the best they can afford for their children... like my sister and her husband who choose not to raise their children in midtown, yet they are still real Tulsans.  

Real Tulsans don't have to live in some perceived trendy area to prove their identity.

I don't find the majority of midtowners I've met here so far to be elitist.  But there is a subculture that can be very annoying.  Not elitist, per se.  Just highly provencial and cliquish.

XXXX's and OOOO's,

Ruf

Actually, Florence Park DOES have sidewalks on both sides of the street.

[USRufnex]

Some streets do.

I took the opportunity to do laundry and drink beer at Univ of Wash... so I'll cross that off the list of things I do before I die (go to a laundromat/bar)... and also walked around that area around 15th...

So quite a few of the streets in the area I walked a couple of weeks ago do not have sidewalks... not on both sides... and some east/west streets in Florence Park/Renaissance? have no sidewalks at all.