Is Tulsa the "Austin" of Oklahoma?

[HoneySuckle]

I was asked this question recently by a foreigner who is new to Tulsa.  He was trying to figure out whether Tulsans are by and large a more "liberal" group than those folks you find in other parts of Oklahoma.

What say you?

[MichaelC]

I'd say, no.

Tulsa has plenty of good traits, and good locations, good people, and it depends on where you go and who you run into.

OKC on the other hand, has the gov't and all those people.  Liberal bastards!

But seriously, on that plain, it's probably like comparing apples to apples.  If we were talking about strictly culture, I'd give Tulsa the edge.  But a lot of it was built on oil.  In ways, we're far more developed, than we should be (comparatively to other cities).  In other ways, we're just as underdeveloped and slightly backwards, as much of Oklahoma.

[NellieBly]

Tulsa and Austin have a lot of similarities and this is a comparison that has been made for years. The natural river with walking trails is one of them. Topography is another.

Major differences, of course, are that Austin is a smart, forward thinking town that accepts all people regardless of race, religion, hairstyle and weird proclivities.

Tulsa -- not so much.

Keep Austin weird!

[Breadburner]

quote:Originally posted by NellieBly

Tulsa and Austin have a lot of similarities and this is a comparison that has been made for years. The natural river with walking trails is one of them. Topography is another.

Major differences, of course, are that Austin is a smart, forward thinking town that accepts all people regardless of race, religion, hairstyle and weird proclivities.

Tulsa -- not so much.




Keep Austin weird!

Sounds like a good place for you....

[waterboy]

Parts of Tulsa probably are similar to Austin, but in general we're not. I think a large public university tends to liberalize a community. TU works in the opposite because of its identification with oil and religion and high tuition rates. Most TU students and grads seem quite conservative. Just my observation.

I had to laugh as I drove home yesterday.
Bumper stickers seen on a luxury SUV at 101st & Yale: W/04 and W/the president

Bumper sticker on a Buick sedan near Promenade: Support our Troops

Bumper sticker on a hoopty at 21st & Utica: Bush is an Idiot!

Signs hanging from overpass near TU: Ron Paul

[tulsa1603]

quote:Originally posted by HoneySuckle

I was asked this question recently by a foreigner who is new to Tulsa.  He was trying to figure out whether Tulsans are by and large a more "liberal" group than those folks you find in other parts of Oklahoma.

What say you?

I spend every other weekend in Austin, so I can give a fair analysis I hope.  Austin is the thinking man's city in Texas.  I think the same could be said for Tulsa in Oklahoma.  We are liberal for Oklahoma, like they are for texas, but the similarities end there.  They are comparable in the geographic size and a few other things, but I've noticed several definite differences:  The city is FULL of the 18-34 demographic, YPs, whatever you want to call them.  The city is far livelier, the downtown is jumping all hours of the day and night, there are currently 10,000 downtown living units planned or in progress.  Their skyline is dramatically changing, and will be completely different by 2010.  It's an exciting place to be.  They are regularly getting new shopping, etc.  They have a lot of big city amenities such as Neiman Marcus, Barney's, Nordstrom and Sak's.  They have tons of smaller locally owned shops downtown and all over.  You don't see abandoned storefronts.

They are lucky since they have all the ingredients that make me green with envy:  A state capitol, a huge public university (twice the size of OSU or OU) on the north side of downtown, their river is geographically better situated than ours - it is on the southern edge of downtown, not several blocks away.  And instead of refineries across the river, they have South Congress, which would compare to Cherry Street or Brookside on steroids.

We are better in a few areas:  their roads are no better than ours in my opinion, in fact they are undersized for the population boom they've been experiencing, so they have much worse traffic.  Their older, close in neighborhoods are far more expensive (think Florence Park houses at $400,000) and are not nearly as nice as ours.  In fact, when my Austin friends come to visit, they all comment on how much nicer and more cohesive our neighborhoods are, plus they are far more affordable.  And for now, we have a more dramatic skyline.

They don't have an arena as far as I know, except for what's at the university, which since it's so close to downtown, is probably an ideal set up.

Austin has had it easy compared to us, all the pieces are there in place, we have a lot of things working against us that were decided 100 years ago (location of refinery, location of downtown relative to the river, lack of a public university, etc.)  They also have the "Keep Austin Weird" thing which is a great trademark, they're known as the live music capital, and they have a "cool" reputation, which is largely due to their liberal roots.  And despite their liberalism, they have a lower sales tax rate than us and people actually seem happy to live there, even conservative folks.

[Conan71]

Only in Austin:



[}:)]

[Double A]

quote:Originally posted by NellieBly

Tulsa and Austin have a lot of similarities and this is a comparison that has been made for years. The natural river with walking trails is one of them. Topography is another.

Major differences, of course, are that Austin is a smart, forward thinking town that accepts all people regardless of race, religion, hairstyle and weird proclivities.

Tulsa -- not so much.

Keep Austin weird!

Tulsa. Austin without the tolerance? Yeah, I never thought of it like that. How about Tulsa, Austin without the environmental stewardship?

[TheArtist]

Thought this might be interesting. It shows some of what is going on in Austin at the moment building wise. (compare that to what I have started on this forum in another thread).  You can see why its so frustrating being here and seeing so little life compared to other cities I visit or that are near us. Though I know some of these cities are larger than us, even then if you say we are a third the population of such and such a city, we dont have nearly a third the amount of development going on, a tenth even lol.  

Austin Developments

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=124346

Denver Developments

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=132788

Omaha Developments

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=77118

Only a fraction of the Fort Worth Developments. Not even gonna put Dallas on here, we all know what thats like lol.

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=135222

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=135221


St Louis

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=76120&page=5

[Conan71]

Something to keep in perspective when comparing Tulsa to any of those cities, is Tulsa is a youngster comparitively.

[TheArtist]

It just seems sad from an architectural standpoint to only have one or two examples of contemporary architecture in our downtown. The Arena (which is great) and the Tech Center or new City Hall (not bad, but very basic). When your here, you may be used to it. But it makes Tulsa look old, out dated, not going anywhere. We look like a dying city that had its last heyday in the 80s and has been stuck there ever since. Just one neat, trendy, midrise condo or apartment development... Is that too much to ask for? lol

[MichaelC]

Anyone know if they strengthened the windows at One Tech Center?

Would be a shame to have them all blow out, and the next big wind probably isn't that far away.

[FOTD]

No.

We coulda been a contender.

[Breadburner]

quote:Originally posted by FOTD

No.

We coulda been a contender.

**Sniff Sniff**

[Friendly Bear]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Something to keep in perspective when comparing Tulsa to any of those cities, is Tulsa is a youngster comparitively.

There are some cultural and geographical similarities between Tulsa and Austin.

However, Austin has much more going for it:

Austin is:

1)  The State Capital of a prosperous state, since 1836.  Benefits as does OKC from state government offices, associated law offices, lobbyist offices and the offices of other associated Tax Vampires and Connected Cronies.

2)  Located in the near geographic center of one of the nation's most populous states, and intersected by multiple FREE interstate highways.  A natural location for warehousing and transportion of goods across the state and the nation.

Tulsa has no free interstate highways leading anywhere.  None.  How CURIOUS?

3). Located in a state with NO STATE INCOME TAX.

4). Located in a state with No State SALES tax on Groceries.

5)  Co-Located with a 50,000 person major state university adjacent to downtown.

6)  Sports a AAA baseball team, vs. a AA Texas League team in Tulsa.

There's really no comparison.

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