My Tulsa Problem

Tulsa is the city I live in. I've lived here most of my life. Seemingly every day I have to make the choice to live here. There are plenty of reasons to leave, a few reasons to stay, and if I weren't tied to this city by relatives and property I might not be here now. I recently explained my Tulsa problem to a fellow citizen of Tulsa. The following basically describes my Tulsa problem.

I think Tulsa, in ways, is a "great lie" we like to tell ourselves. Tulsa is built way beyond itself as far as museums, homes, even downtown. Tulsa has "great" things. Downtown (even though half of it is surface parking) was designed to be the downtown of a very large important city. It's 1.4 square miles; that's huge for a metro of less than a million. And parts of our downtown represent much larger cities. We have half surface parking, but we also have the 4 largest buildings in the state (3 downtown), and a downtown that at least in height terms would put some much larger cities to shame.

Tulsa has a fantastic base to work with. I mean that very literally. We have plenty of "urban gems." However, nothing about our evolution as a city was natural. It was all built on oil wealth, sometimes more wealth than other times. It was built by philanthropists and major oil companies. Our city became "grand" because of oil. We didn't just "grow" into a city this size, we were forced into a city this size.

Generally speaking; People didn't come to Tulsa for the purpose of being in an "urban environment." People came here for opportunity, and they brought their churches and everything else with them. If it weren't for oil, they'd probably live in rural areas.

I think what that means is; we're far less urban than we're inclined to believe. We're some kind of Frontier/Urban hybrid. On the one hand, we have lots of great things. Things that great cities would envy. On the other hand, we're also loaded with some people who have never appreciated what we have, and were never inclined to make the city a better place (beyond whatever concepts they brought to this city).

Couple all of that to watered-down density, rapid expansion, the suburbanization, and ingrained segregation of the city; It will take a very long time for that 1.4 square miles of downtown to be fully used. The problem isn't the urban folk; they want it. The problem is, a very large number (if not the vast majority) couldn't care less. They're more interested in being close to jobs, schools, and housing (and staying away from crime) than urban issues. This town is fairly comfortable with being relatively xenophobic; many do not care for being "more urban."

It's frustrating, and if I think about it too much, it's depressing. If I were to say I've never thought about leaving this town on principle, I'd be lying. When leaving seems selfish and staying seems charitable; what do you do? We can all sit around and hold hands and say it's all untrue. We can say that they just need a little more "learnin". The only thing that beats that is lots and lots of time, and a ton of work. I think there will always be an undercurrent around Tulsa that says "this town is behind the times."

The "shell" of the city is great. We do have to learn how to be a city.