Friday, November 12, 2010

Pay no attention to that Okie behind the curtain!

Over at New Geography, Joel Kotkin writes about 10 cities best poised to do well post great recession. Interestingly Mungo-land (Raleigh-Durham) and Angus-topia (OKC) are on the list.

Here's what Joel says about the OKC:

During the Great Depression, it was Oklahomans who moved to California to escape the Dust Bowl. Now there are considerably more people moving from California to Oklahoma than the other way around....And Oklahoma City—which enjoys low unemployment as a result of its steadily growing energy and aerospace sectors—has been ranked among the best job markets for young people, ahead of Dallas, Seattle, and even New York (having Kevin Durant lead the NBA’s Oklahoma City Thunder for the foreseeable future can only improve the buzz).

Of course, none of the cities in our list competes right now with New York, Chicago, or L.A. in terms of art, culture, and urban amenities, which tend to get noticed by journalists and casual travelers. But once upon a time, all those great cities were also seen as cultural backwaters. And in the coming decades, as more people move in and open restaurants, museums, and sports arenas, who’s to say Oklahoma City can’t be Oz?


Who indeed, people, who indeed?



1 comment:

zimaroll said...

It may not be high art, but I really enjoy the cowboy museum.
And file under no such thing as a free lunch, but lots of Californians pulled up stakes and moved to my homestate of NM during the first half of the decade. In the process they sold their two bedroom/one bath bungalows for $0.5mil and bought outlandish mcMansions in NM with no negotiating, driving the housing market out of native's reach. Effin californians. I hate 'em almost as much as I hate Texans.