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PrintFive questions about the future of downtown (that may or may not have an answer)
A fresh look at developments, news and issues facing Tulsa.
1. Can Tulsa be willed into change from the top down? I worry sometimes about how invested the average Tulsan is in the revitalization and/or expansion of downtown. Maybe “worry” isn’t the right word, but let’s just say that I’m curious. Thanks to the urban sprawl that’s been going on for decades, the majority of our friends and neighbors rarely go downtown. Some haven’t been there in years. But the city leadership has decided to go full throttle with plans to give them a reason to do so. It’s an interesting experiment. I hope it works.
2. What would happen if we put it to a vote? Beyond the anomaly that was the passing of the Vision 2025 sales tax increase in September 2003, we Tulsans have a long, colorful history of saying “no” to anything that might push us collectively into a larger national spotlight. And that is even more apparent when it comes to supporting projects meant for the betterment of downtown and the surrounding area.
Remember The Channels? That controversial little Arkansas River corridor project wasn’t long for this world. And don’t even get me started about the new Central Library that “we” said “no” to a few years ago. Now we have a lovely abandoned Homeland (that sits just west of the lot where the proposed new library was to be built) to show off to all of the out-of-towners coming in for shows at the BOK Center. And speaking of that big, shiny building (which was mostly paid for with Vision 2025 funds), do you think it would have passed if it had been proposed as a stand-alone project? I have my doubts.
3. Why do we cut off our noses to spite our faces? OK, so this may be a slight continuation of the previous question, but I feel there is a little bit more to be explored here. In his best-selling book “What’s the Matter with Kansas,” author Thomas Frank suggests that Kansans vote against their own economic interests in favor of the social issues to which they’ve become ideologically tied. We (Tulsans) tend to vote against measures that will, in the long run, create jobs and revenue because we just can’t wrap our heads around paying a little more for our groceries and tennis shoes and fill in the blank. The best example of this comes from a man I overheard in a restaurant complaining about how taxes are “the little four-letter word nobody wants to talk about.” You do the math.
4. If you build it, will they come? Remember “Field of Dreams”? I don’t want to bore you with a movie review, but here is the basic plot: A guy builds a baseball field on his Iowa farm and a bunch of dead players come and visit. Oh, yeah — one of them is his dad. If only we had it so easy. As you know, the Tulsa Drillers are going downtown (no homerun reference intended). Sounds great, right? It worked pretty well for OKC. But the real question is this: Will people from Bixby, Jenks and Broken Arrow make the fairly lengthy drive for a night game that won’t be over until late and then drive all the way back? On a school night? I am sure that smarter people than I have batted (pun totally intended) these ideas around a million times. Maybe they even came up with answers. But so far, I haven’t heard them. Have you?
5 Who cares? When I say, “Who cares?” I don’t mean it in that flippant, apathetic, teenage sort of way. I mean, who/where are the people in our city who care about bringing downtown back to life? If it’s only the people who live and work there, this isn’t going to work. Beyond new buildings and bright lights, we need to determine the will of the people. With the great majority of the metro population living outside the city, we need to start a grassroots effort to bring them back into the fold. We must begin to shatter the misconceptions. Yes, there are homeless people downtown. No, they will not hurt you. Yes, there are lots of one-way streets. No, you won’t be lost forever in a concrete jungle. Yes, parking occasionally costs money. No, this isn’t something unique to our city. Yes, we want you to join us. No, we can’t do it alone.
Jeff Martin is an author, editor and the co-founder of Booksmart Tulsa (www.booksmarttulsa.com). His latest book, “My Dog Ate My Nobel Prize: The Fabricated Memoirs of Jeff Martin,” will be released this fall.
