The Tulsa Experiment: A COVID Success Story

The city continues to reap rewards from its successful relocation policies in the WFH eras of 2020-2022, albeit one buttressed by historical oil wealth and the benefits of a smaller metropolitan area.

The Infamous Oral Roberts University Prayer Hands: maybe the only Oklahoman Stereotype that fits in this city

I love a mid-sized city, so Tulsa's approximate four hours from Kansas City (less if you maniacally weave through traffic) was a no-brainer for the 15 minutes of my life that I owned my own vehicle #ripCharles. This City was a small one, public transit be damned, but a good one.

Oklahoma geographically borders Kansas but culturally moreso resembles Missouri, a similarity we can chalk up to Ruby Red Former Slave States with startling high levels of poverty and violence that lies in much of the south. As the only state where Trump carried every county, it lacks a major metro (OKC's metro is around 1.5 million with Tulsa's slightly north of a million), alongside an unremarkable university culture and few household businesses that call it home. Yet, it can also boast a hidden diversity common for the nation's center, with 42% of its land falling under Native Jurisdiction (and the tension coming with it) as well as a 35% plus non-white population that makes it more diverse than Washington State or South Carolina.

Tulsa exists at these crossroads, as most of the metropolitan area actually rests on Indian Country with a storied history of racial resentment. Think of Martin Scorsese's historical adaption of Tears of the Flower Moon, which uncovers its citizens' ploy to murder their way into Native American Oil Wealth, or the many, many depictions of The Tulsa Race Massacre, which saw Black Wall Street's destruction at the peak of Tulsa's growth in the '20s. Beyond the oil wealth that has kept the town running, Tulsans couldn't be blamed for preferring to be forgotten throughout chunks of its history.

One of the Many, Many In-Memoriams to the Destruction of Black Wall Street

Fortunately, Tulsa has received notice in recent years for a better trend: Its magnificently generous Work-From-Home Relocation Plan. Up to even today, Tulsa offers up to $10,000 to prospective residents looking to relocate and invest in Tulsa, a fiscal abundance provided by private foundations ultimately descendant from the city's oil roots. Of course, any City (read, City of Nowhere, Topeka) can fund a relocation plan; its success, is an entirely other thing.

The Tulsa Difference therefore comes from its success. In tandem with the program, metropolitan area, notably its downtown and adjacent communities, emit an urban renewal radiance patted along in good faith by local government and industry alike. As a tourist passing through, it was easy to spot the growing city buzz, rising housing projects, and even a downright jaw dropping number of late night coffee shops. Perhaps best emblematic is the designer riverfront playground called The Gathering Place. When you factor in the relative poor density and lack of strong university presence, this is nothing short of exceptional for a mid tier city.

Of course, Tulsa runs into the inevitable challenges of its region and historical condition. The state government has gotten into some pretty nasty disputes with tribal leaders in recent years over sovereignty and reservation resource allotment, a poverty problem that is only getting worse with the Trump Administration's recent cuts. And despite the enclave of woke whites electing the city's first black mayor over a literal Karen, the historically black parts of the city are notoriously barren and segregated, barring the rebuilt Greenwood District. But that built up enclave, much like its cultural equivalent of 18th and Vine in Kansas City, relies on the power of memory and moreso abundant federal grants and philanthropy to financially empower an area that would otherwise be another causality of desegregation. Like their national brethren, high-skilled, high-income Black Tulsans have taken to the suburbs to build household wealth and pursue better schools for their children, while cultural heritage remains just that.

Does the Tulsa Experiment have much to say in a broader context? In many ways, no. COVID as a pandemic is over, even if remote work lingers longer in a professional context. Tulsa's specific tech-skilled growth should multiply in effect, but that is likely as much attributed to the metro's mid size and abundant philanthropic wealth, the latter of which is usually needed for a successful WFH incentive in the first place. You wouldn't, after all, have a Sachs on 5th Avenue without a long track record of wealth.

What Tulsa, imperfect as it is, represents, is another quiet success for the American Experiment. Bill Clinton Infamously quipped that every problem in America has been solved in America. Easier spoken than pursued, but any success speak volumes. Despite narratives of immeasurable American decline, this metropolitan area proves that even quieter parts of the country can still develop and grow wealth across race and class lines in their own unique ways.

The Philbrook: A Museum Displaying Tulsa Glory, Past, Present, and Future