[Kluch]

As someone who knows very little about Oklahoma, how do these two cities compare when it comes to family life for a young (early 30's) couple with small kids? We are fairly conservative people who are considering a move out IL. I'm in the tech industry fwiw, so job market is important.

Open to any/all input, thanks!

[StillwaterTownie]

Tulsa is more conservative.

[eddie gein]

Originally Posted by StillwaterTownie

Tulsa is more conservative.

I think the voting records might demonstrate that but in some ways I think Tulsa is more progressive than Oklahoma City in some respects. For instance, Tulsa seems to draw more musical acts to Cain's and the Brady theater and the BOC than OKC gets at it's venues.

For a conservative young family I don't think there would be that much difference in either place. Particularly if you are living suburban. One thing OKC has that Tulsa doesn't have is two suburban college towns in the metro while TU and ORU have a much higher profile in Tulsa than does OCU and whatever other private religious schools you want to mention do in OKC.

[Kthnry]

I'm in IT. I'm planning to move to Tulsa in about a year so I've been casually following the job listings. As far as I can tell, there is no IT industry in Tulsa. Or maybe nobody advertises on the big job boards, like indeed. I work remotely and I'm near retirement so it doesn't matter to me, but I don't think I'd plan a move there if I needed a job.

[StillwaterTownie]

Tulsa is regarded as such a highly undesirable city to live in by outsiders that you'll get rewarded $10,000 to move there to be a remote worker. https://tulsaremote.com/

[Kthnry]

Originally Posted by StillwaterTownie

Tulsa is regarded as such a highly undesirable city to live in by outsiders that you'll get rewarded $10,000 to move there to be a remote worker. https://tulsaremote.com/

I'm familiar with that program. Can you be more specific about why Tulsa is undesirable? I've visited several times and it seems like a nice little city with a lot going on.

[StillwaterTownie]

Originally Posted by Kthnry

I'm familiar with that program. Can you be more specific about why Tulsa is undesirable? I've visited several times and it seems like a nice little city with a lot going on.

Too many streets in poor condition.

Schools aren't all that good.

Lack of good paying jobs.

Weather is frequently bad.

[swake]

Originally Posted by StillwaterTownie

Too many streets in poor condition.

Schools aren't all that good.

Lack of good paying jobs.

Weather is frequently bad.

All that compared to Oklahoma City? Oklahoma City's roads are actually rated worse than Tulsa's, neither are good, both cities are spending a lot of money to fix the roads.

TPS itself has issues, but they do have a magnet school system that is excellent and Tulsa's suburban schools are good. And almost half of the city of Tulsa is in the Union or Jenks school districts. OKC schools are a complete mess and can't even keep leadership for more than a year or two. Oklahoma City's two good districts are Edmond and Norman, but those are very far from the central part of Oklahoma City. Overall I would say that schools are better in the Tulsa area.

Oklahoma City's Unemployment rate is 3.1% compared to Tulsa's 3.2, no real difference there. Oklahoma City does have a better growth rate so job are probably a bit better, but it's not going to be a large difference.

Tulsa and OKC have largely the same weather, Tulsa gets about 10% more rain and with its lower elevation, hills and trees, Tulsa isn't nearly as windy as OKC, wind is awful in central Oklahoma. Tulsa also doesn't get the huge tornados that central Oklahoma does. On balance, Tulsa does have better weather. Those hills and trees along with better maintained central city neighborhoods and urban districts make Tulsa a much more attractive place to live as well.

And I'm an IT Program Manager in Tulsa for a California based software company. There are IT jobs here and they can be hard to fill.

[eddie gein]

Originally Posted by swake

TPS itself has issues, but they do have a magnet school system that is excellent and Tulsa's suburban schools are good. And almost half of the city of Tulsa is in the Union or Jenks school districts. OKC schools are a complete mess and can't even keep leadership for more than a year or two. Oklahoma City's two good districts are Edmond and Norman, but those are very far from the central part of Oklahoma City. Overall I would say that schools are better in the Tulsa area.

According to USN&WR OKC whips the dog out of Tulsa on schools. In the top 25 High Schools in Oklahoma OKC has 14 and Tulsa has just 4. Count 'em.

https://www.usnews.com/education/bes...ahoma/rankings

Those hills and trees along with better maintained central city neighborhoods and urban districts make Tulsa a much more attractive place to live as well.

While this may be true it's not really noticeable except for along the River in Tulsa (where it's REAL noticeable ). The affluent neighborhoods north of OKC downtown aren't really much different than those of Tulsa that are away from the river. The trees might be a little taller but not a lot taller.

South Tulsa is not terribly different than east Edmond or Choctaw

Tell you what Swake. To keep this from coming to blows....

We'll take Kluch and give you Kthnry. Deal?

[Kthnry]

It seems that a lot of the issues in Oklahoma originate at the state level -- tax cuts that caused budget shortfalls that led to poor maintenance, inadequate teacher pay, insufficient funding for law enforcement, etc. Is that starting to change?