The lo-down on Tulsa.

[georgeious]

my friend recently relocated from tulsa to durham and she loves it there. she says that the two are very comparable on friendliness in attitude and such, so i think you'd like it on a "regional cultural" basis in tulsa.

having said that, i am from tulsa and used to live in nashville. i adored it! the pace was very relaxed and even though it was jam-packed with transplants because of the music industry, most people picked up on the laid back thing and were great. we've been considering going back to nashville for a while so i've been keeping an eye on the market and from what i saw there were definitely things more affordable that the 200k you mentioned. i agree that you might find more work in a place like that because of the orientation of the industries, but tulsa will have its share.

another place you might consider in your hunt (if you like the texas thing, too) is austin. the traffic can be hairy, but not as bad as socal really. not only is the real estate in dallas/austin/etc. considered to be "undervalued" in the market, but there is a growing music and entertainment industry that you might be able to use to your advantage in graphic design.

good luck!

[Synopsis]

To echo georgeious' statements, if jobs are a concern (as they always are for those that are not retired), there are other job markets in Oklahoma and Texas. Oklahoma City, being a larger city than Tulsa, has more job opportunities, and south of the border down here in Texas, the DFW area is filled with jobs in Graphic Design. Austin is much the same but there will be more in Dallas/Fort Worth area. Hope this helps.