Oklahoma City has received a strange collection of publicity over the past few days.
In addition to Seamus' vitamin water fueled documentary that we covered earlier, The New York Times published a nice story about how people are voluntarily leaving the coasts to live in places like Oklahoma City, where the banking and home industry's dream of you owning home is still attainable.
Via the New York Times:
Affordable Housing Draws Middle Class to Inland Cities
Americans have never hesitated to pack up the U-Haul in search of the big time, a better job or just warmer weather. But these days, domestic migrants are increasingly driven by the quest for cheaper housing.
The country’s fastest-growing cities are now those where housing is more affordable than average, a decisive reversal from the early years of the millennium, when easy credit allowed cities to grow without regard to housing cost and when the fastest-growing cities had housing that was less affordable than the national average. Among people who have moved long distances, the number of those who cite housing as their primary motivation for doing so has more than doubled since 2007.
Rising rents and the difficulty of securing a mortgage on the coasts have proved a boon to inland cities that offer the middle class a firmer footing and an easier life. In the eternal competition among urban centers, the shift has produced some new winners.
Oklahoma City, for example, has outpaced most other cities in growth since 2011, becoming the 12th-fastest-growing city last year. It has also won over a coveted demographic, young adults age 25 to 34, going from a net loss of millennials to a net gain. Other affordable cities that have jumped in the growth rankings include several in Texas, including El Paso and San Antonio, as well as Columbus, Ohio, and Little Rock, Ark.
Newcomers in Oklahoma City have traded traffic jams and preschool waiting lists for master suites the size of their old apartments. The sons of Lorin Olson, a stem cell biologist who moved here from New York’s Upper East Side, now ride bikes in their suburban neighborhood and go home to a four-bedroom house. Hector Lopez, a caricature artist, lives in a loft apartment here for less than he paid to stay in a garage near Los Angeles. Tony Trammell, one of a group of about a dozen friends to make the move from San Diego, paid $260,000 for his 3,300-square-foot home in a nearby suburb.
“This is the opposite of the gold rush,” Mr. Trammell said.
As we know, this isn't the first time Oklahoma City has been praised in the New York Times. The write up that Sam Anderson penned a few years ago still gives everyone at the Chamber of Commerce a four hour erection. That being said, this is still cool. It's nice to read about our city in a national newspaper and it not have anything to do with weather, earthquakes, fracking, botched executions or anti-gay discrimination.
Of course, don't tell that news to our local TV news channels. In what has to be a perfect sign of the times, they totally ignored the New York Times story and instead published easy to read, write and click content from distinguished media outlets like "The Richest" and "Law Street."
Via KFOR:
Oklahoma City makes ‘Most Gang Infested Cities in America’ list
Oklahoma City has made its mark on a national list but it is not something that makes residents proud.
According to TheRichest, Oklahoma City is one of the six most ‘Gang Infested Cities in America.’
The article estimates that over 1.5 million people are members of 35,000 different gangs in the U.S.
After analyzing data from the FBI and municipal law enforcement agencies, the website came up with the following list of the ‘Most Gang Infested Cities in America.’
Chicago, ILLos Angeles, CADetroit, MICamden, N.J.Oklahoma City, OKEast St. Louis, ILThe article states that the majority of gangs in Oklahoma City are street gangs and prison gangs.
It says shootings over rival territory and the drug trade result in drive-by shootings, which make up the majority of the gang violence in the city.
Via News 9:
Website Ranks Oklahoma As 10th Most Dangerous State For Violent Crime
The state of Oklahoma has been ranked the 10th most dangerous state for violent crime according to a study by the website Law Street.
Law Street used data collected from the FBI's most recent Uniform Crime Report (2012) to compile the information and says Oklahoma experienced 496.3 violent crimes per 100,000 people.
Violent crimes include murder, rape, aggravated assault and robbery.
Next door neighbors like Arkansas and Missouri were 11th and 13th in the rankings. Texas had a ranking of 18 and Kansas 22nd.
That's great. The world's most prestigious newspaper plugs our city and the local media instead publishes fear infused clickbait from fly by night websites looking for cheap pageviews and boosted SEO. Basically, click bait is now helping breed other click bait. Pretty soon it's going to become self aware. Hopefully it starts eating it's young, otherwise we're all screwed.
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