<a rel="attachment wp-att-1952" href="http://www.tashadoestulsa.com/?attachment_id=1952"><strong>They provide basic amenities.</strong>
<img title="Pedestrian Bridge at River Parks Tulsa Oklahoma" src="http://www.tashadoestulsa.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/DSC06456-500x666.jpg" alt="Pedestrian Bridge at River Parks Tulsa Oklahoma" width="400" /></a>

Who is Tulsa? If Tulsa was a person, how would you describe him or her? Musical? Artsy? Sporty? Foodie? Something else?

That's the question Blake Ewing, the owner of several downtown businesses, has been exploring over the course of a few posts at his blog, <a href="http://www.blakeewing.com/">BlakeEwing.com</a>.

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Blake's posts - or essays, rather - have gone viral, at least on the local Web, landing on at least <a href="http://www.batesline.com/archives/2011/04/added-to-the-blogroll.html">two popular Tulsa blogs</a> (and <a href="http://jboudiette.wordpress.com/">here</a>) and on the feeds of several influential local Twitter users.

<h3>What's In The Blake Ewing Posts</h3>

Probably the most circulated post thus far would be <a href="http://blakeewing.wordpress.com/2011/02/09/who-will-lead-us/">Who Will Lead Us?, a post from early February calling for stronger, more cooperative leadership in our city government</a>:
<blockquote>I can’t help but be frustrated. I feel like most of the work I do is somehow related to the betterment of our fine city, so it’s tough to want so badly for our elected officials to provide a strong foundation for us and to feel like there’s no new hope for that. I feel like our people want to be inspired. They want a vision for a better Tulsa. They want to believe that we can do what so many cities have done in recent years. We can reinvent ourselves. We can enhance our existing attributes, mitigate our weakness, and create new attractions and amenities for Tulsa and its visitors to enjoy. The public is looking for leadership and they are not finding it.

Instead, it seems, we are forced to deal with nagging political roadblock and short-sighted politicians who can’t seem to figure out that what they’re doing now is not what’s best for Tulsa....

...I will continue to believe in a better city and I will continue to hope that our city leaders will rise to lead us. I keep feeling that there’s this whole other side to the job that has to do with people. It’s emotional. It’s relational. The job is so much more than just making policy and taking care of business. They clearly know this. It must be the reason for the long winded speeches directed at the TGOV cameras. They’re trying to communicate with us. They’re just doing it all wrong. Those speeches in council meetings are worthless. They don’t count. They don’t inspire. They frustrate.</blockquote>
He continues with the same theme in his next post, dated about a month later:
<blockquote>I’m absolutely in love with [Tulsa's] potential. It’s painful to feel like I can close my eyes and see the Tulsa we should be, but we lack the infrastructure, vision, or synergy to get us there.

I’m not blaming our city’s leaders for the way things are. If we’re not happy, it’s because we’ve let it be this way. If you are happy with things, I’d ask you to look at the city as a whole. Are we achieving our potential? Is the lifestyle you’re enjoying going to be sustained or will the shortcomings in other parts of the city eventually infringe on the things you currently appreciate and enjoy. While our neighboring cities were growing, developing, and improving, we were slow to the party...Tulsans have struggled to see the big picture and therefore have done the very human thing of asking, “what’s in it for me?”

...if you’re completely happy with the way things are, that doesn’t exempt you. In order to get to keep what you have, you’re going to have to act. The city is changing and your lifestyle, be it a suburban or an urban one, is going to be threatened. It’s time to think past the end of the driveway for a minute. The city in which we’ve chosen to live, and in which we want our children to want to live, needs our help.</blockquote>
The latest installation is a post called <a href="http://blakeewing.wordpress.com/2011/04/03/grow-up-tulsa-grow-up-tulsa/">Grow Up, Tulsa. Grow Up Tulsa</a>, focused on the first steps of a process Blake calls, "making Tulsa a grown-up city." He begins by suggesting that Tulsa should compare itself to other cities and use their examples to reverse engineer where Tulsa would like to be. He writes that grown-up cities:

Take advantage of their resources and promote their assets;
They attract and retain creative people;
They provide basic amenities; 
Their local government provides sound infrastructure and supports development;
They have a vibrant urban core;
They celebrate small local business.

Here's where he's left things for now: 

<blockquote>A defined set of goals and values for our city would help those types of things to be more frequent. If we could get all of the major parties with a stake or a say-so (city council, mayor, TMAPC, INCOG, chambers of commerce, school boards, neighborhood associations, state reps and senators, US reps and senators, and entrepreneurs and developers) to push everything through the same set of filters, I think we’d see marked improvement as a city in a hurry. If at every level we had to ask the question “Is this what a grown-up city would do?” we might start seeing a different type of behavior across the board. I know it’s a little cheesy, but it’s the principle that’s important. I’m trying to communicate that we really can stop wasting time with silly bickering and minute policy making and start getting to work growing up.</blockquote>

Blake's blogging has generated a variety of responses, some in the form of new groups looking to better champion Tulsa as well as requests that he run in the next mayoral election.

Even if you differ with Blake on the particulars, what he has to say is worth our time, thoughts and conversation. 

<h3>So, Let The Conversation Begin</h3>

I agree that there's value in well-defined common goals, comparing Tulsa to other cities and envisioning from such a comparison what our city could be. 

What I think is more important, though, is first living fully into our city as it presently exists and what it has to offer today, right now.

That means checking out local parks, attractions and events rather than parking ourselves and our families on the couch in front of the TV night after night, or refusing to enjoy what Tulsa has to offer until we get an IKEA, a major theme park or other such development. It's choosing local businesses over chains and big-box outlets whenever possible. It's hosting block parties in our neighborhoods when it would be easier to keep to ourselves.

I think that's where our identity comes from, and I think it's why so many of us sense such malaise in the momentum of the progression of our city. Urban sprawl and all that goes along with it has been the slippery slope on which Tulsa and many other mid-sized cities across the country have found themselves since the American dream of homeownership and the white picket fence life went on deep discount here in the states after World War II. 

Cities are like people in that each has its own personality, but also like people, we can't assign traits and attributes to them like we can storage boxes with a label maker. Great cities grow into their identities as a function of culture, history and place, and when it's a great thing, it's an organic process. It doesn't come from a marketing campaign or an elite, exclusive group of citizens with big plans and deep pockets. It truly is a community endeavor, and while it's bound to be fragmented and messy and disobedient to timelines and mission statements, it begins with our kids, our neighborhoods and how we vote by how we spend our dollars.

People aren't kidding when they say Tulsa is a great place to raise a family and that it's a top choice for retiring, relocating baby boomers. But how many of those cities can also claim to also be the birthplace of Route 66? Or home to dozens upon dozens of Native American cultures, one of the most diverse sets of tribes in the country? Or the home of one of the largest collections of art deco architecture in the world? Or a place where world-class museums, ballet, opera and theatre companies can pack entertainment venues just up the street from bursting-at-the-seams guns and arms shows, rodeos and state fairs?

Let's choose to own these things. Let's learn about and experience it all. Then, let's teach our children about it, work to instill in them a sense of pride in their histories and in their community. Let's start telling our stories. If we're convinced we don't have any, then let's get to work on writing some.

To refuse the richness that a sense of place can imbue in our lives and in the lives of our families is a two-fold death. It creates in the citizenry a numbness which can tolerate only convenience, routine and sameness, each of which has effects of its own on the world around us and on the human spirit. It also silences the identity of a place. If we refuse to learn about the history of where we plant our feet, our kids and our homes and build on that in our own ways and with our own stories, any piece of rock on which we settle is just like any other piece of rock. It becomes nowhere. A no-place.

That's where I think Tulsa's chance to sparkle lies, in investing in the city as it exists now with our time, experiences and, yeah, our resources - essentially, by creating and sharing our stories with one another and with everyone we meet when we're not at home. That's where the cool factor is gonna start. That's where things like river development by Tulsa's own businesses, drop-ins by the major, sought-after entertainment, a tourist-worthy arts and music scene and a bustling downtown start. Who we are has to actually match what we want others to know about us, and any common goals or directives have to be set forth from there. 

<h3>What Say You?</h3>

Blake set forth his vision for the city. I used this blog post to do the same. But what do you think? Who/what do you think Tulsa is? How does that compare with what you'd like to see Tulsa become over the course of the next generation or two? How do we get there? What are you willing to do as a Tulsan to 