<a rel="attachment wp-att-1952" href="http://www.tashadoestulsa.com/?attachment_id=1952"><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 pondering 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 have gone viral, at least in the local sense, 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. 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?, an essay posted in early February calling for stronger, more cooperative leadership in our city government</a>:
<blockquote>Tulsa has been blanketed in snow for the better part of a week now and the city has struggled to clear roads to the satisfaction of a frustrated citizenry. Some of our councilors took the opportunity to grandstand in front of the public access cameras while attacking/questioning the mayor. The mayor responded by taking pictures of them with his personal camera. It seems he’s a photographer and wanted to visually document the meeting from his perspective. Not kidding...

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 its [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>
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 your time, thoughts and conversation. We're all pretty tired of task forces, committees and complex envisioning processes. It's time to start flaunting what we've got - telling our stories, showcasing what Tulsa has to offer that no other city in the world can, and claiming our ownership in all of it as it stands now.

There's value in loving Tulsa for what it could be, but what's important is living fully into our city as it presently exists. 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. 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 is going to come from. Cities are like people in that each seems to have 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 it's always an organic process. It never comes from a marketing campaign or an elite, exclusive group of citizens with deep pockets. It truly is a community endeavor, and 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 claim to also be the birthplace of Route 66? Or home to dozens upon dozens of Native American cultures, some of the most diverse set of tribes in one place in the country? Or the home of one of the largest collections of art deco architecture in the world? is Or a place where world-class museums, ballet, opera and theatre companies can operate up the street from bursting-at-the-seams guns and arms shows, rodeos and 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, 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 only tolerate convenience, routine and sameness, each of which has effects of its own on the world around us and on the 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, 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.

So, 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 and a bustling downtown start. Who we are has to actually match what we want others to know about us.

But, that's just what I think. 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? What are you willing to do to help us get there?