A Case for Turning Tulsa Into the Next Big Tech Hub

In an excerpt from his new book, Reinventing the Heartland, urbanist Nicholas Lalla makes the case for setting up technology’s next big nerve center in Oklahoma.

Tulsa provided an unlikely case study of economic transformation for another reason: It’s America in miniature. Indeed, when modern-day Don Drapers want to test a product’s national appeal, they get out of Manhattan and head to Tulsa. Tulsa’s mix of demographics and its cultural ambiguity—is it the Midwest or the South?—have made the city ideal for piloting new products for decades, from soft drinks to laundry detergents, pizza to draft beer. Reporting on research that found Tulsa’s demographics “match national averages more closely than any other city,” a 1993 article in the Oklahoman asks a curious question: “Toss the United States into a blender, crank it up and what do you get?” The answer, the article says, is a “big Tulsa puree.”

Nicholas Lalla