OKC State of the City address – 2022
By: J. David Chapman/July 21, 2022
I have been attending the annual Oklahoma City State of the City address for over 20 years. It is one of my favorite events of the year. I get the opportunity to see and network with people from very different walks of life. This year was very special because it was held at the new Omni Convention Center. This was an appropriate venue for a presentation by Mayor Holt that had a theme of “arrival.”
The general feeling in the room from the address was that Oklahoma City has moved into a completely different field of play. To steal from baseball, we have moved from triple-A league to major-league play. Yes, we are now a major-league city. Just as I have done in this column previously, Mayor Holt made a big deal of our ascent up the population size ladder to top 20 in the U.S.
He gave recognition to developers Gary Brooks and Charlie Nicholas for the recent completion of one of OKC’s finest landmarks – the First National Center. He gave credit to OKC’s MAPS program as one of the vehicles that has brought us where we are today. There was a great deal of the address spent correlating the city’s rising capital and professional sports. Proper recognition to the Thunder’s role is our city’s recent success.
Mayor Holt quoted Dr. Angelo Scott, one of OKC’s early civic leaders, who left us a recorded message over 100 years ago. He said, “Men & women of 2013, you will be wiser than we, happier than we, better than we are. It is the law of growth, and we would not wish it otherwise.”
Yes, Mayor Holt presented OKC’s economic situation as booming, but what I like about the mayor is his propensity of honesty in his message. He spoke of the challenges and opportunities ahead. He spoke of public transportation – specifically rail between Edmond and Norman through OKC. He seems to understand the importance of regional cooperation between the cities that make up the OKC metropolitan area. Lastly, he spoke of not taking our success for granted. It was obvious to those listening that the law of growth that Dr. Scott spoke about over 100 years ago will include building a new NBA arena to keep the Thunder.
J. David Chapman is a professor of finance and real estate at the University of Central Oklahoma (jchapman7@uco.edu).