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Elm Creek West Pond meeting: after-action review

This will be brief, as I'm worn out. Over 100 people turned out for tonight's meeting between city officials and contractors and neighborhood residents to discuss the Elm Creek West Pond, a stormwater detention facility which would wipe out Paul Harvey's childhood home and his neighborhood, using eminent domain to...

Posted by Michael Bates on October 14, 2019 11:02 PM

Pearl District detention pond public meeting, Monday, October 14, 2019

Tulsa District 4 City Councilor Kara Joy McKee is hosting a public meeting on Monday, October 14, 2019, at the Central Center at Centennial Park, 1028 E 6th St, Tulsa, Oklahoma 74120, from 6 pm to 8 pm, to discuss the planned Elm Creek West stormwater detention pond. The City...

Posted by Michael Bates on October 7, 2019 11:12 PM

Saving Paul Harvey's neighborhood: Next steps

I had to be downtown last night, and I decided to go for a walk. On a whim, I walked under the east leg of the IDL to Paul Harvey's old neighborhood, which the City of Tulsa is acquiring, lot by lot, house by house, to convert to a...

Posted by Michael Bates on September 27, 2019 12:29 PM

1967 Tulsa USGS aerial photos

Tulsa history expert Paul Uttinger pointed me to a couple of amazing U. S. Geological Survey (USGS) aerial photos from 1967. It captures an interesting point in time, as land was beginning to be cleared for I-244 and the Inner Dispersal Loop. Tulsa had, about a year earlier, tripled its...

Posted by Michael Bates on March 12, 2014 10:34 PM

Urban notes, 2010/07/20

Recent articles of interest on urban policy, both in Tulsa and elsewhere: Daniel Jeffries posts a map of the present-day University of Tulsa campus, comparing it to a map from the 1960s, showing the removal of the street grid over the last half century, and adding this comment: TU continues...

Posted by Michael Bates on July 20, 2010 6:25 PM

"TU has lost a sense of belonging to Tulsa"

Dan Weber, a senior at the University of Tulsa, has a column in the school's student newspaper, The Collegian, about the impact of TU's campus expansion and its efforts to attract more residential students on its relationship with the city from which it takes its name: [The class of 2009...

Posted by Michael Bates on January 26, 2009 11:56 PM

Condemning TU: University of Tulsa benefits from city's abuse of eminent domain

An edited version of this piece was published in the August 9, 2006, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The edited, published version of the piece is online in the Internet Archive. Posted on the web April 28, 2013. Condemning TU By Michael D. Bates Usually it's the daily paper's editorial...

Posted by Michael Bates on August 9, 2006 12:52 AM