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Tulsa and Oklahoma historical maps and aerial photos
What was here? Who owned it? What did it look like? There are a number of resources available for reconstructing Oklahoma's geographical past, and they're easier to use than ever. These are my go-tos when researching the history of a neighborhood or answering questions about the past. This is an...
1946 Tulsa County precincts
Newspapers.com has some amazing content that can help to locate long-lost rural places around Tulsa. I was searching for information about Bethel Union School, later known as Paul Revere School (which I wrote about in conjunction with the centennial of Southern Hills Baptist Church), and I found a legal notice...
Tulsa Election 2020, District 4: Kathryn Lyons questionnaire
Back on August 12, I sent the three eligible candidates for City Council District 4 a questionnaire using the email addresses provided in their declarations of candidacy or on their websites. The questionnaire included the 18 questions I asked the mayoral candidates, plus a question about neighborhood conservation districts and...
Tulsa City Council District 4: No endorsement
"I shall show my contempt by going down to the polling booth, taking my form, crossing both their names out and writing 'GET KNOTTED' in." -- Tony Hancock, Hancock's Half Hour, "The Election Candidate" I share The Lad's sentiments about many of the races on the August 28, 2018, runoff...
Zoning should keep walkable neighborhoods walkable
Tulsan Sarah Kobos has another insightful essay up at the Strong Towns website, illustrated with her own photos of lousy urban design right here in our hometown. While she's willing to forgive the urban design errors of the post-World War II decades, she politely asks cities to stop making them...
Downtown and design guidelines: A review
A friend asked me recently where I stood on the issue of design guidelines in zoning, particularly as it affects property rights and a proposed overlay district for downtown Tulsa. I referred him to a sampling relevant articles from the BatesLine archive, in which I discuss zoning generally and...
Vision Tulsa, Helmerich Park, and strip malls along the Arkansas River
Vision Tulsa Vote Yes ads claim (dishonestly) that approval of the Vision Tulsa Dam Tax hike on April 5, 2016, will prevent future strip malls from being built along the river. In fact, nothing in the Vision Tulsa propositions address development standards. Moreover, the City Council has the power...
Oklahoma historical congressional district maps
I've been watching politics for a very long time, going back to my childhood, so it's funny to observe the media's new-found concern about gerrymandering -- the practice of manipulating election district boundaries to benefit one party over another. The media's concern seems to have emerged with the growing dominance...
Tulsa zoning code draft: My comments
Just under the wire, I submitted my comments a week ago Saturday on the draft for public comment of the proposed zoning code for the City of Tulsa. This is a critical document for Tulsa's future, far more important than the debate over water-in-the-river. The current zoning code is nearly...
Form-based codes, historic preservation design guidelines on TMAPC agenda
Today's (July 11, 2012) meeting of the Tulsa Metropolitan Area Planning Commission (TMAPC) includes these two items near the very end of the agenda, under "Other Business": 21. Review and discuss the Tulsa Preservation Commission Design Guidelines Updates for Residential Structures and Non-Residential and Mixed-Use Structures within Historic Preservation Overlay...
Tulsa's Swan Lake one of "America's Great Neighborhoods"
The American Planning Association has named Tulsa's historic Swan Lake neighborhood one of ten Great Neighborhoods for 2011, part of the APA's annual recognition of "Great Places In America." (Hat tip to KRMG News for the story.) From the APA's citation: What dominates this attractive and popular neighborhood are...
Historic preservation amendment deserves Tulsa Council support
Updated, May 9, 2011: Scroll down for commentary on the outcome of the vote. Tomorrow night, Thursday, May 5, 2011, the Tulsa City Council will vote on a very simple, crystal clear, eleven-word-long amendment that fixes a loophole in our zoning code, a loophole that endangers the investment that homeowners...
PLANiTULSA notebook: Denver, small-area planning in areas of stability
Before coming to Tulsa, Fregonese Associates consulted on a new comprehensive plan for Denver, called Blueprint Denver. It's interesting to see that some of what the homebuilders want excised from PLANiTULSA was adopted in Denver. On the main Blueprint Denver page, the following is listed as the first of three...
City design: How, by whom, and to what end?
Blair Humphreys posts an excellent comment on an excellent discussion at Steve Lackmeyer's OKC Central blog: I agree with the thesis that cities NEED to be designed. Of course, the rub comes when you decide things like: designed how, by whom, and to what end. In Oklahoma City we have...
Tulsa Realtor Martha Thomas Cobb on historic preservation zoning
URGENT UPDATE: I've heard that Ms. Cobb sent an email blast that's generating some panicked comments attacking PLANiTULSA. If her email is as misinformative as her remarks to the TMAPC (see below), her influence will need to be countered by those who have actually read the PLANiTULSA policy plan and...
Tulsa streetcar and interurban lines in Google Maps
In response to a thread at TulsaNow's public forum, here is a map showing the routes of Tulsa's three streetcar/interurban lines: Red is the Tulsa Street Railway, blue is Oklahoma Union Traction, and green is the Sand Springs Railway. The latter two lines had interurban routes to Sapulpa and Kiefer...
One lot at a time
Steve Patterson of Urban Review STL suggests an alternative to the failure of downtown redevelopment projects to get off the ground: Acres and acres sit idle on the edges of downtown awaiting promised new development. On the South edge we have Ballpark Village and just North of America's Center and...
Beside the Alamo, enchantment
My most recent Urban Tulsa Weekly column is about the correlation between urban vitality and the combination of good urban form and older buildings, factors that are actively protected in cities like Austin and San Antonio, cities that Tulsans frequently say they wish to emulate. Those factors seem to make...
A Tale of Two Texas River Cities
An edited version of this column appeared in the April 2, 2008, issue of Urban Tulsa Weekly. The published version is available on the Internet Archive. Posted on August 4, 2018. A Tale of Two Texas River Cities By Michael D. Bates On a recent business trip to San Antonio,...
"The screams of the tyrannical minority"
"Democratic government will be the more successful the more the public opinion ruling iit is enlightened and inspired by full and thorough discussion....The greatest danger threatening democratic institutions comes from those influences which tend to stifle or demoralize discussion." -- Carl Schurz For a serious contender, Jason Eric Gomez is...
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