AJ Kirkpatrick

The city of Oklahoma City, like many cities, is currently undergoing a renaissance. Consistently ranked one of the top cities for professionals to live and work, the city has big visions to continue to bring in the needed investments and development to retain and recruit residents, employment industries, and to overall promote increased quality of life.

In the 1980’s and spanning into the early 90’s, the city faced several challenges and crises in the downtown area. These created issues such as dilapidated and forgotten spaces, a deteriorating economic base, and a lack of residents, and was in dire need to be revitalized. Due to investments like the Metropolitan Areas Projects (MAPS), districting strategies, and public/private partnerships, the city is on the rise and has been able to execute large scale projects that have brought residents and businesses back to the downtown area and has increased quality of life for the community.

• Don’t be afraid to dream big while understanding that the bigger the dream the more people you must involve. Buy-in from residents is critical and sometimes tough conversations must be a part of that process. • While dreaming big, don’t be afraid to start small. Tactical urbanism strategies can help cities execute lighter, quicker, cheaper projects that have immediate impacts. • Crowdsourcing is a strategy that cities can also use to help bring in ideas and the financial resources to leverage projects. • Identify the unique aspects of your community that makes your community different. Too often cities fall into the pressure of doing things like everyone else does and end up recreating the same experiences across different cities. However, people don’t want repeated experiences across different cities. Don’t be afraid to be different.

Crowdsourcing: The city of OKC crowdsourced ideas to improve the downtown area. Instead of hiring a company to come paint underpasses white with no character, they were able to save money, support a local artist, and have a unique mega mural painted on one of the underpasses. This has set an expectation to do this for all underpasses and has opened further opportunities for the artist.

Dream Big: Core to Shore Masterplan. This plan guided the planning from the downtown area to the river and includes projects like Scissortail Park; a community asset to residents from all backgrounds.