Case of Tulsa conversion to the next major technology center

What I found in Tulsa was that the heart covered the large middle environment of the country – not only in geographical terms, but also in public, cultural and even spiritual. For me, Heartland represents middle cities such as Tulsa, middle -class citizens and those who seek to reach the middle class. “Whether the mythical Heartland is celebrated or decreased,” writes historian Christine L. Hoganson, “She encourages the notion that there is a gap between the center and the edges, between the heart and the national body.” Regardless of its definition or boundaries, this perception is real: the heart is really a division. We usually think that people who do not have opportunities such as marginalized, operating at the edges of society. But the heart is reasonably showing that the metaphor is inverted – those at the boundaries of economic opportunity represent the huge average, while coastal technological centers through their concentrated wealth are in the minority and are still healthy in power.

Every city wants to become a technology center, but only a handful along the coast makes America’s innovation system – and that’s a problem. The Brookings Institution found that between 2005 and 2017, 90 percent of growth from the country’s innovation sector came from only five coastal metro. And from July 2022 to July 2023, six coastal cities represent almost 50 percent of all US publications in generative artificial intelligence (AI), which is the most important end of today’s technology industry. By grouping talents, the industry and the capital and the economy of agglomeration, which lead to large coastal cities such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston and Washington, Colombia District, monopolize innovations and its innumerable benefits. This close geographical distribution of the innovative economy leaves the cities of the heart and limits the opportunities for the greater part of the population.

Therefore, the American dream – the notion that through hard work everyone has an equal opportunity to lead a good and decent life so that the consistent generations are better – to move further than the reach for more people. In 2023, citing increasing income inequality, Harvard economist Raj reads said: “If we look at what happened over time, we see a dramatic fading of the American dream, so for children born in the mid-1980s and 1990s. These are unacceptable chances that undermine the belief in American democracy and capitalism, and they will only get worse unless Heartland cities are working urgently to reset their economies.

Heartland cities like Tulsa can and should be participants in the innovative economy, which, despite their unequal access, remains the best opportunity for long-term work and wealth. But there is no need to compete with the large coastal hubs. The average weights are in their own class and they should strive to become the best version of themselves.

Medium -sized cities such as Tulsa, with the population of the metropolitan statistical district between 1 and 3 million people, already have the basis for supporting the technological ecosystem: population density, cultural amenities, as well as a relatively low cost of life that can break out risky entrepreneurship. The trends in the pandemic workforce emphasized these advantages, as members of the creative class can now easily seek a better quality of life and move away from the coastal cities, where growth and justice work too often in opposition. The established technological centers throw away even compensated well, and this group of mobile talents finds benefits in unpretentious places like Tulsa. This tributary of talents creates an opportunity for any city that can attract and preserve them.

Despite Possessing Many of the Key Elements for a Tech Eco System, Too Many Heart Land Cities have also shut the shuts out of the Innovation Enconomy byez uno Their Communities, Or by Holding on to A Nostalgic Sense of Culture – an Aversion to Change That has ld to Counterproductive Policies that Turn Off Tech Talent and Investors and do ecosystems. Although most changes happen organically over time, rapid internal inequality and expansion of geographical differences in technology have led us to a point of folding as a country. Heartland cities must rotate with intention and hurry – or risk disappearing.

Taken from Rediscovery By Nicholas Lala Copyright © 2025 by Nicholas Lala. Used by Harper Horizon’s permission, division of HarperCollins Focus, LLCS