In the Zone

Cohesive plan for city's revitalization in the works thanks to enthusiastic citizenship

City meetings generally follow a pattern: A small group of people sits at the front of a room, debating, while a large group of people sits in the audience, yawning. The PLANiTULSA workshops organized to form a vision for Tulsa's future could not have been more different.

Last Tuesday's three-hour workshop started with free pizza and candy, then quickly moved into a board-game-style group exercise reminiscent of the video game SimCity. And the participants -- who numbered more than 1,000 for the city's three workshops combined -- were energized. In fact many seemed disappointed when warned they had only 15 minutes left to place their road markers and stickers representing commercial developments, residential subdivisions and other elements on their own perfect Tulsa.

(Read the Urban Tulsa story)