Tulsa

[updated september 2024]

SO, roomiematch.com's Tulsa roommate rundown:

Tulsa would like you to know that it's the smallest city on here with its own ballet. Also an opera, a symphony, over 135 parks, a world class zoo, and several lovely museums.

Tulsa is where the Great Plains meets the Ozark Plateau, with rolling hills of green instead of dust bowl. With sunshine over 220 days a year.

Once upon a time, decades ago, Tulsa's economy was mostly Big Oil . . . but they've since seriously diversified. Tulsa's grown into finance, high tech, aviation, and education.

Some Tulsans are trying to make public transportation a thing. It mostly hasn't caught on . . . but they're still trying. Most Tulsans drive everywhere. It's legitimately more difficult to get around this town than many without a car.

Because Tulsa just spread out all over the place! It sprawled! Don't even expect sidewalks in many parts of town.

Upside though: Tulsa's streets are mostly within one grid, with most major streets one mile away from each other. Easy to navigate!

Also very navigable is Tulsa's bike trail system, involving several official trails traversing the city. You can download trail maps, and it's recommended to plan your route. If you want an easy route, don't pick anything hilly (like the Creek Turnpike Trail). Also assess whether you'll want to deal with bike routes at all during summer (zero judgement, many athletes dislike exercising through heat).

But if you're a summer warrior please don't forget to hydrate. And wear a hat.

Tulsa also loves its local Taco Bueno, Braum's Ice Cream (Oklahoma's own fresh from local farms), BBQ smoked meat, and any decent steakhouse. Tulsa features almost all the cuisine categories you'd expect to find in larger cities. But don't forget you're in beef country.

Then take a walk in a public park, or stop by one of several popular live music venues . . . possibly to hear some TULSA SOUND: Fusing country, blues, rockabilly, rock & roll, and swamp rock!

The rest of the Tulsa roommate lowdown:

• second largest city in Oklahoma, with about 390,000 residents in the city, about 920,000 in the greater metro
• located in northeastern Oklahoma, along both sides of the Arkansas River, at the foothills of the Ozark Mountains
• Summers are hot, but humidity is low. Winters are mild, with just a few inches of snow per year. Tornado season is normally spring through summer, but all four seasons have featured some.
• home of the University of Tulsa, Rogers State University, Tulsa Community College, NSU-Broken Arrow, and a few campuses of Oklahoma State University
• Older neighborhoods are typically art deco style, now of nationally registered architectural interest, including zigzag and streamline styles.

After you're settled down, you and your roommates should experience Tulsa's:

• Woody Guthrie Center: His legacy lives on, including here. Check out Woody's Footsteps, Woody's Dust Bowl Ballads, the Music Bar, and the Lyric Writing Station.
• Philbrook Museum of Art: Welcoming you to Tulsa as its "most welcoming and engaging cultural institution," including an historic home, art museums, and 25 acres of garden.
• Gilcrease Museum of Art: > 350,000 items including > 350 years of art, the largest collection of Western and Native American art in the country. Since 1939.
• Mohawk Park: Tulsa's largest park and one of the largest in the country at 2800 acres. Includes hiking trails, picnic grounds, and restrooms. Also the Tulsa Zoo, Oxley Nature Center, and Mohawk Park Golf Course.

Here's the city of Tulsa's official .org for services for residents, A - Z.

Notes

1.   The non-traditional roommate rent average for this city we've experienced over the last 3 years. We can't predict future rental availability, because we're neither in control of any rental market nor psychic, sorry!

But in most cities most of the time, the recent and relatively recent past are the best predictors.


2.   This idea came from smartasset.com's ranking of what a roommate saves you in 50 cities. They ranked where roommates will save you the most money, based on the average cost of a 1BR as opposed to a 2BR ÷ 2. Unsurprisingly, the more expensive the city, the more you can save, but the savings are significant in all larger metros. So we got the data for the rest of our cities from Zumper too.

This is really the minimum you could save, as you could live with more than one roommate, split more services, share food or other supplies, etc. More sharing tends to lead to more savings too, as per our roommate roadmap.

As per the rest of the description at the top of this page, we're calling this "traditional" roommate rent.


3.   From zumper.com.


4.   Directly quoted from the Trust for Public Land's parkland rating system.

"The ParkScore index awards each city up to 100 points for acreage based on the average of two equally weighted measures: median park size and parkland as a percentage of city area. Factoring park acreage into each city’s ParkScore rating helps account for the importance of larger “destination parks” that serve many users who live farther than ten minutes’ walking distance."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual ParkScore, nature lovers might like to see all roommate cities ranked for parkland.


5.   Directly quoted from Walk Score's Cities and Neighborhoods Ranking. They've ranked "more than 2,800 cities and over 10,000 neighborhoods so you can find a walkable home or apartment."

While each city's rundown already includes their individual Walk Score, dedicated pedestrians might like to see all roommate cities ranked for walkability.


6.   From various lists here on our own best roommate cities.


7.   From hoodmaps.com: a collaborative map where residents use tags describing social situations you're likely to find. Other users can thumb up or down, so the largest tags have been thumbed up the most.