There was recently the unveiling of plans for the largest building in the United States which wasn’t planned for the New York City skyline, but for the Oklahoma City skyline. With the potential to become the world’s sixth largest building and the largest in the United States, there are questions as to what would inspire Oklahomans to pursue such an extravagant venture when the building may be deemed unnecessary. When factors like cost and utility are assessed, why would a building that measures 1,907 ft in the air be considered a necessary marvel for the United States during a period when conventional wisdom says utility should outweigh grandeur? I would argue that if the United States is to compete reputationally with the rest of the world, perhaps some projects should be brilliant to be brilliant instead of just being functional.
To give some credibility to opposing thoughts, I did an article recently that suggested that higher elevation, densely packed living was a deterrent to fertility rates around the world as witnessed by the overcrowding around the Nile River in Egypt. It’s not that the people in Egypt wouldn’t want to settle somewhere else, it’s that the conditions of the country are too harsh to start a new life without significant infrastructure investments or having extremely small and scattered communities that are hard to account for which are economically disadvantageous. Despite that assessment, however, higher elevations aren’t a full-on death knell to high fertility rates as Egypt still maintains an increasingly rare fertility rate of over 2.1, the necessary rate for growing and maintaining a population.
Additionally, other countries with wide spaces of land available such as Russia and the United States have tremendous potential to branch out from urban and suburban areas, yet remain increasingly urban and rural areas despite being extensively large countries. The fertility rates between those two countries alone differ dramatically with Russia being at a stagnant 1.3 while the United States is hovering around 1.7. Neither is great, but the United States is still growing while Russia is facing population loss. This is all to say that the clamor of building up for the purpose of past environmentalism and making space for future humans has since been replaced with finding enough humans to work jobs.
Thus, one would question the efficacy of building a massive 1,907 ft. building in the heart of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, a moderately-sized capital city nestled in a state that has a larger than average agricultural and oil sector in addition to suburban and urban areas. My proposed answer would be that the building’s utility, which will be the raison d’etre of arguments for and against its height is that the original height of the building is already projected to be well above the average building height for an Oklahoma skyline, but also that the state is inclined toward American patriotism to where a symbol of inspiration is necessary.
Consider that the building is a metaphorical example of Oklahoma’s rising stature within the United States as a state that is growing by many tens of thousands of people when many states are either growing in the low few thousands or losing population. Most of the growth nationally has been concentrated in the few Southeastern Atlantic States while the majority of states have been static with Oklahoma being an exception. Thus, in addition to the prospect of the Oklahoma City area expecting to grow in popularity as the major urban areas of Texas become expensive because of demand, the area increasing its clout over states like New York which are known for towering structures could be a major boost to tourism. This appeal to livability will be necessary to hold and maintain a growing population as the state legislature is currently making a series of social media gaffes in the national circuits.
List of U.S. states and territories by population – Wikipedia
The state’s Republican legislature has been repeatedly slammed for such controversial figures as Dusty Deevers, Kevin West, and other state legislators and controversial candidates who have suggested that women who receive abortions should be placed on government lists, that adulterers should be left to vigilante justice (because the uneducated are known for their compassion and mercy!), and calling the issue of young people identifying as “non-binary” as “filth” when the issue needs to be addressed with more sensitive language. This is not to suggest that the horrors of abortion or gender ideology being promulgated unto women or children isn’t problematic, but Republicans play into far-left playbook tactics when they perform actions that are easy for the press to sensationalize for maximum effect. People moving into the state of Oklahoma will be factoring these headlines when deciding if they want to choose the Sooner State as their new residence or if they’d prefer somewhere with similarly right-leaning politicians but with more attractions.
This is all to say that this building is meant to be a symbolic victory of grandeur that forces those who espouse the values of American exceptionalism to present pieces of art worth considering. The decision of functionality will always be a factor for building smaller and outward utilizing Oklahoma’s wide open spaces, but there will be the question for those who compare the United States to other countries why not push harder for the more extravagant piece of architecture? There will be an argument to be made if the tower becomes riddled in a building process labored in a construction process similar to that of the unfinished Ryugyong Hotel in Pyongyang, North Korea, for a cessation of a more compact design, but the American capitalist system is not riddled with the same problems as the communist hermit kingdom that is effectively subsisting off of the benefits gotten from China and/or Russian profits.
During a time period when internal support for the United States is supposedly at a low and there is a potential demand for the building, why not give Americans something to marvel at beyond the traditional warmongering that was standard during the Bush and Obama years that stained the foreign policy discussions of recent years? So far as I can see, the argument thus far against the building is that it is too grand, something that doesn’t sound too grand in practice with enough hard work and solemn dedication behind it. Maybe, just maybe, Americans should think about being bold for the purpose of showing what we can accomplish.
The Conservatarian Millennial 