What I discovered in Tulsa is that Heartland covers the great middle of the country – not only in terms of geography but in social, culture, and even spiritual. For me, Heartland represents midsize cities such as Tulsa, central-class citizens, and those trying to reach the middle class. “If the work -made heart is celebrated or revised,” historian Kristin L. Hoganson wrote, “it inspires the understanding that there is a gulf between the center and the sides, between the heart and the national body.” It does not matter its meaning or boundaries, this understanding is true: Heartland is, in fact, representing a division. We usually think of people who do not have the opportunities as marginalized, which operates on the edges of society. But Heartland should have shown us that the parable is upside down – the margins of economic opportunities represent the broad middle, while the hubs of the coast, through their concentrated wealth, are still in the minority and are still stable in power.
Every city wants to be a tech hub, but only a few coasts lead the American change system – and that's a problem. The Brookings institution found that between 2005 and 2017, 90 percent of growth from the country's change sector came from only five meters on the coast. And from July 2022 to July 2023, six coastal cities cost nearly 50 percent of all US work posting in generative artificial intelligence (AI), which is the cutting of the tech industry today. Through the clustering of talent, industry, and capital and economic resulting economies, large cities on the coast such as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, Boston, and Washington, DC, have monopolized changes and many benefits. The narrow distribution of the geography of the economic change leaves heart cities and prevents opportunities for most of the population.
As such, the American Dream – the notion that by trying each other has an equal opportunity to rule a good and decent life so that the next generation is better – is moving unable to reach more people. In 2023, mentioning increasing income inequality, Harvard economist Raj Chetty said, “If we look at what happened over time, we see a dramatic erection of American Dream as for children born in the mid-1980s and the 1990s entering the labor market today, it has become a baranga You do if you are better than your parents.
Heartland cities like Tulsa may and should be economic change actors, which, despite uneven access, remains the best opportunity for long-term work and wealth creation. But they do not have to compete with the big coastal hubs. Middleweights are in a class of their own, and they should strive to be the best version of themselves.
Midsize cities such as Tulsa, with metropolitan statistics populations between 1 and 3 million people, have the foundation to support a tech ecosystem: population density, cultural amenities, as well as a relatively low cost of living that can be risk-risk entrepreneurship. Pandemic workers' trends are highlighting these advantages, as creative class members can now make it easier to search for a better quality of life and stay away from coastal cities, where growth and equity often work in opposition. Established tech hubs are driving even good fees, and this cohort of mobile talent finds benefits to unpretentious areas like Tulsa. The flow of this talent creates an opportunity for any city that can attract and maintain them.
Despite the existence of many of the key elements for a tech eco system, so many Heartland cities also closed themselves from the economic change by clinging to the outdated beliefs of economic development, by underincing their communities, or by suppressing a nostalgic sense of culture -a melting That turns out of tech talent and investors and no one has made contradictory -Home raising discussions. While most change occurs organic over time, skyrocketing inequality and expanding differences -geography in tech has brought us to a point of inflection as a country. Heartland cities need to have intention and bustle – or risk to die.
Taken from Reorganization By Nicholas Lalla Copyright © 2025 by Nicholas Lalla. Used by the permission of Harper Horizon, a division of Harpercollins focus, LLC.
