[Greyson]

More Californians
reverse course and
head to Oklahoma
By Paul Wiseman

USA TODAY

OKLAHOMA CITY — Former Hollywood producer
Neal Nordlinger, raising funds for a technology
venture a couple of years ago, was stunned when a
partner suggested locating the start-up here in Okla-
homa's capital and leaving Los Angeles behind: "I
said: 'Are you blankety-blank crazy? Oklahoma City?
It's a cow town.' "

That was then. Now Nordlinger is running a
software firm here and preaching the virtues of the
heartland — low costs, unclogged streets, friendly
people. "It's a dream here," he says. "The selling
price of a house here would not be the down
payment on a house in L.A. ... People in L.A. do
something for you because there's something in it
for them. Here, they genuinely want to help you
succeed."

Nordlinger, who co-produced the Arnold Schwarzenegger movies Last Action Hero and Junior, is part of a mini-exodus: Since 1999, the number
of Californians departing the Golden State for
Oklahoma has outnumbered those going the
opposite direction by more than 21,000, a reversal
of the Depression-era migration west that John
Steinbeck described in The Grapes of Wrath. In
August, Boeing announced plans to shift 550 jobs
from Long Beach to its complex next to Tinker Air
Force Base outside Oklahoma City.

The influx of Californians is a sign of Oklahoma's
growing economic prowess. The state was spared
the worst of the nation's deepest economic
downturn since Steinbeck wrote his classic novel of
Okies and their desperate journey from the Dust
Bowl to the orchards of California.

"We are outperforming the rest of the country," says
Mickey Hepner, an economist at the University of
Central Oklahoma. "Our personal income is growing
a little faster than elsewhere. ... We didn't suffer the
depths of recession like the rest of the country, so
we could bounce back a little more quickly."

Poised for growth Oklahoma's unemployment rate was tied for 10th
lowest in the country in August at 7%. Aaron Smith,
senior economist for Moody's Analytics, recently
upgraded his forecast for the state, writing,
"Oklahoma should be among the first to make the
leap from recovery to expansion."

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