Oklahoma City to Build the Tallest Skyscraper in the US

An Urban Mythology Analysis

Oklahoma City is soon to be home to Legends Tower, the tallest skyscraper in the United States and the fifth tallest in the world. The developer Scot Matteson, who just secured funding for the project, says it’s “the right place at the right time” for such a monumental building, since Oklahoma City is experiencing a population boom and notable job growth.

Yet it’s impossible not to hear this news and think: Sure, but…Oklahoma City?! It might be one of the fastest growing cities in the US, but it seems like a totally random place to put up the tallest skyscraper in the country. Mega skyscrapers intuitively belong in high-density metropolitan environments, not minor cities in the middle of nowhere. The developer Bert Belander summarized this view by calling the project “fanciful.”

I’m not exactly prepared to defend Legends Tower, but I am interested in using it as a case study for my urban mythology model of urban planning. According to this model, every place has a mythology about it, meaning: cities aren’t just physical places; they also have a life of their own in the stories we tell about them. News events, personal anecdotes, books, movies, and songs all contribute to our collective conception of what a city is really about.

Consider Los Angeles. Early developers wanted to draw people to the city by associating it with Mediterranean cities. So they lined the streets with palm trees. The thinking being: Palm trees are part of stories about luxurious vacations, sunny weather, relaxation, and romance. When you bring palm trees to a city, you import a flavor of these stories to the new location.

And it worked! LA was transformed from a random outpost on the American west coast to a tropical paradise that looks great on post cards. But the palm trees were just the beginning. Once the tourists started pouring in, and the movie industry kicked into high gear, LA took on more and more mythological elements.

Today, when you say “LA,” you’re hardly referring to a real city at all. You’re referring to a place that exists primarily in stories—whether it’s the setting for a Raymond Chandler detective novel or a big-budget action movie. And when you walk down Hollywood Boulevard and you look up at the palm trees, you’re bearing witness to the story the initial developers told about LA being like the Mediterranean.

As I’ve written previously on urban mythology, this model of urban planning “uniquely empowers artists, whose books, movies, and songs feed the global imagination about what a place is like.” And then, in turn, the job of urban planners is to channel universal expectations into subsequent developments in the real city.

Ideally, the real city will match the expectation established by the mythological version of the city that people have in their minds. Las Vegas does a great job of this. No one visits Vegas and thinks, “I really thought there would be more of a gambling culture.” Alternatively, San Jose, California totally disappoints. The city that’s supposedly the hub of Silicon Valley is pretty bland and sleepy. Walking around downtown, you’d think it’s a random no-name city, rather than the place you keep hearing about that’s the epicenter of the tech boom.

Now to apply this analysis to the proposed Legends Tower in Oklahoma City:

In terms of the mythology currently surrounding the city, there’s not much that stands out. If I were to make a list of things that have made it into the popular consciousness, I’d write down: Timothy McVeigh, the 1930s Dust Bowl, tumble weeds, tornadoes, Woody Guthrie, barbecue, cowboys, livestock, the Flaming Lips, Republican Politics, Oklahoma City Thunder (NBA team). As someone not from the area, I have no associate with street names, parks, businesses, etc. There’s no Baker Street. No Central Park. The mythology that has filtered out to the broader world is very, very limited. (Frankly, a lot of the things I Googled to add to this list—like the band Pantera—ended up being from Texas, not Oklahoma.)

So if a developer were to lean into Oklahoma City’s mythology, they wouldn’t have much to work with. This being the case, perhaps it is best to import a bit of outside culture—like a mega skyscraper?

The problem is that a skyscraper doesn’t inherently add much to a city’s mythology. Skyscrapers are old news. As author Ryan Scavnicky noted, “Legends Tower is a very 20th-century way to say that you are squarely entering the 21st century.” It’s true on many levels. Skyscrapers are no longer terribly relevant—let alone impressive. And they’re certainly not a natural draw for visitors. People are drawn to entertainment venues or cultural destinations, not office buildings—even if they’re tall.

If the Legend Town has anything going for it, it’s the fact that it will exist in stark contrast to the low-density environment of Oklahoma City. So, it’s a novelty item. An outdated one at that. And that’s the story that will be told about Oklahoma City going forward. In people’s minds, the city will be reduced to a bit of trivia: Oklahoma City? Oh yeah, that’s the small city with the out-of-place, laughably tall skyscraper.

But hey, maybe it will work? It will certainly put Oklahoma City on the map. It got me writing about it! Maybe the unusually large skyscraper will entice other developers to take on equally ambitious projects in the area. Maybe a unique architectural style will result. Maybe the city’s overall density will increase. Maybe a world-class café scene will emerge. Accompanied by music venues, art studios, dance clubs, etc. Maybe writers and filmmakers will take up residence, crafting stories that will show the world what Oklahoma City is really about.

That’s all possible. But if the idea is to really put Oklahoma City on the map, all the money for Legends Tower might be better spent on developing a few blocks with world-class entertainment venues, artist lofts, a high-density housing project with stunning architecture, and, yes, even a few palm-tree-lined streets.