The modern era of Tulsa began as the automobile assumed a visible dominance in the lifestyle of the city.

This coincided with the beginning of the decline of the petroleum industry as the central driver of our economy, but was independent of it. Even with the decline of oil’s economic importance it remained, and remains, an influence in our community character.

The transition from earlier Tulsa to the modern era occurred rapidly, but not immediately, and it did not happen at the same time in all parts of the city. The opening of Utica Square in 1952 was one marker in the rise of the automobile's dominance in the city's culture. The last, and poorly attended, International Petroleum Exposition in 1979 was another, marking an economic change already well under way.

Changes that began slowly in the 1950s accelerated in the 1960s, and by the 1970s we had clearly entered into what, for the purposes of this study, we can call the “Present” era.