You know, the place whose pretentious residents like to refer to as "The City." Up here on top of the turnpike in T-Town, we reveled in letting "The City" folk know that we have another name for the place they call home: "The world's largest truck stop."

If you're not living in God's Green Country, we gleefully said to our unfortunate neighbors to the west, you're just camping out.

Sadly, it's time to fold the tent and cut the punchlines. The poking fun of Oklahoma City party is over, and we're the losers. It's been winding down for years, but it officially ended last weekend with the opening of the Ford Center.

Perhaps you have read or heard about the Ford Center. It isn't an Edsel. It's a magnificent $87.7 million, 20,000-seat, all-purpose facility that is smack dab in downtown Oklahoma City.

Completion of the Ford Center, which will house numerous big-time sports events on the high school, college and professional levels, capped a remarkable urban renovation of Oklahoma City.

While Tulsa slept, our big brother spent the past nine years rebuilding its image via the $390 million MAPS project, which used taxes to produce revenue to build the equally stunning Bricktown Ballpark and a refurbished Myriad Arena.

MAPS, which also includes the Bricktown Canal among the capital improvements, became a reality because Oklahoma City voters twice

The green in Green Country these days should be from the envy we're feeling. We don't have one arena that is considered decent, and Oklahoma City has two that are rated as first-class!

What are envious Tulsans to do? Well, Mayor Bill LaFortune recently gathered about 150 of the city's movers and shakers for a meeting, and he asked them to e-mail him with their ideas and vision for revitalize our slumbering downtown.

It was probably an oversight, but I wasn't one of the 150 new best friends on our new mayor's invitation list. And I have misplaced his e-mail address. So if the good mayor doesn't mind, I'll use this forum to submit an idea or two for his 21st century vision quest.

First and foremost is this: Disregard the advice of that fancy pants "expert" who some business leaders brought to our town to discuss Tulsa's future.

In case you missed it, this urban planner from the Left Coast said those of us who believe Tulsa desperately needs a new multi-purpose arena "are living in the wrong decade."

Really? Try telling Oklahoma City residents that they are stuck in the '90s. Tell them that when they are exiting the Ford Center after attending yet another concert by a big-name music act. Or after they have watched one of the numerous sporting events already scheduled for the Ford Center and ones that will be there in the next few years -- such as the Big 12 Conference basketball tournament.

The people in Omaha and Des Moines -- cities similar in size to Tulsa -- apparently also were living in a long-gone decade when they recently approved funding for new arenas.

In the heart of Des Moines, the $208 million Iowa Events Center is set for completion in 2004. Omaha's $281 million downtown arena and exhibition hall is scheduled for a 2003 opening. Both cities are already swamped with requests for dates to stage conventions and events in these new buildings.

Now, I don't pretend to have all the answers on what is needed for successful downtown revitalization. But the citizens in Oklahoma City, Omaha and Des Moines obviously believe that building a new sports arena is a sign of progressive thinking and not an indication they are living in the 20th century.

I do know this: If our vision remains blurred because our head is stuck in the Arkansas River sand, we will continue to travel red-faced and envious down the Turner Turnpike to ask our big brother if he minds if we spends millions of Tulsa dollars to play in "The City's" spiffy new back yard.

Dave Sittler, World sports writer, can be reached at 581-8312 or via e-mail at dave.sittler@tulsaworld.com .