KPEL's 'Lafayette Live' with Lafayette City-Parish President Joey Durel was conducted today at the annual Chamber of Commerce breakfast.  The annual event was held at the Cecil Picard Childhood Early Development Center with key note speaker Mick Cornett, mayor of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.  Oklahoma City, like Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania is a city that went through very hard times due to economic downturns.  When asked how bad the situation had become Conrett replied,

We had bottomed out.  Life in the early '90's in Oklahoma City was pretty horrible.  Our economy had fallen on hard times because of the banking crisis, an  energy crisis and a real estate crisis so our citizens were ready for new ideas.  The only people living downtown at the time were in jail.

We asked what caused the turnaround for Oklahoma City and Mayor Cornett said,

We had a mayor who at the time figured out that the secret to economic development was not high price incentives but the quality of life.

Lafayette is already ahead of the game at this point due to a better quality of life for it's citizens.  Cornett said,

Our former mayor felt that quality of life improvements would be attractive to business and industry but if nothing else happened the improvements would be better for us.

Cornett tells what sparked the Oklahoma City turnaround, how Lafayette is already poised for greatness and more in this interview:

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