Why Cant West Texas Grow?

[case44]

Originally Posted by Cathy4017

No, it doesn't have to be about oil/gas, but for many smaller West Texas communities, that is their only reason for existing, outside of ranching/agriculture/farming.

It's going to be really tough for some of these little dying-on-the-vine places to ever recover.

As you know, football is absolutely KING in Texas/West Texas. When you see some of the places having to go to 6-man ball, you know they are losing population. The young don't stay unless they are part of a ranching family or already have a family business going. There is just no real future there (wherever it is).

I don't know what the answer is.....and with the sharp drop in oil/gas revenues, the suffering is yet worse in some of these small backwater burgs.

Have you ever lived in a small, isolated place where you have to drive to the nearest big town for anything above the basics? It really is a different way of life, and not one that I would want at this stage in my life.

Others wouldn't have it any other way, and it is these people that will stay where they are, if at all possible.

It is getting tougher to find gas in some of the more isolated places. That's why I never go anywhere like that without checking mileage and availability.

There's just got to be a way, Cathy. You know, it took years for Interstate 10 to get completed by the workers behind it, and it almost didn't happen. That's because of lots of isolation and a lack of large towns on that long path between San Antonio and El Paso. And then, you also have the ghost towns of West Texas, most notably Toyah (on I-20) with some intriguing pics of a time that actually once was.

[Cathy4017]

Originally Posted by case44

There's just got to be a way, Cathy. You know, it took years for Interstate 10 to get completed by the workers behind it, and it almost didn't happen. That's because of lots of isolation and a lack of large towns on that long path between San Antonio and El Paso. And then, you also have the ghost towns of West Texas, most notably Toyah (on I-20) with some intriguing pics of a time that actually once was.

I-10 (and most of the other interstates) is the only thing that has kept some of these smaller places alive, Case, and I do vaguely remember (been a long time ago) watching some of the ongoing construction..and it was a big deal.

Toyah, Stiles, Boquillas, Dryden, Langtry, Juno, Mentone, Texon, Girvin, Study Butte, old Terlingua, Shafter, etc....all interesting to visit. Some still have a few residents, and some really are just ghost towns.

Even some of the places that now have small school systems that had to go to 6-man football are most likely headed down the path of more or less extinction, sad to say.

As you stated, they need jobs and services--reasons to stay. Most folks aren't quite that hardy, Case!

[rr2005]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

randian, I think in a backhanded sort of way your post illustrates why most socially and politically liberal people wouldn't want to live in Lubbock. Most people don't want to live in a place where their own values and beliefs are totally swamped by a strongly opposed majority. As a left-wing Democrat and socially liberal Christian, I'd be quite unhappy with the overwhelming social and political conservatism of Lubbock, unless I were able to completely close my eyes to it. Lubbock is a perfectly good place for many people to live and I'm not dissing the community for its social-political conservatism. It is what it is. In the same way, you seem to be saying that you would find living in SF, Seattle or Austin to involve a lot of ego-alien experience and a sense of your own views being completely swamped by an ideologically different-minded majority (I'm not really sure how true this is of Austin, despite having lived there for many years). I'm personally sorry for the lack of political consensus in America and the great degree of societal division. However, under the circumstances it seems natural and perhaps right that people voluntarily segregate themselves along the lines of their strongly held political and social values. To re-emphasise, Lubbock wasn't a bad place for me to be a teenager, but I couldn't wait to leave and couldn't seriously imagine myself living there again. That doesn't mean that it is an intrinsically bad place, however. To the contrary, it's a very good place to be for many people.

On a positive note, that conservative ideology spills over into many segments of the society----including the financial sector in and around Lubbock. The conservative lending practices that have prevailed there over many years have helped Lubbock avoid many of the economic problems that have plagued the rest of the country. At last count, the top four cities with the lowest unemployment rates in Texas were West Texas cities. Lubbock has the second lowest unemployment rate in the state, was named one of the best cities nationally in which to weather the recession, and is doing much better overall than much of the rest of the country. Now look at California, arguably the most liberal state fiscally and otherwise, and note that they are teetering on the edge of disaster. So there is something to be said for conservatism.

[doctorjef]

I'd argue that California's problems aren't to do with fiscal-political liberalism per se, but rather are attributable to an inherent contradiction between an electorate that wants a high level of state services but doesn't want to pay for these services. This contradiction is institutionalised in terms of the whole initiative and referendum process that has castrated the state legislature, together with the peculiar legislative super-majority required in CA to pass a budget. The constitution of CA has become a self-defeating nightmare and a manifest formula for disaster. You can have a high level of services and the taxes needed to pay for them, or you can have a relative absence of state services and low taxes. You can't have it both ways. California is the way it is because there has been a failure amongst the electorate to come to terms with reality, and a failure to achieve a definitive political consensus, either for a liberal social democratic model of government on the one hand, or for a laissez faire state on the other. The result of this stand-off is the political disaster of CA that we see today.

[CMDallas]

Originally Posted by whitegiant

We have a great climate .

ehhh... yeah about that...
The summer heat is at least dry though, none of Texas is really the paragon of a perfect climate though.

I don't know

[randian]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

This contradiction is institutionalised in terms of the whole initiative and referendum process that has castrated the state legislature, together with the peculiar legislative super-majority required in CA to pass a budget. The constitution of CA has become a self-defeating nightmare and a manifest formula for disaster. You can have a high level of services and the taxes needed to pay for them, or you can have a relative absence of state services and low taxes. You can't have it both ways. California is the way it is because there has been a failure amongst the electorate to come to terms with reality, and a failure to achieve a definitive political consensus, either for a liberal social democratic model of government on the one hand, or for a laissez faire state on the other. The result of this stand-off is the political disaster of CA that we see today.

The supermajority was intended to hamper the legislature, because they'd be passing new taxes willy nilly without some constraint. "Castration" as you put it was deserved. The supermajority is a great idea, but because it doesn't prohibit borrowing, it was useless as a means to constrain spending. There are also mandatory constitutional raises in things like school spending, which further squeeze California to death.

There is only one political consensus in California: liberal social democrat. There is no significant constituency for a laissez faire state, and I think any observer would agree nowhere in California does that exist. Any politician who dares suggest a laissez faire state gets publicly ridiculed as an evil person who hates children. Just because California's citizens don't want to pay for it in no way implies that's not the dominant thinking.

[doctorjef]

Well, I disagree that there aren't significant conservative political forces at work in California. As with so much of America, there may also be a lot of ideological confusion in the individual minds of much of the citizenry -- people who want essentially conflicting things. America really does have a problem that many other developed democracies do not have: Americans want services but don't want to face up to the responsibility of paying for such a system. The number of people who really, truly believe in a completely laissez faire, libertarian, Randian model are a tiny minority -- though I realise there may be more of those in Lubbock and in much of Texas outside the larger cities than in the greater portion of the United States.

[rr2005]

Originally Posted by doctorjef

Well, I disagree that there aren't significant conservative political forces at work in California. As with so much of America, there may also be a lot of ideological confusion in the individual minds of much of the citizenry -- people who want essentially conflicting things. America really does have a problem that many other developed democracies do not have: Americans want services but don't want to face up to the responsibility of paying for such a system. The number of people who really, truly believe in a completely laissez faire, libertarian, Randian model are a tiny minority -- though I realise there may be more of those in Lubbock and in much of Texas outside the larger cities than in the greater portion of the United States.

Good point, I agree whole-heartedly. No one ideology is going to solve all of society's ills, just wanted to point out that conservatism is not necessarily a negative thing.

[malfunction]

Originally Posted by texdav

I thnik tah there really isn't much in west texas to sustain growth really. Oil drilling is a boom and bust cycle type buinesss since the 60's.The type soil and the water does not really support a large growth situation really.

Actually, some areas of West Texas rely on underground well water, so they've managed to survive with that. Soil doesn't mean all that much when people move in. It's actually one of the last things people look at. If you've got nothing but small communities out there with no vision for the future, you won't be able to survive in the long run.