Best things there?

Raising a family?

TIA.

Lubbock is not a bad town. Scenic? Absolutely not. The dust storms suck, and the wind blows too much, but we get our share of great weather as well. Nice sized town, yet still easy to get around the city (no traffic hassles). Good people. I grew up in West Texas. I keep thinking I want to move to Central Texas, yet here I am in Lubbock still.

There are really good people in Lubbock. It is not the greatest place for weather or scenery. But the people make it worth living out there.

I never felt like there was much interaction with the tech students and the city. So don't judge Lubbock by their sometimes antics against Ags.

Thanks ya'll! Any other thought are coveted.

russ

You looking at a job there, or what?

Some of the smaller towns surrounding it might give a little better quality of life.

City politics are really screwy right now. The alcohol laws have always been and likely always will be insane.

I grew up near Lubbock and now live near Amarillo, and I much prefer Amarillo.

The March dust storms are horrid, the May tornado/hail season is exciting, but the springs/falls and sunsets cannot be beaten (except by moving to Amarillo).

Generally great people in the Panhandle/South Plains in any case. Seems like the biggest (jerks) at Tech hail from the Dallas area. They fit the "couldn't get in to A&M/t.u. so I hate them" stereotype.

I'm an "outsider" here in West Texas and I pretty much agree with everyone's assessment. The weather is great most of the time, but when it sucks, IT SUCKS! There is a lot more "yoyo-ing" of temps here and it drives me crazy (and sick). Cotton ginning season always gets my allergies going too...

Hm...people are great. They are the type to chat with you in the grocery store line.

Negatives, so far away from everything, but at least there is a well frequented airport.

People love to hate Lubbock. I don't mind it. I prefer the Southwestern part of town b/c everything is newer and not so many students.

Have any specific questions?

I live in an area with lots of families and it is wonderful to go running/walking and see moms and dads playing with their kids out in the yards...or the kids playing by themselves. Very safe (at least it appears that way, but I feel safe walking alone in the evenings).

I agree with everyone so far. I grew up there for 18 years before going to school and I enjoyed every second of that.

This is all really helpful. Job possibility has me thinking through all of these issues. I have lived in Arlington, Houston, and B/CS, so I guess I am trying to get a feel for how that part of the state is different, better, worse, etc.

My suspicion was that Lubbock jokes and Tech antics aside, it was probably a really great place. That seems to be fairly confirmed by ya'll.

Other than the wind, the weather is great for much of the year. It will be colder than Arlington for longer. Almost no humidity year round which is great. Summers will be hot but again, no humidity, so it is bearable. Nights in the summer cool off and is very nice out in the evenings and mornings.

Love the lower humidity part!

The humidity downstate makes it too hot for outdoor activity in the summer, even late in the evening. But the combination of high altitude and low humidity means that summer evenings cool off quickly and are often quite delightful. The wind often drops off, too.

A beautiful summer sunset with no trees to block the view, cool temps, no wind...and you'll wonder why you would ever want to live anywhere else. Of course, the next day could be a blizzard, a tornado, a dust storm, a flood, a drought, and you'll curse the place. Sort of like being an abused spouse. Last night's sunset at Canyon:



[This message has been edited by CanyonAg77 (edited 2/13/2008 7:03a).]

Fargo, N.D., just broke Lubbock's record for the largest pancake feed ...

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FARGO, N.D. (AP) — This feast was for the record books, and it only took 34,818 pancakes to get there.

Thousands of people, including an official with Guinness World Records, escaped the bone-chilling winter weather on Saturday for the 50th anniversary of The Kiwanis Club's Pancake Karnival fundraiser.

Grillers flipped flapjacks and served them with sausages and orange juice for most of the day until they more than surpassed the 30,724 pancakes served in 2002 by the Lubbock, Texas, Lions Club.

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LINK - AP

I concur with CanyonAg regarding the dust storms. Much worse in the Lubbock area than around Amarillo.

I have to agree with everyone else's statements about Lubbock. I have grown up around Lubbock and left to go to school at A&M. I though I would not ever want to go back, but after living in houston I decided that Lubbock was wonderful. I suggest that you look into a couple of small towns around Lubbock. Idalou is a growing little town. Lots of new construction and houses being built. It is only 8 miles from Lubbock city Limits. It would take about 20 minutes to get from there to west/southwest Lubbock. Shallowater is another town a lot like Idalou. Both have great Schools and they are small enough that your kids can get involved in everything. I hope this helps! I live in Idalou by the way, so if you have more questions about it just ask.

Nice pic, Canyon.

Another thing to take into consideration, extended family. Are you close? how often do you see them/want to see them? Thats a big factor with me.

Thanks Lyon/Keith. Take a look at another pic I took the same day:

http://texags.com/main/forum.reply.asp?topic_id=1087790&forum_id=34

I agree on the southwest part of the city. I live in SW Lubbock, and it really is a nice area. As for small towns around, I guess you could still say Wolfforth is still a small town, but Frenship school district has really grown. Good sized 4A school now.

You will get used to the flat land and lack of trees. The windy season is tough, but you get just enough nice days to help you make it through to the summer/fall season when the weather greatly improves. From about January through April, get ready for a wild ride in regards to weather. Take today for example. 70 degrees and a little breezy. Pretty nice overall. Tomorrow? High of 44 and a chance of snow.

I have a ton of family in B/CS, some in Dallas, one in Abilene, so we would be much closer than we are right now. Los Angeles...

Thanks for all the feedback. This is great! Nothing is too trivial. I am very interested.

The standing joke is that the Panhandle has the best fishing in the world. All you have to do is drive 500 miles in any direction.

Seriously, one of the good things is that it is not far to neat places to vacation in New Mexico and Colorado. Perhaps someone has more accurate info, but I'd bet you could be hitting the slopes in Ruidoso or Red River within 4 hours of leaving your house in Lubbock.

Lake Alan Henry is gaining a rep as a great bass fishing lake.

For hiking/mountain biking, Palo Duro Canyon and Caprock Canyon parks are within 2 hours drive.

One of the few things I like about Tech is the Ranching Heritage Museum, where they have moved in several ranching/pioneer houses and outbuildings.

The Silent Wings museum at the Lubbock airport has a good exhibit on WWII gliders.

Here in Canyon, we have one of the finest regional museums in the country, the Panhandle-Plains Museum.

Cannon AFB, 90 miles from Lubbock, has an annual air show...the Thunderbirds came last year.

Best schools?

You can't really go wrong with any of the school districts around Lubbock. I am partial to staying within the Lubbock ISD system. Especially if you live in the southwest of Lubbock all of the elementary school and middle school are very good, and the academics at Lubbock High are some of the best in the state. I love living in Lubbock, and can't wait to get back there and getting away from the horrid humidity here in BCS. I would concur with what everyone else has said. Especially that if you don't live in the Tech Terrace area you will have very little interaction with the Tech student population.

Thanks 806, et al!

There two draws for me living in this area:

1) being close to family and friends
2) being close to the mountains

4 hrs to Ruidoso
6 hrs to Red River
7-8 hrs to Cuchara, Alamosa or Buena Vista, CO depending on exactly where you want to go and how you get there

2.5) The weather is great most of the year, but I'm kind of jaded on that right now b/c I've had the flu and this dry, dirty air is reeking havoc on my sinuses. I'd love to be down at S. Padre right now.

Lubbock High is downtown in a not very great part of town. However, it is a magnet school, so you basically have the smartest kids from all over LISD attending.

My wife has helped with the regional science bowl for several years. The Lubbock High team has always kicked butt. Seems like they've won nationals a few times.

Lubbock high is not in the greatest part of town, but in a town as safe as Lubbock you or your property are never in any more danger there than they would be at Monterey or Coronado. As far as high schools go the further away you get from Lubbock high you probably get a bit safer, but the quality of the education really starts to drop. Especially with the little towns.

Except for the time I was at A&M, I've lived in the panhandle all of my life, and have been in Lubbock the last 10 years. I loved the panhandle from Canyon north, but our family has not really enjoyed Lubbock. The quality of the weather here is vastly overated to me. It's nice from May to November. After that it's cold, windy, or cold and windy. There are a few nice days sprinkled here and there, but there's about 6 months of yuck to go with the better weather of late spring and summer. My kids went to school in a surrounding community, and I was not that pleased with it. Limited resources because of the devotion to athletics make it difficult to have a very well rounded experience, if your boys are not involved in football, and if your girls aren't involved in basketball. In fact, I've taken my youngest child to a private school in Lubbock and I'm much happier with that. The people are nice here, but not any better than anywhere else in the state that I can tell. Maybe compared to the largest cities, there is some difference, but compared to most smaller and rural communities, the people are about the same. Lubbock county has one of the highest auto insurance ratings in the state which tells you something about the drivers, and while on balance it's safe, there has been a noticable increase in crime over the last few years. At my office we just reworked our security system to keep the doors locked during business hours because of the increase in crime. The dust and dirt is absolutely horrible, and there's just not much for recreation if you don't want to go to tceh athletic events. The golfing is good in the summer, but from November to late April, it's just not much. It's in the middle of a literal desert. All that being said, we had many blessings living here, but I think it mischaracterizes it a little to portray it as more than it is. My opinion is quite a bit different from most of the others here, but we are looking forward to an opportunity to relocate in the future.

aggieblitz

I think you make a fair assessment, even though obviously more negative than the others. I agree on the weather. May - November it is pretty nice. In fact, I would argue that from May - November, we have the best weather in the state. I also agree that the number of nice days are somewhat limited from December - April. So, the key is to get you a place in Central Texas to live half of the year.

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Lubbock county has one of the highest auto insurance ratings in the state which tells you something about the drivers

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You may or not be correct about the rates (and I suspect you are correct), but I'd bet you're wrong about the cause. IMO the reason for the higher rates can be summed up in one word:

Hail.

The rates for our son's car are indeed quite a bit lower because its home county is Brazos, not Randall.

CanyonAg, you are probably right about the hail, but I drive in Lubbock every day. The loop is poorly designed with some dangerous entrances, and exits that are too close to other entrances, and that doesn't even get into red light runners, or criminal activity like dwi's. West Texas Ag-I enjoy your posts over on the M&W. You always seem pretty well reasoned and don't hit the extremes many show over there. I agree if you could summer in the plains and spend the rest of the year further south, it would be a pretty nice life. I would choose Amarillo over Lubbock however, and if I had my way, I'd pick some place like Ft. Collins, Colorado. A nice college town in the foothills of some of the most gorgeous country in the United States. At this time in my life, however, I'm just trying to get my kids through A&M and my wife through LCU.

aggieblitz, I would have to agree with you about the weather from November to March or so, it can be pretty crappy. Personally after several years in Lubbock and four years in BCS, I will trade the summer/fall humidity here for the winter/spring wind, cold, and dust in Lubbock. But I do have to disagree with you about the drivers in Lubbock and the safety of the Loop. If anything it has seemed to me that drivers in Lubbock are less aggressive and reckless overall than drivers in any other decent metro in the state. Also the Loop is a fine piece of engineer that has held up amazingly well for the being designed and built about 30 years ago with little changed. With the exception of where some engineer tried to get cute with the cloverleaf at 19th St the entire Loop is very safe. I drove the Loop every week day for about 6 years morning and evening and can only think of maybe one accident or two that I've ever seen. I know I am a bit of a Lubbock homer, but to call the Loop unsafe you may as well call every urban divided highway built in the same era unsafe.

russ--give me a call and I will give you all the ins and outs. This is your old friend from church.

806-The 19th street intersection with the loop is just one of the areas I was talking about. I've driven it every day for over 10 years, and I've seen numerous accidents over that time. We must have not been on the loop at the same time. Each day, I exit Quaker to take my son to school, and have to deal with traffic coming on from a side street trying to move over to enter on to the loop just after I get off. Finally, I exit on 50th and there is only about 500 to 600 feet from an entrance onto the loop from the access road, while I try to move to the exit. All of this works well when the traffic is not too heavy, but at 8:00 and 5:00 it's very marginal, much more dangerous, in my opinion, than the way the highway system is set up in Amarillo for instance. The rest of the loop still works pretty well, but there is not a lot of heavy traffic on most of it, after you get away from the west and southwest parts of town. And, as far as the aggressiveness of the drivers, I can't tell that it's any less than other cities I've driven in, in Texas, and I personally believe red light running is worse. I guess I'm exactly opposite on the heat-humidity vs. the cold-wind-dirt. I think I'll take the heat and humidity because I can still get outside and I can enjoy activities with just a little bit of compensation for the circumstances. When it's cold and windy, I can't enjoy being outside at all, no matter how many layers I wear. It's hard to swing a golf club with a long sleeved shirt, sweater, and jacket on. Plus, the grass is dormant until sometime in March, and not consistent until June. I guess it's all just a matter of preferences. I just think that on balance it is difficult for people that have no other ties to this area to enjoy living here with the weather and resource issues. I understand people that grow up in the area and having family here enjoying being here, but for those of us that don't have those ties, it's a difficult adjustment.

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but for those of us that don't have those ties, it's a difficult adjustment

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Very very very true words. I miss trees.

And a personal anecdote about drivers: this morning, I was in a double turn lane turning right. I was in the outside lane. Dumbass driver next to me decides that I'm either: 1) not there, 2) not turning, or 3) participating in life size bumpercars. GRR! Luckily I was able to avoid any collision while dumbass continues on in my lane...ugh.

Today in Lubbock it was 70 degrees with light winds.

Yup, beautiful day yesterday.

Looks like pretty mild temps for the forseeable future. We need precip more than "nice days" though.