That's true about the interstate thing. It's odd looking at a map of the panhandle. You have Amarillo with I-40, (Route 66) headed through it, then 130 miles to the south is Lubbock connected with the one lonely interstate. The only other such mid-sized city in Texas with that type of situation is Corpus Christi, connected to San Antonio by I-37. Of course they're a port city, which doesn't exactly leave them secluded. So Lubbock is at a bit of a disadvantage there.

I do remember being impressed by Amarillo, though. They have a good sized airport, (as seen from the highway). It looked big for a city that size. I saw it at night and the runway lights looked sweet.

There are others, but I think for Abilene's size it's pretty impressive. Waco is the other surprise with at least a few residential buildings.

i just heard on moder marvels on the history channel the George Washington Bridge is a 14 lane bridge so once again Texas isn't the only state with huge highway systems.

Funnily when I drove through Texas on i-40 I remember looking at the map and having to do a double take on how i-27 just terminates at Lubbock. I thought it was against federal regulations! Interstates never just end like that in a landlocked area. To be fair, I think it did create a little loop so you can just keep moving, only you'd be backtracking.

Texas has its Lubbock just as Pennsylvania has its Lancaster, Washington has its Spokane and California has its Bakersfield, and so on and so forth.

Lubbock is OK. The surrounding countryside is kind of dull, but the city itself is not bad.

Isn't Lubbock supposedly the reddest, most conservative part of Texas?

I didn't expect to find a thread about lubbock on here. Lubbock is in a state of change. Someone pointed out the empty space west of downtown and east of texas tech, that's called redevelopment, if it isn't obvious. It's part of a huge overall plan to transform the downtown and near downtown areas into a beautiful city.

The area they are redeveloping was very ugly mostly because there was no planning and the houses were old.

Here are pictures around my apartment building. There are condos and other apartments and a few nice houses built around this area so far.

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...d/000_1372.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...d/000_1373.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...d/000_1374.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...d/000_1375.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...d/000_1382.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...d/000_1385.jpg

http://i76.photobucket.com/albums/j2...d/000_1388.jpg

and?

I think it's very religous, but so what?

My overall impression of lubbock is that it is a farm town. It is very simple and boring and a lot of the bad types of city development in texas are present and there is little of the good types of development, except for the new redevelopment projects. The main pass time here seems to be church, so other types of entertainment seem like afterthoughts. "Thou shalt not steal" right, but my bike was stollen the first week I was here. Just because it is religious doesn't mean everyone is, nor does it mean you can leave your doors unlocked, like I could in the last place I lived in texas. Lubbock is "dry county", which means you can't buy alcohol in the grocery store, but you can in restaurants. There aren't very many bums. I just drive 15 miles south to get my booz. Sometimes at night you can almost smell the cattle ranches nearby. You can ride your bike from one side to another in about 2 or 3 hours though there aren't many cars on the minor roads which makes biking easy.

Now for the positives. It's right in the center of the green energy capital of the nation, texas. Texas has 3200 MW(MegaWatt) of wind power producing electricity as we speak, mostly around lubbock area. That's like 3 nuclear power plants but in pure clean wind. What's NY state have? 390 MW and California? 2376 MW. Actually you know what's powering my computer right now? wind! While all the progressives around the country and in the large cities in texas are using mostly nuclear and coal. :tup:

here's the link for information about wind energy
http://www.awea.org/projects/
They havn't updated their info since this summer

Also take note of the fact that texas has 1200 MW of wind energy under construction right now, which is also a lot more then any other state. Also it doesn't take as long to build a wind turbine as it does a skyscraper so texas should have around 5000 MW by early 2008

They have a detailed plan for redevelopment:
http://downtown.ci.lubbock.tx.us/pdf/DRAP04032007.pdf
Look in there at some of the pictures, they are modeling it off of other cities, but they plan to make them better.

Kind of interesting.....
 

...but I won't go any further than saying that...:tup:

That's really what you call a 'streetwall'

I attend Texas Tech and have been here in Lubbock since 2004... I am ready to get out!!!

the negative:
very flat
windy 24/7
dust storms
roads are a nightmare
city floods with a few inches of rain
mall sucks
crime is horrible

the good:
TEXAS TECH
very clean
people are friendly
good growth
downtown and overton areas are being polished and rebuilt
nice neighborhoods.. i live in tech terrace!

LMAO! Lubbock has a streetwall? I've been in that area a lot of times and I never saw any streetwalls, just a few buildings that need demo.

Lubbock needs some real skyscrapers.

thanks for the pics......my dad and his wife live there, and i visit sometimes. i tell you, places like lubbock make me awfully glad i can fly home to lush, diverse, and not so conservative portland. not that lubbock is all that bad, and buddy holly and the dixie chicks are from there (we're all from somewhere), and the university is very nice...as well as the outlying areas.

and, you don't find friendlier people than in texas.....you just don't.

but downtown....ouch.....it's like a ghost town, even at noon during the work week. living in portland and thriving in it's busy downtown full of life and people and scenery, i was really sad for downtown lubbock on my last visit in spring 2006. in december of 1977 while in college i was a competitive swimmer at new mexico state university and we went to lubbock to swim against texas tech. while battling gusty cold winds trying to find some late-night grub, my roomate and i came up with a name for the Lubbock that i still tease my dad about.

Buttock.

nuff said : )

Well . . . could be worse, I s'pose. ;)

:haha:

it's there. i plan on visiting a friend stationed in san angelo and going to el paso before i go back to lubbock.

-

The township(s) or the city?

Enjoyed seeing pics of a city I don't remember seeing on SSP.
A very good post indeed.:cheers:

That is one ugly place. The skyline lacks any kind of character. The city looks almost like an abandoned ghost town. I really don't like the brick roads. What's up with that??

Paving the roads with brick was very common in Texas in the early 20th Century. There are quite a few cities with brick streets still in place in the state. Here in Fort Worth, the streets that are still paved in brick are considered the most charming and have the most historical appeal.