[austlar1]

The city (not a very big one) in Texas that almost everybody seems eager to avoid or to leave would be Lubbock, an utterly charmless municipality of about 250,000 stuck in the middle of West Texas nowhere. It is the seat of a major and rather mediocre state university (Texas Tech), which is the main reason anybody ever ventured there in the first place. I have never known a single soul who wanted to remain there for any longer than necessary, but I guess I'll probably hear from a few Lubbock defenders here on this forum. Austin probably still rates as the most favored city in Texas since so many folks from other large Texas cities often seem to express a desire to live there. There are plenty of detractors, however, who do view Austin with a jaundiced eye for one reason or the other.