I saw a lot of good points. Having grown up in Carthage I know Longview fairly well. It's where we went for entertainment and name brand shopping. Hell I remember countless trips to Sears, home Depot Lowe's, or a Walmart open past 8pm with my dad when he was working on projects. I see Longview/Tyler as a feeder town for the small towns around it for shopping, entertainment, etc. This is evedenced by the traffic buildup around the holidays. I would assume some of this is dying out with more e-commerce coming in, but youre still going to have the olds that don't shop online and don't have quality internet access in the rural areas. I barely get 1 bar with AT&T at my dad's house and they have to use a hotspot device with Verizon to get any decent internet access. I saw several comments about teachers. While I can't speak for Longview, I would say they are not attracting much outside talent. Most of my teachers growing up had grown up in Carthage, left for college (usually SFA or Aggy) and came back while their husbands were either a teacher/coach or in the oil/gas field. A lot of them are classmates of my parents or had taught my parents. I've seen quite a few people I've gone to high school with continue this trend. Me personally, I never see myself going back to East Texas. It hasn't changed much at all in my lifetime besides a few new chain retailers that have moved in. My kids attend a school in a North Dallas suburb that I'm very happy with, while we still have all the entertainment/amenities the metroplex has to offer close by. Sent from my SM-N950U using Tapatalk