Below you will find all the SperlingViews added about this city.
| One of the kindest and caring people on earth - 5/21/2021
We came from Central CA to Midland, TX for work. We love this amazing city. People are kind, caring & thoughtful. We love the neighborhood and people ate so giving of themselves and friendly. So happy to be here. It’s also a clean city, lots of shopping & best Mexican food places. People are the best here. Can’t thank God enough for giving us a nice city to live.
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| Mixed Feelings -- Good and Bad - 9/23/2020
I lived in Midland for 10 years (about 20 years ago) and have returned for family reasons. Have noticed Midland has really grown and is sprawling out along I20 toward Colorado City. Lots of businesses. Lots of new developments. Lots of new apartment (big uns!) cropping up.
Also noticing an increase in the homeless. Don't recall seeing panhandlers on street corners before. The people NOW look less affluent--maybe it's the Covid and people are unemployed...
There are things I LIKE about Midland. 1) Great eateries! And since Midland didn't shut down, they all seem to be open. Check out Rosas. One of the best places for Mexican in town and still here--in fact they've expanded.
2) It's got a a heck of a lot of culture for such a small community. Like the new AAA baseball stadium and the entertainment center between here and Odessa. Both really new! Both really nice. I found thriving groups (writing, bridge) here as well.
3) It's pretty affluent in general, so a nice quality of people, though that seems to have gone down--maybe because of the oil bust--maybe because of the covid.
4) The airport is a BREEEEEZZZEE to fly out of compared to a major city airport. Dang!
5) You can attend the University of Texas in Odessa. Not the greatest university on the planet, but if you like smaller class sizes and more accessibility to professors, it's nice.
What I DO NOT LIKE about Midland?
1) It's hot and dry and some of the downright ugliest scenery you'll ever see. Brown desert, oil rigs, and hotter than blazes in the summer. But it is dry heat--so not as bad as Dallas in my opinion, where the humidity is like a wall.
2) There is NOTHING for about 4-5 hours in any direction. Go east to Dallas/Austin. Go north to Albuquerque or Colorado. Go south to the border. Which I guess is why the culture has popped up here. Midland is the hub for the west texas region.
In summation, I guess my favorites is the "small town" atmosphere with plenty of culture, including great eateries! What I like least is the climate and it's so far to anywhere else...
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| A paradox - 7/17/2019
Midland is somewhat of a paradox, people move here for the job opportunities. You live here so that you can make a good living, but all your money goes to the high cost of living. So it's a bit of a Catch 22.
First the pros: The city itself is great, and has certainly improved over the past 10 years I have been here. There's plenty of restaurants as long as you like Mexican, there's shopping, a couple of great locally owned coffee shops, and you can even catch a broadway show at the Wagner Noel. It's fairly safe, I often leave my car unlocked and have never had an issue.
The cons: the public schools are lacking in resources and there is a high turnover rate of teachers. If you enjoy the outdoors, there's plenty of cool stuff around as long as you don't mind driving at least 3 hours to get there. The climate is hot, dry, and constantly windy. If you drop a receipt while walking out of the store consider it gone. (This is one of my huge pet peeves, not that I drop a lot of receipts, but it's hard to enjoy the outdoors when there's sand constantly blowing in your eyes). Midland is a black hole of sorts, once you are sucked in it's hard to escape. Even airline tickets are worth the 4 hour drive to DFW just to save money. It's easy to complain about this place, especially if you are not from here originally.
But with all that being said, it's the people that really makes Midland livable. A lot of people are in the same situation and came here looking for work and found that that's all they can afford to do, so we build relationships that become like family.
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| Grat Place - 12/13/2018
Great place to live
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| Miserable pit - 10/13/2018
Do not move here! ESPECIALLY if you’re a female, or have a family you will be bringing here with you. Your family will never forgive you if you move them to this hole in the earth.I’ve never been treated so terrible by the majority of people here. There’s a sense of “coldness “ and everything boils down to money. How much Do you have and how much can they scam out of you. Renting a room in a home that was supposed to be secure safe and peaceful has turned out to be a slumlord situation with a person who doesn’t clean anything, comes in at all hours of the night with numerous different strange men and allows the strange men to have free reign of the home while i(renter paying 1600 a month) am home trying to rest. Nobody around here cares about the community, their neighbors, the environment, their pets. Nothing. It’s a pit. It’s expensive and the weather is an unpredictable nightmare. Flooding, no drains, no street lights... it’s hell. It’s miserable here don’t do it!
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| Only come here if you're desperate. - 9/23/2018
Honestly, if you're not desperate for money or a big boost to your career, don't come to Midland. You've been warned.
The cost of living is quite high, and yet there's little to do here. If you don't mind the high cost of living here, then there are plenty of better places to live where you'll get a much better bang for your buck like, say, California where you can enjoy the beaches or mountains or the East Coast where you have good history and urban life. I moved here from California and I must say that this place has nearly ALL of the problems that are causing countless Californians to flee their state (like high cost of living, crime, drugs, overcrowding, rude people, poor schools, etc.) without any of the perks of living in California like beaches, good scenery, good food, etc.
One of the biggest problems with this area is its extreme isolation. You're at least a 4.5 hour drive to ANY big metro area (like Dallas or El Paso.) Can'f find the right doctor or auto mechanic? Don't like the activities in town? Want to visit a place with better scenery? You're forced to drive 300+ miles for these things! Yes, they've got an airport but the flights are often overpriced, sold out, and require 1 or more connections unless you're flying to a limited # of cities: Denver, Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, or Las Vegas.
The oil and gas industry dominates the local economy and provides a lot of very good paying jobs for people without degrees. This results in a lot of local services that employ unskilled and even some skilled workers with an employment shortage. During an oil "boom" when oil prices are high, expect to find a shortage of cashiers, restaurant servers, auto mechanics, and other workers that you may take for granted in your everyday life. Since anyone with a half decent work ethnic chooses to work in the oil fields and other jobs related to the oil industry, you're left with the bottom of the barrel folks serving you food, cutting your hair, fixing your car, etc. who still demand to be paid a fortune for very poor quality service. They can get away with that because all of the good workers are in the oil fields and there's very little competition within a 4.5 hour radius to replace them.
Housing is also in very short supply during an oil boom. Few business people will elect to build apartments here because they'll likely stay vacant for many years at a time except during a boom. A lot of out of town folks who choose to come here for oil field work live in so-called "man camps" which are nothing more than temporary glorified shanty towns.
If you're a dual income household, think very carefully before deciding to relocate here (I already warned you about living in Midland in general.) Unless you're the main breadwinner in the household AND you're unemployed AND you landed a sweet job offer in Midland. Or if BOTH of you are in the oil industry, that's also fine. Since the oil industry dominates the local economy, it'll be very difficult for your partner to find a job here in his/her industry which completely defeats the purpose of coming here to make a ton of money. If you do choose to come here, especially during an oil boom, you'll definitely want to negotiate the salary on your job offer AGGRESSIVELY; many employers here are desperate and have trouble luring people into Midland no matter how high they pay.
All in all, I strongly advise against coming to Midland if you can help it. That being said, the severe labor shortage here makes Midland a great place for people who need a second chance in their careers: people who don't have degrees, people with criminal records, people who were blackballed by their former employers, etc. can all take advantage of the tight labor market here to reboot their careers when no other employer in the country will give them that chance.
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| Not a fan - 4/10/2018
It is overcrowded with the oil boom. Almost impossible to find a home, once you do you will pay 3 times what it's worth. The pay is not as good as it sounds when a 1/1 is $1200+. The teachers are out numbered by students. Midland isn't for everyone and nothing like what it used to be it's no longer a place you'd want to raise a family. It's definitely not for everyone. I wouldn't recommend it!!
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| Not a Good Place to Live - 7/30/2017
I lived in Midland for a short time and the kindest thing I can say is that it's not for everyone.
I met many lifelong friends in my short time in Midland, but I was also openly mocked because I couldn't afford a plane ticket. In a city where it's not uncommon for high schoolers to drive mustangs to high school, I guess it's uncommon to meet someone who has to live on a budget.
There is a strong sense of entitlement in people here, especially from people whose daddies have given them their careers. I have never been to another place where people were so gung ho about "keeping up with the Jones'." It's ridiculous.
The water is disgusting. It is so polluted that you can't drink or cook with it. I drank only bottled or filtered water, but I was accidently exposed to the tap water in resturaunts and by friends, which gave me diarrhea. It happened numerous times no matter how careful I was. It almost became chronic and didn't stop until I moved. The water also made my hair thin.
Midland drivers are some of the worst I have ever seen. I can't tell you how many times I have almost been side swiped or rear ended. I even saw a child of about ten driving a pickup truck on the loop! Many people drive huge pickup trucks and fancy sports cars in Midland, then they double park. Most parking lots were designed for standard sized vehicles and it is difficult pulling in or out in parking lots
My old car was totoled by a driver who was under the influence and uninsured while it was parked on the street. This person continued to drive despite losing their license. Shows you how safe the streets are!
Oh the streets. Midland has terrible roads. They're broken and full of pot holes. When it rains, Garfield and Wadley flood over completely. There are so many dips in the roads that you need to watch your speed or it's going to hurt driving over it.
I actually heard a preacher say that rain didn't exist in the time of Noah. I don't care if people are religious, that's just crazy!
Gas prices are purposely inflated in Midland to boost the local economy. That's great if you work in the oil industry, but if you don't and live on a budget, that's just another expense on top of the high cost of living.
I've never had more consistently worse service at resturaunts in any other city. I've been to some great resturaunts in Midland, but there were so many others where that they forgot my food, didn't get the order right, took an incredibly long time to serve my food (over an hour for a cold turkey sandwich, for example) It was just not worth eating out anymore. Resturaunts are always so busy in Midland. You could wait a half hour in the drive thru on any given day.
Overall for me, I could not continue to live in a place where the water was making me sick. That, the aggravation of losing my car like I did, terrible roads, and overall dislike of the city convinced me to move. It was the best decision for me.
If you work in oil, are religious and conservative, like a hot dry climate and love Texas, it may be for you. I on the other hand, hated living there.
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| Actually not that bad - 7/12/2015
First off since Midland. is a flat, hot, desert area. Of course the outdoor recreation is limited. You don't have the natural beauty of trees, lakes, rivers, mountains,any other natural beauty that the rest of the country has. The summers are hot, often over 100 degrees, and it seems like it is always windy.
Next lets talk about the people. I am surprised that so many of the other comments here have talked about how rude people here are. For me it has been the exact opposite. I have found them to be kinder and more caring than any where else. I was raised in Colorado, graduated high school and college in the Denver area. All my life I heard the "educators" put down Texans. So when I had to move here after college to be able to make a living. I was in for a pleasant shock. I found the people of Midland welcome me with open arms. They bent over backwards to help me. Even going so far as to pay for me to further my education and even helped with living expenses.
I think what made the difference for me is that I didn't come here acting like I was better than everyone else, or acting like the people here owed me anything. I think that one of the bad aspects for this area is that the oil boom has brought in too many people lately, and a lot of them don't care about the people here or the town. They are just here for the "free money" as one person told me. Of course if you come in here trying to act like you are better than everyone here and look down on the locals you will get the same treatment in return.
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| If You can find a house.. - 11/4/2014
Houses sell for up to three times more than Lubbock or Amarillo, they sell many times the same day they are put on the market. Housing cost in Midland Texas is NOT low. The oil boom is in place now and people are moving here from all over. They rent tiny airstream trailers for up to 800.00 a month. When money is flowing prices are being gouged in every area in Midland.
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| Misery does not love company here.. - 11/1/2014
We moved here over twenty years ago. Its a very strange place. It's simply a big oil patch that is getting bigger all the time. Ugly. Doesn't rain often but when it does it floods the streets because the soil is like talc and the water just runs off. If a house is for sale today it will be gone tomorrow and at a hefty price. You can't drink the water because of the calcium and arsenic in it, best not to water your plants with it either and use a filter on your shower and don't cook with it..you must always put citric acid in the dishwasher so your dishes don't come out white with calcium deposits and count on buying a new water heater ever other year. People come here from everywhere because you can find work easily and quickly. Greed is the order of the day here, liars scammers abound. Truck traffic and fatalities every week sometimes daily. Plastic bags adorn the mesquite trees and trash is everywhere because of the wind and people who put trash in pick beds ..I could go on forever..but I'll stop..
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| Rudest place - 1/3/2014
I was transferred to Midland two years ago and this place is by far the rudest, most unwelcoming place I have ever lived. Unless of course the people can gain something from you. Nobody says hello, nobody opens the door for you. Everybody is in their own rich clique. People are very closed minded and very snobby. They all try to compete with each other. Great place to find a job, but if you can find one somewhere else I would advise you too. I am currently trying to transfer out of here.
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| Rudest, Snobbiest place to live - 1/3/2014
I was transferred to Midland two years ago and this place is by far the rudest, most unwelcoming place I have ever lived. Unless of course the people can gain something from you. Nobody says hello, nobody opens the door for you, customer service is the worst. Everybody is in their own rich clique. People are very closed minded and very snobby. They all try to compete with each other. Great place to find a job, but if you can find one somewhere else I would advise you too. I am currently trying to transfer out of here.
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| Living in Midland - 1/1/2014
I moved here 3 years ago and this place is by far the snobbiest, rudest, most un welcoming place I have ever lived. I have lived in a lot of places throughout many states and this place is by far the most judgemental place I have ever been. They do not welcome outsiders unless they can gain something from you. Everybody thinks you owe them something. Everybody competes with everybody here. I will admit that the economy is good. That's the only positive I have about Midland.
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| This is not the town for everyone! - 5/27/2013
I have lived in this town for the past 20 years when it was a very reasonable place to live, friendly, and was not known for its scenery. At this point in time it is not a place to come to live because the cost of living is SO high compared to what it used to be. If u come in as a high-roller making a 6-figure income and the company picking up all your moving expenses then you won't have a problem, but if you are like a lot of people that are moving with very little financial cushion then u are going to struggle to find a place to begin with and then be able to afford it. Also the schools are over crowded because of the families that are moving here looking for the end of the rainbow.
Then there is the situation with the over crowded highways here also, they were not meant to manage the huge influx of big-rigs and extra traffic from everything that goes along with a oil boom. All the culture in the world is not going to make all these life difficulties any easier to bear, the monied people are the ones that can afford the culture anyway.
My husband and I bought our house the first time our apartment complex wanted to raise our rent 6 1/2 years ago and so we avoided the difficulty that people are running now and I am so greatful.
At some point in time I would like to sell my house for more than what I bought for and get out. Maybe that might happen, but the people would be hard to relocate, u will find no better better which makes it easier to live here.
There is always good and bad in anything, u just have to be prepared and I guess that is what I am trying to let people know.
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| Terrible City - 3/4/2013
Midland, TX is NOT the place for you if you want to find a career in anything but oilfield work. Midland does not welcome poor people. Midlanders look down on people that don't make six figure salaries. The rent for a two-bedroom apartment in a ghetto neighborhood is over $1k. Housing is scarce, thus goes to the highest bidder. You might spend $300k on a house that shouldn't be worth more than $100k. You DON'T want to buy a house here if you don't plan on living here for the rest of your life, because you will likely end up losing a lot of your hard earned money.
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| MIDLAND IS A NICE PLACE TO LIVE IN YOU DONT HAVE K - 8/28/2012
If you want to make money Midland is the right place to live but there is nothing else to do. No activieties for the kids only two high schools no options no good places to eat. Just one movie theater so basically you can save a lot of money and be bore!
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| The almost perfect place to live - 6/2/2012
Midland is a community of about 100,000 people. Its friendliness with each other as well as visitors is legend. Midland is the major center of oil and gas activity west of Houston. This fact results in a major business atmosphere with all of the benefits of small town life. This small town has a state of the art hospital, performing arts center and an international airport to name a few of the amenities. Scenery is desert influenced and is usually an initial drawback for people seeking to settle here. However, if you get the sand in your shoes over a year or two, you won't want to call any other place "Home."
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| Midland TX is the Price Gouging Capital of America - 1/1/2012
See what you get when you try to rent an apartment or hotel/motel here. I hate the people responsible for what is happening here, namely the attorney general who turns a blind eye and our US government that allows the gouging of workers here,.. Horrible situation for people working the oil field jobs.
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| Jewish in Midland? - 12/6/2010
We are thinking of moving to the Midland area for a job for my husband. We are a Southern Jewish family -- how would we fair in Midland? How would the kids do in the schools? Thanks in advance for any advice/info.
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