This meets with my experience, not to mention that north of Amarillo and Midland/Odessa are currently booming, at least as far as can see when I'm out there. Not to downplay the larger cities in the state that are growing.
Are all the improvements 'Public Works', say, highway/freeway construction? That was the feeling I got spending many months of the last two years in Austin & Dallas. Every freeway was being built, expanded or repaired... my GPS was constantly telling me to exit when nothing but dirt & Jersey barriers existed. Cannot recall the source, but I believe all this work is done w/ Fed stimulus + taxes from all the oil/gas they're pumping & petro refining.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tight_natural_gas_plays_i...