Low taxes and flat planes of land that you can keep building new housing on, cheap, that makes it easy to keep growing out. Good for them I guess. But providing infrastructure for that expansion does cost something eventually, thus the struggles with increasing electricity in a state with less oversight. I find your comment pretty generic that could be applied to almost anything. California must be doing something right, because their tax surpluses are incredible. Same for lots of other states. So what, just because California has huge budget surpluses doesn't clarify if the state is serving its citizen's needs.

Pablo Escobar's business grew fast, too.

It had (ahem) some externalities, and wound up collapsing. Fast growth isn't inherently a sign of something being done right, or we'd be talking about Zynga a lot more.

A tragedy of the commons is preceded by a gold rush before the predictable tragedy strikes.

Yes, making money for their patrons. Texas is blessed with many things.