don't let the picture fool you, half of those modern down town buildings were abandonned.
In all honesty, it all just depends on what you like. If you prefer having a modern grocery store, target, restuarants.... less than 5 mins away (if you live somewhere near Staples St a lot of SNA's do) but you don't mind the dirtier city, then Corpus will probably be for you.
If you prefer cleaner, greener friendly place, then I would recommend Whiting.
Whiting does claim to be the busiest airspace there is... I will say this, it does not hold a candle to Corpus. You will learn how to handle quick comms better there, and flying over the wat 99% of the time is cool. But it has (in the last year) take longer to get through the training when compared to North Field.
If you like going to the beach and seeing people there and enjoy clean water, stay in P-cola. I went to the corpus beach once. NEVER again. Not becuase the water is dark (I grew up in CA so I am used to dark water) it was becuase it was brown, smelled and had trash all over it.
anyway that is the last of my rants on that town. Given the choice to do over again, I would have stayed in FL.