America Is Shocked To Learn Downtown Fort Worth Is The Envy Of The Nation

Over the years, a time or two, maybe three, someone will ask me what I have against Fort Worth. This question is usually asked after I have pointed out something as being, well, wrong.

Like some Fort Worth entity claiming this, that or some other thing in Fort Worth is causing the rest of Texas, the nation or the world to experience spasms of extreme envy.

Soon upon arrival in Texas I noticed the Fort Worth Star-Telegram had a chronic problem with this type nonsense, saying someone somewhere else was green with envy over some perfectly ordinary thing in Fort Worth.

I long ago made a webpage titled Green With Envy with a lot of examples of the Star-Telegram's envy verbiage.

Sometimes I will feel compelled to point out other odd propaganda nonsense. Two examples, also from the Star-Telegram.

Years ago a banner headline in the Sunday Edition proclaimed "TRINITY UPTOWN TO TURN FORT WORTH INTO VANCOUVER OF THE SOUTH".  Years after this proclamation, what was then known as Trinity Uptown, is now known as America's Biggest Boondoggle.

Another example was the Star-Telegram's chamber of commerce type propaganda claiming that a lame little food court type enterprise called the Santa Fe Rail Market was modeled after Seattle's Pike Place Market and public markets in Europe and would be the first public market in Texas.

The Santa Fe Rail Market propaganda was so bone-headedly stupid I was actually embarrassed for the Star-Telegram. Not only was this not the first public market in Texas, it was not even the first  public market in Fort Worth.  And how could the Star-Telegram not know about the Dallas Farmers Market, which actually does resemble Seattle's Pike Place? I documented the Santa Fe Rail Market lunacy on several webpages.

Needless to say, but I will anyway, the Santa Fe Rail Market long ago failed and no one in 2015 is thinking America's Biggest Boondoggle is turning Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South.

Which brings us to the present. Yesterday I blogged about a new skyscraper in Seattle, along with opining about the moribund state of development in downtown Fort Worth. Someone calling him or herself Anonymous made an amusing comment to that blogging which led me to something even more amusing....

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "A New 101 Story Seattle Skyscraper Is Not America's Biggest Boondoggle":

Meanwhile back at the Cowtown ranch:

The high life: Fort Worth downtown penthouse for sale

The first sentence of the FW Business Press article that I'm posting has to be a joke. Doesn't it?

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Oh my. Did the Star-Telegram take over the Fort Worth Business Press? The sentence to which Anonymous refers is...

How would you like to gaze down upon the downtown that has become the envy of the nation? Fort Worth’s downtown is tops in the country, according to livability.com, and with a penthouse view you can check it out anytime you want.

The last paragraph of the article is a doozy too....

“We are seeing more people attracted to everything that downtown Fort Worth has to offer, from shopping and dining to museums and culture,” Bentsen said. “The Omni Penthouse provides a beautiful home base for exploring and enjoying this great city.

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Now, Fort Worth's downtown is a totally fine place, but the pretending it is something it is not is real annoying.

Fort Worth's downtown is not the envy of the nation. Downtown Fort Worth is not on the nation's radar screen. Most of America knows zero about Fort Worth. Nothing in downtown Fort Worth is of the iconic recognized around the world, or America, sort of thing.

Shopping? Downtown Fort Worth does not have a single department store. No Neiman Marcus, no Nordstrom, no Macys, not even a Penneys or a Sears. Downtown Fort Worth has zero grocery stores. Fort Worth is the only town in America with a population over a half million with zero department or grocery stores in its downtown. For a town closer to a million in population than a half million, Fort Worth's downtown is very small.

Fort Worth's downtown is tops in the nation according to livability.com? Is Livability one of those entities that the downtown Fort Worth association sent a totally exaggerated description of the wonders of downtown Fort Worth, resulting in the prestigious accolade no one has ever heard of?

On the day after Thanksgiving, the busiest shopping day of the year, downtown Fort Worth is a ghost town. The downtown that is the envy of the nation is a ghost town. I think it was either last year's day after Thanksgiving, or the year before, I blogged about this phenomenon in a blogging titled something like Having Fun Looking For Black Friday In Downtown Fort Worth.

Anyway, enough of that, except to say, do you think a city which actually had an enviable downtown would promote that their downtown has become the envy of the nation? Even if it were true it's an embarrassing braggart, blowhard type thing to say. And for someone to say such about a downtown like Fort Worth's, which definitely has not become the envy of the nation, well, it is beyond embarrassing. Don't those who write this type nonsense realize American's outside of Fort Worth read this type thing and laugh?