That buying homes thing is not what I found interesting. It is the photo I found to be interesting.
Most photo views of downtown Seattle are either from Elliot Bay, looking east at the skyline, with the Space Needle on the left, and the sports stadiums on the right, with the Seattle skyscrapers between them. That and ferry boats and cruise ships on the waterfront, along with a giant wheel. Or the most popular view, that being from Queen Anne Hill, looking south, with the Space Needle looming tall above the Seattle skyline, with Mount Rainier hovering in the distance.
In the rare above view we are looking south across the south end of Lake Union. The Space Needle is that stick sticking up on the right. The towers you see are not the main part of the Seattle skyline, but are mostly what makes up the Amazon campus. Somewhere amongst those towers are the Amazon spheres my favorite Ruby niece took me to see a couple summers ago.
Anyway, looking at the above photo of part of downtown Seattle caused me to realize why I have such an automatic revulsion reaction when I read ridiculousness in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about that which has become America's Dumbest Boondoggle, the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.
I think my revulsion at the ridiculousness began almost two decades ago when I read a banner headline on the front page of the Sunday Star-Telegram, screaming "TRINITY UPTOWN TO TURN FORT WORTH INTO VANCOUVER OF THE SOUTH".
I remember thinking to myself have these idiots never been to Vancouver? What can they possibly think could possibly turn this landlocked scenery free town into anything remotely resembling Vancouver?
Who could have dreamt that that ridiculousness would continue on for so long, soon to be boondoggling along into its third decade, with Fort Worth still not even remotely resembling Vancouver, or, actually, any other actual big modern city in North America, most of which have streets with sidewalks, city parks without outhouses, and no public transit of the Molly the Trolley sort.
Why would any sane city want to artificially turn their town into something it is not? Look at that view of downtown Seattle. See all that water? All that waterfront? And that is only part of it. To the left, out of view, is Lake Washington, across Elliot Bay, that land you see across the bay, is even more waterfront, as in West Seattle. To the right of the photo, out of Elliot Bay, is more waterfront, along the shores of Puget Sound.
All natural waterfront. With manmade attractions built on the waterfront, as in miles upon miles of private development, with not one inch of that waterfront being the result of some bizarre vision to create such out of nothing, under the guidance of some local politician's unqualified, inept, son, and expecting to do so via the largess of federal money doled out from the more prosperous parts of America, such as Seattle.
Let's take a current, 2019, look at the Vancouver of the South.
That wide creek is known as the Trinity River. Those buildings across the river are the stunning skyline of beautiful downtown Fort Worth, someday destined to become the Vancouver of the South, just as soon as the Trinity River creek can be diverted into a cement lined ditch diverting water around an 800 acre industrial wasteland, creating an imaginary island, imaginatively already named Panther Island.
Since 2014 Fort Worth has been trying to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to that imaginary island. But that bridge building has been slow, now in its 5th years, currently slated to maybe be completed sometime in the next decade.
That is if you in the more prosperous parts of America can be convinced to send federal funding to Fort Worth to help with its imaginary (un-needed) flood control project and ineptly implemented economic development scheme where local delusionists conjure visions of riverwalks, waterfronts, lakes, canals, houseboat districts, thousands of residents and other never gonna happen nonsense.
All on what is currently an industrial wasteland still waiting on its EPA investigation which will likely discover epic levels of ground pollution costing a fortune to mitigate, which will likely be the final death knell of the Trinity River Vision Boondoggle. That or the digging of the ditch under one of those possibly finished bridges causing the bridge to sink or collapse.
Or, J.D. Granger reaching retirement age, with that bringing to a close the lifespan of the main beneficiary of what has become America's Dumbest Boondoggle.
I just had a thought which surprises me that it had never occurred to me before.
A thought which vividly points out the obviousness of the Fort Worth Vancouver of the South embarrassment. Can you imagine another city somewhere in North America, let's take Boise, Idaho for example, touting some project as a "VISION TO TURN BOISE INTO FORT WORTH OF THE NORTH".
No, would never happen, because there is not one single thing about Fort Worth any town anywhere in America would want to emulate.
And that fact is what the people who run Fort Worth in what is known as the Fort Worth Way might want to ponder.
A ridiculous project touted as turning Fort Worth into the Vancouver of the South is not the solution to what ails Fort Worth.
I don't know if there is anything a town like Fort Worth could ever manage to do which would cause other towns to want to turn themselves into the Fort Worth of the North, or East, or West, but I do know for sure the solution ain't copying Vancouver, or San Antonio, or...
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