In the past week or two I have seen mention made of a list made of the 100 Best Cities in the World.
The first time I saw this mentioned was in the Dallas Observer, which was observing the fact that Dallas ranked only #56, with two Texans towns thought to be better than Dallas, with Houston at #40 and Austin at #53.
The second time I saw this global list mentioned was in the Austin-American Statesman newspaper, online, which began their article with...
Perhaps your city claims one of the best new restaurants, or best overall restaurants in the country. Maybe it was even named one of the best U.S. cities to live in.
But the true test of greatness is on the global scale.
Resonance Consultancy, a real estate and tourism consulting firm, has released a report ranking the top 100 best cities in the world. Three Texas cities earned a spot on the list.
There are more American towns on this list than any other country, with New York at #2, San Francisco at #12, Los Angeles at #14, Chicago at #12, Seattle at #19 and on to many other American cities.
Fort Worth, Texas is not on this list.
Fort Worth is never on any of this type list.
I lived in Fort Worth for a few years before moving to my current Texas location. It did not take long living in Fort Worth to come to the realization that the town had some sort of civic inferiority complex. I assumed this had something to do with being paired with the bigger, more well-known town of Dallas.
That Fort Worth inferiority complex manifested in many ways. Including what I came to call the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Green With Envy Syndrome. So called due to that newspaper repeatedly printing an article about some perfectly ordinary thing, claiming that that perfectly ordinary thing was making towns, far and wide, green with envy.
Yes, I know, this sounds ridiculous, but it happened. Over and over again. The syndrome seemed to cease after it was rendered into an embarrassment.
I remember the worst instance of Fort Worth embarrassing itself was the time some Washington, D.C. lobbying group included Fort Worth in a list of ten American towns determined to be the best at the Urban Village concept.
That time the embarrassment did not come from Star-Telegram hyperbole, it was the city government that embarrassed itself. Initiating a citywide celebration celebrating being so listed by an obscure Washington, D.C. lobbying group.
I am not making this up, it really happened, with celebration central happening at Fort Worth's Gateway Park.
During this celebratory period of time, I happened to be up north, in Tacoma, a town which was also on this list of ten best towns with the Urban Village concept.
I had reason to visit with Tacoma's then Deputy Mayor. I asked him if Tacoma had a citywide celebration after receiving this esteemed honor. He laughed and said, no, we politely thanked them and that was it. Why do you ask, the Deputy Mayor asked?
Because Fort Worth had a citywide celebration when they got the same esteemed honor, I told him.
You are kidding, said the Deputy Mayor. Nope, really happened, said I.
Fort Worth has long had a history of what one might characterize as delusions of grandeur, manifesting in multiple ways.
Like the time a sporting goods store opened in Fort Worth called Cabela's. With Fort Worth touting the belief this store would give Fort Worth the #1 tourist attraction in Texas. Not occurring to anyone, apparently, that suggesting such seemed to indicate Texas was a tad weak in the tourist attraction area, which is definitely not the case.
Texas has many attractive tourist attractions, way more attractive than a sporting goods store. San Antonio's Riverwalk comes to mind, as does Galveston, and Big Bend, and much more.
Within a year the Fort Worth Cabela's was no longer the only Cabela's in Texas. One opened in Buda, down south by Austin. And then another Cabela's opened in the D/FW Metroplex.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has never fessed up to being party to the bizarre top tourist attraction in Texas con job.
When I see one of these type lists, listing towns by some criteria, with Fort Worth never being on the list, I can not help but wonder how a long time Fort Worth native, subjected to the local hype and propaganda explains it to themselves.
Fort Worth needs to fix a few problems before it can have any hope of ever being on a list of the best cities on the globe.
Such as, fix Fort Worth's downtown, currently a ghost town on the busiest shopping day of the year, on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, a ghost town due to the fact that downtown Fort Worth has no stores of the sort one might do their Christmas shopping in.
Knock of calling a multi-block area of the Fort Worth downtown, Sundance Square. There is no square there. Years after spouting there being something called Sundance Square, a couple parking lots were turned into a sort of square type location, then called Sundance Square Plaza.
This type thing is not the type thing a town wearing its Big City Pants does.
There are two semi-unique attractions in downtown Fort Worth. The Watergardens at the south end of downtown. And Heritage Park at the north end of downtown.
Elsie Hotpepper recently confirmed for me that Heritage Park is still a boarded-up eyesore, a status it has had for over a decade. Which is sort of an adequate metaphor for Fort Worth. A park purporting to celebrate Fort Worth's heritage, doing so by being a messed up eyesore.
And then there is what that Heritage Park eyesore overlooks. Another thing which makes Fort Worth a laughingstock, not worthy of being on any Best Cities listing.
Fort Worth is now in its third decade of a pseudo public works project, originally known as the Trinity River Vision, before morphing, over the years, into the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.
This Vision purported to see an area in danger of being flooded, even though such had not happened in over half a century, due to flood control levees preventing such. The Vision claimed this to be a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme, which is so vital it is now limping along in its third decade.
Cities worthy of being considered best in the world do not have these type dawdling, ill-conceived, ineptly implemented projects.
A failed project, currently, after all this time, basically only seeing three little bridges, built over dry land, to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island, awaiting a cement lined ditch to go under the bridges carrying diverted Trinity River water.
We could go on with more details regarding Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, but we won't.
Because it is lunch time...
Fort Worth, Texas is not on this list.
Fort Worth is never on any of this type list.
I lived in Fort Worth for a few years before moving to my current Texas location. It did not take long living in Fort Worth to come to the realization that the town had some sort of civic inferiority complex. I assumed this had something to do with being paired with the bigger, more well-known town of Dallas.
That Fort Worth inferiority complex manifested in many ways. Including what I came to call the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Green With Envy Syndrome. So called due to that newspaper repeatedly printing an article about some perfectly ordinary thing, claiming that that perfectly ordinary thing was making towns, far and wide, green with envy.
Yes, I know, this sounds ridiculous, but it happened. Over and over again. The syndrome seemed to cease after it was rendered into an embarrassment.
I remember the worst instance of Fort Worth embarrassing itself was the time some Washington, D.C. lobbying group included Fort Worth in a list of ten American towns determined to be the best at the Urban Village concept.
That time the embarrassment did not come from Star-Telegram hyperbole, it was the city government that embarrassed itself. Initiating a citywide celebration celebrating being so listed by an obscure Washington, D.C. lobbying group.
I am not making this up, it really happened, with celebration central happening at Fort Worth's Gateway Park.
During this celebratory period of time, I happened to be up north, in Tacoma, a town which was also on this list of ten best towns with the Urban Village concept.
I had reason to visit with Tacoma's then Deputy Mayor. I asked him if Tacoma had a citywide celebration after receiving this esteemed honor. He laughed and said, no, we politely thanked them and that was it. Why do you ask, the Deputy Mayor asked?
Because Fort Worth had a citywide celebration when they got the same esteemed honor, I told him.
You are kidding, said the Deputy Mayor. Nope, really happened, said I.
Fort Worth has long had a history of what one might characterize as delusions of grandeur, manifesting in multiple ways.
Like the time a sporting goods store opened in Fort Worth called Cabela's. With Fort Worth touting the belief this store would give Fort Worth the #1 tourist attraction in Texas. Not occurring to anyone, apparently, that suggesting such seemed to indicate Texas was a tad weak in the tourist attraction area, which is definitely not the case.
Texas has many attractive tourist attractions, way more attractive than a sporting goods store. San Antonio's Riverwalk comes to mind, as does Galveston, and Big Bend, and much more.
Within a year the Fort Worth Cabela's was no longer the only Cabela's in Texas. One opened in Buda, down south by Austin. And then another Cabela's opened in the D/FW Metroplex.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram has never fessed up to being party to the bizarre top tourist attraction in Texas con job.
When I see one of these type lists, listing towns by some criteria, with Fort Worth never being on the list, I can not help but wonder how a long time Fort Worth native, subjected to the local hype and propaganda explains it to themselves.
Fort Worth needs to fix a few problems before it can have any hope of ever being on a list of the best cities on the globe.
Such as, fix Fort Worth's downtown, currently a ghost town on the busiest shopping day of the year, on Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, a ghost town due to the fact that downtown Fort Worth has no stores of the sort one might do their Christmas shopping in.
Knock of calling a multi-block area of the Fort Worth downtown, Sundance Square. There is no square there. Years after spouting there being something called Sundance Square, a couple parking lots were turned into a sort of square type location, then called Sundance Square Plaza.
This type thing is not the type thing a town wearing its Big City Pants does.
There are two semi-unique attractions in downtown Fort Worth. The Watergardens at the south end of downtown. And Heritage Park at the north end of downtown.
Elsie Hotpepper recently confirmed for me that Heritage Park is still a boarded-up eyesore, a status it has had for over a decade. Which is sort of an adequate metaphor for Fort Worth. A park purporting to celebrate Fort Worth's heritage, doing so by being a messed up eyesore.
And then there is what that Heritage Park eyesore overlooks. Another thing which makes Fort Worth a laughingstock, not worthy of being on any Best Cities listing.
Fort Worth is now in its third decade of a pseudo public works project, originally known as the Trinity River Vision, before morphing, over the years, into the Trinity River Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision.
This Vision purported to see an area in danger of being flooded, even though such had not happened in over half a century, due to flood control levees preventing such. The Vision claimed this to be a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme, which is so vital it is now limping along in its third decade.
Cities worthy of being considered best in the world do not have these type dawdling, ill-conceived, ineptly implemented projects.
A failed project, currently, after all this time, basically only seeing three little bridges, built over dry land, to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island, awaiting a cement lined ditch to go under the bridges carrying diverted Trinity River water.
We could go on with more details regarding Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Boondoggle, but we won't.
Because it is lunch time...
No comments:
Post a Comment