Fort Worth's Inept Urban Planning Population Growth Bragging Rights

A few days ago in a blog post about Fort Worth Almost Being The Fastest Growing Big City In America mention was made of the fact that the Fort Worth Star-Telegram seemed to be missing an opportunity to do its usual inflated puffery over something to do with Fort Worth which most town's newspapers would not feel the need to be puffing about.

A few days later on Facebook the Star-Telegram's Bud Kennedy made mention of the fact that Fort Worth's population had grown in the latest census, passing Jacksonville to become America's 12th ranked city, population-wise.

This was blogged about in a post asking Is Fort Worth The Biggest City In The World? This question was asked after multiple Facebookers commented on Bud Kennedy's post making the observation that Fort Worth's population growth was largely due to the fact that the town annexes open spaces, and has a lot of open space within its borders in which to build homes.

As witnessed by the above photo which illustrates that open space, with the sprawl of homes, in this morning's Star-Telegram article titled Only 2 cities added more people than Fort Worth in 2020 as city climbs in U.S. ranking.

The caption under the photo says "An aerial view of far north Fort Worth shows a veritable ocean of rooftops. The city has grown 24% since 2010 and is now the 12th largest city in the U.S."

Far north Fort Worth was where I lived when first moving to Texas. Actually it was the hamlet of Haslet, the border with Fort Worth was across the street from my abode. At that point in time this seemed to be out in the country, with farm/ranch land what one saw when one looked south towards the puny skyline of downtown Fort Worth, which you can sort of see through the haze at the top of the above photo.

That open farm/ranch land is now filled in with that ocean of rooftops.

Due to Fort Worth's notoriously bad urban planning, that ocean of rooftops has not been accompanied by new parks, or road improvements.

Or, most notoriously, adequate drainage to prevent the deadly flooding which has occurred due to the bad urban planning. 

A few days ago I made mention of the fact that my Access Is Denied: But I Don't Need Permission To Access The Fort Worth Star-Telegram.  

Even with my access being denied, I am easily able to gain access, and thus read what I want to read in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, such as today's odd article about Fort Worth's population.

Previously I had blogged that it was Seattle which the latest census indicated had grown the most of the big American cities. With Fort Worth having the second most growth.

Somehow the Star-Telegram knocked Fort Worth down to 3rd place, from 2nd, claiming Phoenix was #1, with San Antonio #2.  In the Seattle Times article about this serious population issue, neither San Antonio or Phoenix are in the Top Five, with the Seattle Times version having Seattle #1, Fort Worth #2, Mesa, Arizona #3, Austin #4 and Tampa #4.

The Star-Telegram article about Fort Worth being #3 has some choice Star-Telegram type verbiage, including a gem from Fort Worth's outgoing mayor...

“Fort Worth’s move to the 12th largest city in the United States was expected, but that doesn’t make the news any less exciting,” Mayor Betsy Price said Tuesday in an email to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

What would be exciting would be if Fort Worth matched infrastructure improvement with population growth. You know, things like modern facilities in the city parks, sidewalks alongside the city streets, modern public transportation. That type thing. 

Filling open spaces with more homes, making a sort of bedroom community, does not seem all that exciting.

And then in this paragraph Betsy's elaborates more ironic nonsense...

“Growth, especially the explosive growth we are seeing in Fort Worth, is always challenging for a city, but it is in that growth there is also massive opportunity to build incredible things,” Price said. “In my 10 years as mayor, we’ve worked to capitalize on those opportunities, meeting the needs of a growing city with innovation and resourcefulness, while always maintaining the unique history and spirit of Fort Worth.”

Build incredible things? Like the ongoing Trinity River Vision Central City Uptown Panther Island District Vision which has been ambling along for most of this century, so far rendering a large chunk of Fort Worth's central core into being an embarrassing eyesore.

Maintaining the unique history and spirit of Fort Worth? Has Heritage Park, across the street from the downtown Fort Worth Tarrant County Courthouse, re-opened yet? After a decade, give or take a year or two, of being yet one more Fort Worth eyesore.

It would be fascinating to hear Betsy Price try to elaborate on how those opportunities to which she refers, have been capitalized upon, along with some examples of Fort Worth innovation and resourcefulness.

And then there is the final paragraph of this Star-Telegram article, reviving some classic Star-Telegram verbalize we have not seen for awhile...

Besides creating bragging rights for the largest cities, the Census figures are used for crucial things such as determining how many seats in Congress each state should have, and how much funding communities can receive for roads, schools and other government functions.

Oh yes, the all important bragging rights.

Long ago we made a webpage with multiple examples of what was referred to as the Star-Telegram's Green With Envy verbiage, where this that or the other perfectly mundane thing in Fort Worth was making towns far and wide green with envy, or was giving Fort Worth bragging rights. 

For years that type embarrassing verbiage has seemed to have disappeared from the Star-Telegram, only to reappear today, maybe thinking those of us with access denied would not notice...
 

Is Fort Worth The Biggest City In The World?

 

A few days ago in a blog post about Fort Worth Almost Being The Fastest Growing Big City In America mention was made of the fact that Fort Worth is unique among big cities in that the town has multiple wide open spaces within the town's borders, along with wide open spaces to expand to, unlike towns hemmed in by geography in the form of mountains or bodies of water, or surrounded by suburbs.

Last night, on Facebook, I saw a post from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Bud Kennedy, he being the closest that newspaper has to an actual journalist, in which Mr. Kennedy wrote "We're #12: Fort Worth officially passes Jacksonville to become America's 12th largest city at 927,720 people..."

Some of Fort Worth's population growth comes from annexing territory previously not incorporated into a town. Doing this has seemed a bit bizarre, to me, at times. Such as annexing a narrow strip of territory all the way to D/FW International Airport.

I think the annexation actually includes part of the airport property.

Which renders it sort of ironic when landing at D/FW with the pilot welcoming those onboard to Dallas, whilst landing, sort of, in Fort Worth.

Fort Worth has a puny downtown, lacking things like department stores. I think there may now be a small grocery store of some sort downtown. There are few restaurants, and on the busiest shopping day of the year, the day after Thanksgiving, downtown Fort Worth is a ghost town. We have made mention of this ghost town fact a number of times in various venues including Having Fun Looking For Black Friday Shoppers Today In Downtown Fort Worth.

Via the comments to Mr. Kennedy's Facebook post I learned I was not alone in realizing that Fort Worth's population size is a bit misleading when thinking the number of people in a town somehow relates to that town's, well, being an actual big city with an actual big downtown.

Two of those comments...

Michael Doran: While technically true, the area within the Fort Worth city limits is so huge -- 355 square miles -- that I'm doubtful that it makes for a fair ranking by population. I would argue that anyone from Fort Worth who visits Seattle (84 mi²), Denver (155 mi²), Boston (90 mi²), or San Francisco (47 mi²) would say that those cities sure *seem* bigger than Fort Worth.

Paul Allen: Those cities are more urban, vs a sprawling city like Fort Worth. I don't think that should change the rankings though. Just came back from Seattle and you are right, it "feels" like a much bigger city because everything is stacked up. You hardly see anything under 5-6 floors inside the city. Many more skyscrapers and high-rise apartments, real, mostly functioning public transit gets people around. It feels like a city. Fort Worth feels more like a big suburb with a few tall buildings in the city center.

______________________

I did not realize the size of Fort Worth was so huge.

355 square miles!

San Francisco is only 47 square miles. With Seattle slightly bigger at 84 square miles. Denver, at 155 square miles, is like Fort Worth, with wide open space to expand to. I have been to all those towns Mr. Doran mentioned, expect for Boston, and his opinion matches mine, in that San Francisco, Seattle and Denver sure do seem way bigger than Fort Worth. 

And Mr. Allen's observation that Fort Worth feels more like a big suburb with a few tall buildings in the city center, than an actual big city, seems accurate.

At 355 square miles in size, is Fort Worth the biggest city in the world? Likely not or we would have heard such bragged about, over and over again...

UPDATE: After hitting the publish button on this blog post I went to Twitter and what was the first thing I saw?

This...

Apparently we are in full on brag mode regarding Fort Worth's new population status. But, note the image included in this Twitter post. Photo documentation showing how puny downtown Fort Worth is.

Does not look like the downtown of a town with almost a million population, sprawled over 355 square miles...

Taking Linda Lou On MSU Bike Ride With Mustangs

I went on a long bike ride this final Sunday morning of the 2021 version of May.

About halfway through the bike ride I stopped at the location you see above to drink some water and to see why my phone had made its incoming text noise.

With the phone out of its bike storage location I decided to use it to take a photo. 

A time or two Linda Lou has asked me what the university I live near is like. Like as in how, asked I, a time or two.

To which Linda Lou asked is it big? Old? Lots of buildings? Brick?

I recollect answering yes to all Linda Lou's university questions. And added that the campus is flat, like most of Texas, not hilly like Western State University in my old home zone in Washington.

The horse known as a Mustang is the Midwestern State University mascot.

Hence the four Mustangs you see galloping through a pond. The first represents the Freshman class, carefully entering the pond, the second Mustang is a Sophomore, splashing right behind the Junior Mustang. the rear end of which is all you can see, whilst the Senior Mustang is leaping out of the pond, almost knocking us over.

The building behind the Mustangs is the newest on the MSU campus. That new building sort of illustrates, for Linda Lou, what MSU looks like, due to the fact that this new building cleverly incorporates all the various architectural styles one finds on the MSU campus, with that window wall you see behind the Mustangs being the one modern element which matches nothing else on campus. 

If I find myself feeling unusually energetic, on some day in the future, maybe I'll wander around the MSU campus photo documenting the various architectural styles, and how they are represented in the new building, known as Centennial Hall.

In the meantime tomorrow is Memorial Day. I won't be putting flowers on any nearby graves. I know no one in any nearby graves...

Fort Worth Almost Fastest Growing Big City In America

No, this is not one of our patented posts about something we see in west coast news sources we would never expect to see in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about something to do with Fort Worth. Or Texas.

Quite the contrary, this particular instance makes mention of both Fort Worth and Texas.

It was in this Friday morning's Seattle Times this Surprise! Seattle was the fastest-growing big U.S. city in 2020 article was found.

I would think multiple other big U.S. cities would be growing faster than Seattle, population-wise. Seattle is totally hemmed in, geographically, in every direction. Unlike other towns, like Fort Worth, with wide open spaces on which to build, or annex to the city, to make the town bigger geographically.

Where do all these new arrivals to Seattle find to live? I know one answer is tents set up alongside I-5, and other homeless encampments. Are the homeless Seattle newcomers counted in the census?

Three paragraphs from the Seattle Times article...

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that between July 1, 2019, and July 1, 2020, Seattle had a net gain of about 16,400 residents, hitting a total population of 769,700. That pencils out to a growth rate of 2.2% last year.

And that means that among the 50 biggest U.S. cities, Seattle is — are you sitting down? — No. 1 for growth in 2020.

What about all those Sunbelt cities that everyone has been flocking to during the pandemic? Sure, they’re growing fast, but they were behind Seattle. Fort Worth, Texas, ranks No. 2, followed by Mesa, Arizona; Austin; and Tampa.

________________________

Well, there you go, Seattle is growing the fastest in the U.S., with Fort Worth growing the second fastest, and Austin, which is also in Texas, growing fourth fastest.

I am not too familiar with Austin. Is the capitol of Texas like Fort Worth? With wide open space to expand to? Or is it hemmed in, like Seattle? I have been to Mesa, Arizona. That town is like Fort Worth, with wide open space to expand to. I know zero about Tampa, other than the town is in Florida.

I saw no mention made this morning in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram about Fort Worth being the second fastest growing town in America. Usually such news would have the Star-Telegram crowing that this news was making towns far and wide green with envy, with calls for a city wide celebration.

The self deprecating first two paragraphs in today's Seattle Times article are of the sort one would never read in the Star-Telegram, what with its tendency to ridiculous hyperbole over something not worthy of being hyperbolized.

Those first two Seattle Times paragraphs...

Throughout the pandemic, we’ve been reading stories about people fleeing big cities for the suburbs, smaller towns, and rural areas. And, of course, here in Seattle, a lot of folks have talked about our city dying.

Well, it turns out, to paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of Seattle’s death are an exaggeration. Not only did Seattle keep growing in 2020, but it grew by a healthy amount.

Skagit Valley's Linda Lou Bainbridge Island Green Housing With Scotch Broom

The Skagit Valley's itinerant Linda Lou has currently wandered to an island south of the Skagit Valley, temporarily residing in a Green House on that island.

Green House in the Green New Deal sense of the Green word. As in this Green House is a high tech energy efficient resource saving domicile, with Siri controlling the house at Linda Lou's command.

The island Linda Lou is Green Housing on is called Bainbridge Island. Linda Lou has been enjoying driving around Bainbridge Island, yesterday seeing the colorful scene you see above. A hill covered with yellow Scotch Broom. Scotch Broom is a northwest bane of those who suffer allergies.

This is a real island, surrounded by the actual deep swift moving tidal waters of Puget Sound.

I make mention of this being a real island for the benefit of those few who read this blog who are denizens of Fort Worth, a town which calls a large chunk of Fort Worth land an island, even though that land chunk is not surrounded by water. But may one day be sort of surrounded by water if a cement lined ditch is ever dug, with Trinity River water diverted into the ditch, creating, in the minds of those with no clue what an island is, an imaginary island. 

An imaginary island already named. Panther Island.

More than once I have heard from those living elsewhere, such as areas of modern America, like the west coast, that I am making this up, that there is no way a town can collectively be this dumb.

Well, I am not making this up. It's even worse than the short version. Ever 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. Built in the hope that one day that cement lined ditch will get dug and filled with water.

Back to Linda Lou and Bainbridge Island.

Bainbridge Island is accessed by ferry from Seattle. Or via Highway 305's Agate Pass Bridge connection at the north end of the island, connecting Bainbridge Island to the Kitsap Peninsula of the Olympic Peninsula. That highway 305 bridge to Bainbridge Island was built over actual deep swift moving water, not the built over dry land Fort Worth method.

And the Agate Pass Bridge, built over actual deep swift moving water was built in one year. 1950. The bridge is 1,229 feet long, with the longest span 300 feet long, with the bridge deck 75 feet above the high water mark.

Let's take a look at Bainbridge Island's Agate Pass Bridge...

Again I aim at those in Fort Worth who have recently witnessed the partial completion of one of their town's three bridges being built over dry land, touted as being somehow so special they were gonna be iconic signature bridges, recognized the world over as being in Fort Worth. Most who have seen the new Fort Worth bridge have commented regarding how ordinary it looks, like a freeway overpass.

An odd looking freeway overpass, passing over nothing...

Access Denied: But I Don't Need Permission To Access The Fort Worth Star-Telegram

If I had a paranoid nature, that which you see above might have me thinking the Fort Worth Star-Telegram was offput by the time or two, well multiple dozens of times I have made mention of something erroneous I read in a Star-Telegram article, and has somehow managed to deny me access to Fort Worth's sad excuse for a newspaper of record.

That which you see screen capped above started happening yesterday, telling me I do not have permission to access the Star-Telegram on "this" server.

I don't know what is meant by "this" server. Is that my server being referenced? Or the Star-Telegram's server?

What I do know is that it was easy to get past the lack of permission to access the Star-Telegram on whatever server is the issue...

Bike Riding With The Fishing Lady Of Sikes Lake

The weather has been a bit inclement of late, so I have not been getting my regular dose of endorphins via aerobic activity. 

The 4th Monday of the 2021 version of May is also a bit inclement, with a threatening sky, and predictions of downpours and thunder.

Feeling stir crazy, today I decided to brave the elements to go on a bike ride.

I ended up having myself a mighty fine time rolling my wheels north on the Circle Trail, then through the Wichita Falls version of Beverly Hills, passing through the virtually empty Midwestern State University campus before crossing Midwestern Boulevard to ride around scenic Sikes Lake, where I saw the above lady sitting in a field of pink evening primroses, with a flock of geese, casting a line into the lake.

I do not know why the lady was fishing so far back from the lake edge. I could have asked, maybe, but it would seem rude to interrupt her peaceful nature communing.

Below you get the full, uncropped view of the lady fishing in Sikes Lake.

The above view also gives you a good look at that inclement weather I made mention of.

Due to the smooth look of the lake one would think such indicated no wind was blowing. I do not know why the lake was looking so smooth, because there was a strong wind blowing.

One more day of inclement weather is forecast, with a return to blue sky on Wednesday. 

Big Bad Booboo On Publishing Blog Comments

 Awhile back Google overhauled their Blogger application with which I do the blogging thing. The changes took some getting used to.

One of the changes I had not noticed was the item you can see via the above screen cap. On the left you see a column. There are two items in that column that are orange. The one we are interested in is the second orange item.

Comments

Previously if I clicked "Comments" a sub-menu would open showing the options of "Published", "Awaiting Moderation" and "Spam".

Previously if I clicked "Comments" I would see those sub-menu options, with the "Awaiting Moderation" option telling me the number of comments waiting to be moderated.

So, a couple days ago I clicked "Comments" and saw there was no longer those aforementioned sub-menu options. It took me way too long to figure out I now had to click in another location to see those sub-menu options, only to find myself mortified to see there were dozens of comments awaiting being moderated.

Some of those commenters repeated their comments when they did not see them published. And then followed that with comments asking what does one have to do to make a comment on the Durango blog.

I have now hit the publish button on those comments that had been waiting to be moderated. Well, almost all of them. There were a couple which were examples of why one moderates such things.

Another thing Google did, which helped cause me this mortification, is previously comments were sent by Google to the primary email tab in Gmail. I have now learned Google sends comments to the social email tab.

I had wondered a time or two why comments seemed to have dried up, but did not spend much time wondering about it. I figured I had just grown boring and non-controversial, so no one felt compelled to give me a piece of their mind.

Looking at the stats Google includes in the Blogger Dashboard, I was surprised to see that during the long long time this blog has existed there have been slightly over 7,500 comments.

I would not have guessed the number to be so high. 

Though I do remember a time or two or three when something would cause a comment frenzy.

Such as the time sinkholes near Wink, out in West Texas, caused a comment frenzy of dozens, coming in so fast I lost control of it. As soon as I would publish a comment, two more would come in, all arguing about sink holes, if I remember right.

It may have been more complicated than simply being about sinkholes...

I've Been COVID Vaccinated So Free To Roam The Country

 A little over 24 hours ago I got shot with the Johnson & Johnson COVID vaccine.

If I remember right this was the first time this century I have been shot.

Methinks needle technology has improved since the last time I got stuck with a needle. Because I barely felt the needle go into my arm yesterday.

It was so pain-free I did not realize I had been shot, so about 30 seconds after I thought I felt a little tingle I asked the shot administrator when are you gonna shoot me? 

The shot administrator then said the needle has been in your arm for a half a minute.

I've had zero after effect. No pain at the injection site. Nothing.

This morning I went to both ALDI and across the street from ALDI, to Walmart.

ALDI has added a new sign at the store's entry since I was last at that location a couple days ago. No longer is there a sign saying all who enter must be masked. Now a sign says if you have been vaccinated ALDI is not requiring you to wear a mask.

And then on to Walmart I was surprised to see all the masks required signs have been removed. Most Walmart employees were still masked, but I saw several without.

I wore my mask into both ALDI and Walmart.

It will take me awhile to shake the feeling that I don't want to be mask-less lest people think I'm an idiot Republican right wing nut job Trumper.

The majority of people in both ALDI and Walmart were wearing masks today.

I suspect the number of maskers will be steadily dropping as time marches forward. And soon I will feel free to roam about the country.

Unless something bad happens...

Looking At Panzerschwein In Texas With Nephew Jason

This morning Spencer Jack's paternal parental unit sent the above to my phone.

My Favorite Nephew Jason is as fluent in Deutsch as I am, so I don't think he was sending me this so that I could explain what panzerschwein in English.

Even people who are not fluent in German might easily figure out, sort of, what panzerschwein is.

Panzers were scary German tanks in WWII.

Armored tanks.

Schwein is what many called German in WWII.

Pigs.

So, panzerschwein are armored pigs.

Now, what animal might a German settlers experiencing the wilds of frontier Texas think looked like an armored pig?

If you answered "armadillo" methinks you are likely correct.

I do not remember ever seeing a single armadillo at my current location. When I lived further south, in the D/FW zone, I frequently saw armadillos. Sometimes with baby armadillos, which are extremely cute.

Let me see if I can find a photo of one of my encounters with baby armadillos...

I remember this encounter like it was yesterday, but it was well over a decade ago. At River Legacy Park in Arlington.

I got down low on the paved trail to take the picture. The baby armadillos sensed something was there, they do not see too well when young. The four began moving towards me. I backed off. Their mother did not seem at all concerned.

I wonder if those early German settlers in Texas tried to make bacon out of what they thought were armored pigs?