Caustic Editorial: Thoughts on “Last Call for Cowtown”

So, the Startlegram ran a story on the development boom that’s setting up shop in Fort Worth’s urban areas, and they didn’t even give me a friggin’ call? What’s up with that? Where’s the love, Star-Telegramians? The Weekly talks to me - why don’t you? WHERE’S THE LOVE?

Anyway, the article quotes some people who are all crabby about places like the Wreck Room moving out of the way of Museum Place and other urban developments, and has this whole “woe with us, tiny little sleepy Cowtown is changing into Dallas, whatever shall we do etc. etc.” vibe that really rankles my shackles and socks, or whatever the expression is, right? Well, I have some thoughts on this.

First of all, get it through your heads now, Fort Worth - we are not a sleepy little city. We are the nation’s fastest-stinkin’-growing city - we’re even beating Vegas, for crying out loud. We’ll probably pass Dallas in population in 15-20 years or so. We are a big city. The construction train is leaving Development Station, and it’s going to be making a lot of trips over the foreseeable future. Development WILL occur. Even us New Urbanist geeks acknowledge that, and if NIMBYs don’t care for it, perhaps Weatherford would be more your speed - I hear they just got a new Applebee’s or something. You’ll get all the road-clogging, pollutant-spewing nightmare crap you can get out there, or in Benbrook or countless other places around the ‘plex. Sorry, but Fort Worth has bigger fish to fry, and I’m going to be damned if I let this city ruin itself with parking lots, strip malls, and subdivisions. This city is going to be the friggin’ Crown Jewel of the prairie if you will let the urbanity flow and finally realize that Fort Worth IS the big-time. In any city, there are going to be some locals that get shut out by the big boys, but Fort Worth has a lot of local soul - and if you really think so little of this city that you think the loss of the Wreck Room is a Portent of Doom, then maybe you don’t really like this city that much after all. The Fort Worth I know doesn’t give up that easily. Maybe we need another Amon Carter to kick this city in its sleepy little ass and come to the realization that traditional urbanity and New Urbanism is where it’s at, and that by following those principles and getting the development boom going Fort Worth can become an even MORE unique and amazing place rather than having it all die off to be replaced by soul-sucking malls and subdivisions and parking lots off Bryant Irvin.

Second, to the people in the S-T article worrying about traffic problems and pollution from the urban revolution in places like the Cultural District? Sorry, but that’s not how it works. By creating places people love to walk around and be in, places where they want to park the car and enjoy the sidewalk, you create LESS traffic and LESS pollution. It’s the strip malls and traffic sewers like Bryant Irvin Road that give us our crappy air quality around here, not downtown and the surrounding area.

Third, about becoming Dallas? Don’t you EVER say that again. I’ve spent way more time in Dallas than I’ve wanted to recently, and I can say that, well, Dallas is different, and in a way that Fort Worth can’t help but avoid. I thought maybe, after all the years I’ve stayed away from it that downtown Dallas would have become even half as happenin’ a place as downtown Fort Worth, but it was a friggin’ wasteland. Just ugly, crappy brown marble towers with no pedestrian appeal and no ground-level retail of any kind. It was the most depressing urban experience I’ve had in years. As for Uptown, well, Uptown Dallas is pretty cool, and Fort Worth could stand to emulate some of its better aspects. And yeah, it’s got some hoity-toity BS to it. Thing is, Fort Worth needs some hoity-toity BS of its own to cater to that crowd. Variety is important. I feel this city knows the value of its home-town crowd, though, and the thing to remember is that in a city that’s growing so large and that will have such variety in it, there will be a place for everybody. Don’t you ever try to tell me that Fort Worth is abandoning the little guy in favor of the eeeeeeevviiiiiiiiilll developers - one trip to Magnolia in Fort Worth South will shut that down.

And I give our local entrepreneurs more credit than these NIMBYs do, apparently. You really think Troy and the gang at the Four Star Coffee Bar will give a crap if a Starbuck’s moves in to Museum Place? Please. They know that not everybody likes burnt coffee and pretension. Four Star kicks Starbuck’s ass, and everybody here knows it. They can compete, because they’re the best. So let Starbuck’s siphon off the yuppies - Four Star will survive. I know I’ll still go there. Do you think that Spiral Diner is worried about competition? No friggin’ way. Do you think Fred’s is going to shrink from the big guys? Nope. Who the hell competes with Fred’s, anyway? Fred’s is its own genre.

So, the point of this rambling diatribe is that we need to suck it up, and realize that we are not the small time anymore - we are the big time, and we are just going to keep getting bigger. So rather than let our city’s soul be destroyed by the REAL nastiness - soulless suburban sprawling strip malls with parking lots and subdivision housing - let’s crank Fort Worth up a notch or thirty with quality urban development. THAT is what makes a great place, and it’s not something any Chili’s behind a parking lot, Burleson-style, can take away from us.