Impressions of Forth Worth, Texas

In My Humble Opinion
1

My wife and I are considering relocating to Fort Worth, Texas. We currently live in the Washington DC greater metropolitan area, Northern Virginia, and would like to go where it is less hectic, less congested, and less expensive. Fort Worth, as of now, is a top contender because she can transfer her job from here to there without much difficulty. I’d be job hunting, of course, but we can afford to live off her salary alone down there if we avoid extravagances. We have no kids.

Mrs. P. has a week long conference in Fort Worth at the end of the month and she has extended her stay through the weekend. I’m flying down midweek to join her so we can look over the area.

Now, for the folk who live or have lived there: What are your impressions? What are the pros and cons? Any must sees or must avoids?

Mrs. P. believes that “Rat Race” in Forth Worth only has little lab mice, so our quality of life would be much higher, but I don’t have any outside confirmation on that.

2

You’re going to Fort Worth to escape congestion? I was there on a business trip last week and the freeway traffic is horrendous. Not as bad as the Beltway, mind you, but pretty bad.

My impressions of Dallas-Ft. Worth (it’s one big city, by the way): Concrete wasteland; flat; hot; giant roaches they call ‘palmetto bugs’; asshole drivers; concrete wasteland. But I haven’t lived there.

3

I’ve lived here for 7 years now; I love this city. The traffic can be bad, but if you’re from Washington DC, I think you’ll find it a breeze in comparison. We don’t have HOV lanes, because even in most of the worst places, it’s not bad enough to need them. I live 12 miles from downtown, and barring a serious accident, it takes 15-20 minutes to get from the driveway to the parking garage on any given day.

The cost of living is relatively small. We lived in a decent apartment in a decent neighborhood for less than $600 a month (2 bedroom, about 900 sq. ft.). New houses of around 1200 sq. ft. run around $120,000, I think. We paid $82K for ours (1848 sq. ft.) but it’s a bit older (1968).

Yes, it is very hot and muggy. We left for work this morning before 7:30, and I believe it was already close to 90 F. Of course, you’ll find air conditioning everywhere.

Of course you’ll get the usual assholes as with any big city, but sometimes it does have a small town feel to it.

4

O.K. My first post. After lurking around here for 3 years, I think I have something to add.

Mrs Matt and I have lived in DFW for 7 years. We lived in Arlington for 6 yrs and last year built a house in Mansfield. I think you would be shocked at how much house you can buy for the money in our area. I can’t speak to apartment rent as we rented a house for the 6 yrs before. That was a 3 bedroom 2 bath and was 900 mth.

I think FW is much more laid back than Dallas and where we live is almost in the country.

As far as the commuting, I work in just outside of downtown Dallas and can be in my office in 45-50 min. Downtown FW I can make in 30-40 min. I don’t think you will have any trouble with traffic after living on the east coast. If it were me I wouldn’t live were I had to commute on either 635 or 183. I had a service job that made me drive these hwys and I think that is some of the worst traffic in the Metro.

Ya summers kinda suck but this is the South! We moved to Texas from Kansas City and I found I didn’t miss winter at all. Winter is the pay off for suffering through the summer.

I have traveled in some of the bigger cities in the U.S. and I do think you will find the pace slower and more enjoyable here. Come on down! Good luck.

Matt

5

Thanks for the replies. Keep it coming if you think of something.

Oddly enough, Kansas City is the 2nd option under consideration, because, again, Mrs. P. could transfer her job out there. Where ever we go, I still have to find a job and, I think, Ft. Worth has a better options.

Any place with good jobs will have traffic. It doesn’t sound too bad in Ft. Worth. Right now Mrs. P. has to drive to drive 9 miles, 15 to 20 minute, just to reach the commuter lot and catch a ride to the city. Total of about 1 hour fifteen minutes each way, or 2.5 hours per day, or 12.5 hours per week. 15 to 20 minutes each way would be a breeze in comparison. She is hell bent on getting a house within 5 miles of downtown and having a super short commute. I don’t know what housing is available in that range, but she may have to settle for a bit father out.

The cost of housing is a real plus! The only thing I don’t like is that lot sizes tend to be small. We’ve got 1.78 acres now and I like the distance between neighbors.

I think a few cans of Raid could handle those ‘palmetto bugs.’ Raid can handle the bugs, right?

6

I think this qualifies any “big” city.

DFW has a combined population of a little over 3 million. Yes, traffic gets bad, its worse when it rains or ices over. In July/August and September we hit triple digit temperatures. Our winters are all of 2 months long, 3 at the max with lows sometimes in the single digits. The rest of the year, it’s either mild or hot and it’s sometimes hard to tell when the season changes without taking clues from the calendar.

Personally, I have had the chance to move to other cities, but I grew up here and I happen to like it. Native Texans really are friendly, the assholes you see driving are normally from up north :stuck_out_tongue:

:smiley:

7

I was born and raised here in DFW. Admittedly most of my life I have lived in the North Dallas area, and not Ft. Worth, but have been there MANY times.

I love it here. The weather is usually pretty nice. The summers are perfect for lounging out on the boat at the lake and the winters are great for curling up in front of the fireplace.

Traffic does suck balls at times, but if you plan ahead it usually doesn’t hold you up to much. Before I moved 3 months ago I had a commute of 50 miles (one way). I could make it to work, through all of the rush hour traffic, in under an hour.

The people here are pretty friendly most of time. I can’t honestly remember ever getting a rude reply to a genuine request for help (asking directions…that sort of thing). There was even one time within the past year, when a total stranger bought me a full tank of gas. I was on my way home from work and was running out of gas. I had lost my wallet earlier in the day, so I had no money and no way to get any money. When I stopped at the gas station and asked to use the phone to call my ex-roommate, a customer overheard my phone conversation. He approached me outside and offered to let me pull up to his gas pump and fill up.

8

Another Dallasite here. MattD, I agree that prices often seem outrageous around here … However, I once considered relocating to the DC area back in the late 90’s and let me tell you, that is sticker shock! I was looking at housing eighty or ninety miles out from where I’d be working and the prices were still double or more what they are around here. Compared to the DC area, Pyrrhonist, I’m sure you’ll find prices around here cheap.

I like Fort Worth; great museums and a great zoo. Not a bad place at all.

9

I lived in the DFW area for 6 years before relocation to OK. To me, Fort Worth is a big city with people that live like they’re from a small town. Most people are very friendly.

There’s a saying around the area that Fort Worth is “Where the west begins.” I think you’ll find that to be true. Dallas is a much more cosmopolitan city. Fort Worth is much more laid back.

You’ll have to live way out of town if you a lot anything close to 2 acres. The lots in town are usually about 120’ x 75’. Some are even smaller. On the plus side, as has already been noted, the houses are cheap.

Ditto Ponder Stibbons on the museums and the zoo. We preferred their zoo to the Dallas zoo. Also, checkout the Japanese Gardens if you get the chance. They’ll make you forget where you are.

10

On my mom’s side we’ve had family in Fort Worth for at least a hundred years (possibly longer, I honestly don’t know). My great-grandmother lived there for 101 of her 102 years, so obviously she loved it. But you did not ever want to ask her if she was from Dallas! :slight_smile:

I don’t like Dallas much myself, but Fort Worth is all right. I haven’t spent much time there, and most of the time I have spent was when I was a kid. I rather like the place, but I haven’t been there much as an adult. I suppose, having family ties there, I might be a bit biased even if I don’t know much about the place.

I’ll get Mama Tiger to look at this thread. I’m sure she has more than I do to contribute.

11

While it’s pretty much all city from Dallas to Fort Worth, that is, there really isn’t much in the way of rural areas between them, Dallas and Fort Worth are two VERY different cities, despite being only 30 miles apart. Dallas is very much a big city, with a big city attitude. Fort Worth is much more laid back.

I’m afraid that we do have scary palmetto bugs. Those things are NASTY. We usually plan on fumigating the house at least once a year to keep the bugs in check (we have to board the pets, of course). Other people might use a professional exterminator, but we prefer to do it ourselves. And those roaches are not afraid of people. Ick! We also have mosquitoes that should file flight plans and look like two or three of them could easily drain a small child. They say that everything’s bigger in Texas, and it’s true at least of our bugs.

Most years we don’t have snow that sticks to the ground. While this is great if you have any medical condition that’s aggravated by the cold, it does enable the bugs to live through the winter.

If you want to move here, or really anywhere in Texas, you pretty much have to learn to drink iced tea (which is pronounced “ice tea”) and love football. I don’t do either, and I’m regarded as a freak.

The highways can be nasty during rush hour, but really, I think that most of the time traffic is pretty manageable.

Unlike many other cities, we actually have a live downtown area. We also have a great zoo, a fantastic Botanic Gardens, and the Water Gardens.

I was born and raised in Fort Worth, and when my husband decided not to re-enlist in the Air Force after 12 years of service, we moved back here. It’s home to me, so of course I’m going to think it’s about the best city in the world to live in, and I’ve lived in a few.

12

As whiterabbit said, our family has been in Fort Worth for many, many years. Far more than 100, actually. My great-grandfather and his brother came to Fort Worth in the latter part of the 19th century, where my great-grandfather rode the Chisholm Trail and his brother rode the Pony Express from Fort Worth to Weatherford (so we could probably date it by the years the Pony Express ran that route), so the family was there nearly in the beginning.

So I’ve been going there all my life, and would dearly love to actually live there. Mind you, I probably know Fort Worth the way it used to be almost better than the way it is simply because of all my childhood experiences there, but I’ve been back often enough as an adult to know my way around pretty well and love the place.

FW is much more laid back than Dallas. Housing prices are frighteningly reasonable after the DC area (and I should know; we lived in DC from '98 to 2001). If you do end up moving to FW and want to buy a house, drop me an email; my cousin, another lifetime resident there, has been a realtor for years and will be a great resource. (She’s very actively involved in community affairs, including currently sitting on the FW Historical Commission, so she knows the city backwards and forwards.)

Traffic will never, ever, ever be like it was in DC. Bad tie-ups briefly, yes; rush hour lasting 4+ hours, no. You can spend millions on a house, or get a very nice place very reasonably.

There’s lots to see and do; lots of good restaurants and museums; and to my complete and utter shock (considering that I live in New Orleans now, and never thought of Fort Worth as its equal in sin), saw a sign for a drive-through daiquiri stand when I was there recently!

The weather gets very hot indeed, but I guess the “muggy” part depends on where you’re from. It feels very, very dry to me now (but comparing it to New Orleans probably isn’t a fair comparison). The good news is that there’s always a breeze, which means that even when it’s hot it’s not stifling. And everything is air conditioned.

I’d move to Fort Worth in a heartbeat if I could. In fact, Papa Tiger got laid off recently and is applying for jobs all over the place, and I’m pulling for him to get the one in Fort Worth he applied for!

13

Oh, and I forgot to add, the rivalry between Fort Worth and Dallas goes back to the earliest days. The two cities are as unlike as any pair of neighboring cities you could find (although Papa Tiger assures me that Minneapolis and St. Paul are equally different). My grandpappy used to say, “Don’t say Dallas, that’s a dirty word!” To be honest, I’ve never known if my dislike of Dallas is based on fact or childhood indoctrination, but I find it to be far more crowded, confusing, and unfriendly. But it could just be that Grandpappy did his job well. Of course, I remember once taking Grandmother to the airport after she’d visited us elsewhere in the country and the man at the ticket counter said, “Oh, I see you’re flying to Dallas today,” and she about bit his head off. :slight_smile:

14

I live in Fort Worth.

If you are afraid of zero lot line homes, no fear. Move out to the ‘country’ and you can buy a larger lot. There are a lot of areas around here where you can ‘stretch out’ and still be close to the city.

Out of DFW, Fort Worth is my favorite to live in.
We have swell museums and zoo (as was mentioned).
The water gardens are great, but who knows how long they’ll remain as is…
It’s more relaxed here.

Fort Worth, in the past few years, is finally getting bigger in that new restaurants and shops are opening. You may consider that a bad thing, I don’t know. It seems to me that Me and Mr Baboon almost always eat at the places built in the past 3 years. It makes me wonder where people ate before!

The whole ‘start of the west thing’. arg. Fort Worth looooooooves to play up it’s cowboy side. LOVES it. If it has a cow, cattle, cowboy or the flag, people here will eat it up.

His family has been here for over 100 years too. They must like it for some reason! :slight_smile:

15

I grew up in Dallas but dated a few Fort Worth girls. I prefered Fort Worth to Dallas because of the generally more relaxed atmosphere. I always thought that Fort Worth people were more “down home” than Dallasites. I think at one point, years ago, there was a sign on the Fort Worth Pike as you left Dallas going west: “Dallas for culture; Fort Worth for fun.” I don’t remember seeing that sign, but I was told about it many times. Even if the sign was an urban legend, the spirit behind it was true.

16

Thanks everyone for the input. As of now Mrs. P. is talking about Fossil Hill or the Historic District as places to live. I’ll just have to wait and see.

I’ll take the ice tea if it is sweetened—yuck, if it is unsweetened. The natives will have to tie me to a chair and staple my eyes open before I’ll consent to watch football. I guess that might make me a freak, or half-freak, as well.

Where would I find the Japanese Gardens? I may not have the time to visit, but I’ll put it down as an option. Mrs. P loves to drive around neighborhoods gawking at houses, which bores me to tear after five minutes, so it could be a could place to dump as she is off to look over homes and neighborhoods.

17

Iced tea around here is unsweetened, not many places have “sweetened” tea, but your choice of sweeteners is on the table. I am not a football fan either and I grew up in Dallas, so you won’t have worry about being kicked out of town or anything :slight_smile:

18

They are located in the botanical gardens off of University drive.
They are near the cultural districts - minutes away from the museums and the zoo.
The gardens are generally free. One exception is the Japanese garden, though the cost is nominal (3 bucks?). Be sure to take a lot of quarters!! The fun thing is to feed the fish.

19

IMO, that’s backwards. Fort Worth for Culture;Dallas for fun.

20

Don’t you mean “ahce tay”?