Love & Hate

After living in Fort Worth for over a year now, I've discovered the things I love and hate most about the area. I'll start with the cons first.

CONS

1. TRAFFIC. We live near 2, two-lane highways that should each have atleast 4 lanes. The result is endless congestion at even non-peak hours. The irony is that since moving here, people always exclaim how grateful they are to not live in Dallas and deal with the traffic there! Are you kidding me? This particular two-lane highway we live by was just mentioned on the Yahoo list: "top 50 worst highways in the nation"! Need I say more?

2. Lack of malls. There is 1 mall within 20ish miles of us. ONE?! Not to mention I have to drive through the traffic gauntlet to get there, making it take twice as long as it should. Dear Fort Worth, please build a mall within 10 minutes driving distance. Much appreciated.

3. "Where the West begins." This slogan describes Fort Worth as the last stop before you hit the Western frontier of Texas. I'm not entirely sure if this is a negative or a positive yet. I'm annoyed that the city has a huge population and job base, yet portrays itself as a small town. All this accomplishes is too-small roads, and not enough shopping! Please accomodate the number of people that live here. You are a big city; it is not evil to be a big city.

4. Referencing #3, Fort Worth despises Dallas. It thinks of it as a cosmopolitan, shallow city with no character. Get over it. Dallas has its negatives, but atleast I can get to 5 malls, each within 15 minutes of my parents' house.

5. Trains. This is a train city. And I do mean that. I cross no less than 5 tracks to get to church. And that is just one direction. Go in any other direction, and you're bound to cross a set of tracks. Annoying when you're late getting somewhere. Annoying hearing the train whistles all day and all night long. You can't escape them in this town.

PROS

1. Downtown Fort Worth. I love downtown here. It's clean, architecturally beautiful, got great restaurants, alluring ambiance, and perhaps most importantly: it's safe. This is one thing Dallas does not have- a safe downtown. I can take my son there at night and feel perfectly comfortable. There are lights up in the trees, cobblestone roads, and a great Barnes 'n' Noble for kids' reading. Love it.

2. The Zoo. The Fort Worth Zoo is awesome. It's clean and in a nice neighborhood, which is more than I can say about the Dallas zoo. It's got a variety of animals and a kid-friendly layout, with tree-shaded paths. There's also a train that crosses the zoo in case you don't want to walk all the way across. It's a great zoo.

3. Rosa's. Rosa's is a fabulous Mexican restaurant. I don't know why, but Rosa's is unique to Fort Worth and West Texas. You just won't find it in Dallas. They have delicious homemade tortillas, and paired with the queso- well, life just doesn't get much better. But, then again, I'm a Mexican fanatic.

4. "Where the West begins." On a positive note, at times I enjoy living in a city that prides itself in its western/cowboy heritage. Sites like the FW stockyards are fun to visit. Here you can see old railways, cattle, and small shops filled with cowboy boots, hats, etc. It's something different in a modern world.

5. The Texas Motor Speedway. This racetrack is just up the highway from us. I'm not a Nascar fan or anything, but I figure it's pretty cool to live so close to the track. Who knows, maybe we'll catch an event sometime.

Well that is my most current list of pros/cons, of which I hope the pros will soon overtake the cons.