I used to live in Dallas. Its downtown was often equally empty, but new office-to-residential conversions are beginning to change that. Without even looking at a map or analysis, I bet there's capacity for at least 10,000 more residential units in downtown Ft. Worth. Downtown will likely remain a tourist/special event spot until more people live there.
100% re: Fort Worth—there's a ton of potential for redevelopment. Outside the Sundance Square area, there are a number of parking lots and nondescript low-rise buildings. You could imagine it more peopled.
I was in Downtown Dallas for a conference a couple months ago, and then again briefly when I stumbled across the Jacobs quote—which is to say I haven't spent a ton of time there. But we walked around a lot of it, and almost all of it felt depressed and empty. Unlike Fort Worth, the streetscape was mostly not inviting, with the notable exceptions of Klyde Warren Park and Stone Place (Giant Eyeball). I hope it gets better!
My first professional orchestra audition after the pandemic was for Fort Worth, and had similar thoughts. The downtown is remarkably clean and “nice,” but empty. Notably, there was no downtown grocery store.
After the audition I texted an old teacher that I got close but didn’t get the job, and she responded, “Everything happens for a reason—you didn’t want to live there anyway!” How right she was.
Ryan - there is much more to story of downtown Fort Worth than urban design. In the not too distant past (just a few years ago), downtown was thriving. And if you'll read up on the history of downtown and Sundance Square, you'll know that the success of downtown was due in large part to the Bass family...in particular Ed Bass. Mid 1980's-1990's downtown was a desolate, dangerous place. The 2000's saw a downtown revolution. The Barnett Shale brought downtown to new heights. It boomed, more or less, all the way to the late 2010's. What happened? Ed Bass, then 72, married a 36 year old woman named Sasha Camacho. I'll let you Google the details, but the upshot here is that Sasha has since taken the reigns of Sundance and torpedoed downtown. It's been brutal to watch. But overall Fort Worth is still booming. Lots of great stuff going on...just not downtown anymore...sadly.
This is a well-done essay, Ryan, decrying the perceived antiseptic legacy of urban renewal, and suggesting that cultural programming can temporarily mask the voids you describe. I am not very familiar with the area (I remember CNU speaking favorably of Sundance Square). Still, I suspect that more has been written, and that your keen observations are neither in a vacuum nor the result of a district-wide vacuum cleaner. Where are the further links to lead me beyond Jane and the familiar litany of suburban sprawl? Is this stuff working, or is it pablum: https://www.fortworthtexas.gov/departments/development-services/urban-design? I think you are saying, More than Sundance Square, Live There? I get your Wallingford reference from my years as a lawyer in Connecticut, by the way.
Thank you, Chuck! It was my first time there, so take this as an initial inquiry, not the final word. We made quick visits to other parts of town, notably to the excellent Kimbell Art Museum in the Cultural District (which was an anti-pedestrian district) and Panther City BBQ in Southside (a historic neighborhood that seemed to be redeveloping). But most of our five days was spent in downtown—and there it seems that while the mission of the Urban Design Team is well-intentioned, design guidelines aren't sufficient for drawing people in to live and work. There are some redevelopment projects in the pipeline that will bring in more people, but it seems to me that the downtown population is below some critical mass needed to really activate it.
Any interesting remembrances of Wallingford or Connecticut, by the way?
Yes, by all means well intentioned Urban Design guidelines and regulations are not going to be a residential draw without a heck of a lot more public/private partnership efforts, or the efforts of a single minded developer willing to take risks without immediate rewards. I lived this challenge in Seattle, and since I left, things have gone very much the way of consolidating, streamlining and eliminating various design mechanisms, which often coupled with environmental review became the delay tool of NIMBYs. It’s quite a pendulum swing given the community design review system that was built over the years there. And entirely ironic given the United Kingdom’s recent interest in bulking up design review at the national and local levels. There is so much involved in these discussions. And I have a profound sense of déjà vu here in New Mexico, as I watch Santa Fe in particular struggling with affordability. As for Wallingford, my memories, although a bit dated are very much what you describe!
There's a weird corollary to this: the "old buildings" today -- ie the cheap places -- are increasingly the leftovers of the early suburbs. So a lot of the really interesting little businesses are in places like Plugerville... and the artists are moving to Bastrop or Burnett.
It's harder, though. First, most of those places don't have the critical mass of old, cheap space that made it possible for urban centers like Austin to accumulate enough stuff to go from "dilapidated" to "destination." And the spaces they do have are isolated and disconnected from each other by the suburban form, so it's hard for those little businesses to cluster.
But it does happen. In the Denver Area, as the Highlands has revitalized and become upscale, it's kind of gotten stagnant. But just to the west, the old suburban main drag in Wheat Ridge has become very cool as the next generation of creative businesses, that can't afford Highlands, moves there instead.
I stopped by my hometown of Wallingford, CT after the Strong Towns National Gathering and had similar thoughts. Wallingford was settled in 1670 but most of the buildings in its fairly dense historic center date to the late 1800s to early 1900s, when it was serviced by streetcar lines and the New Haven Railroad. Over forty years of living and visiting there, I've seen so many of those historic storefronts change hands, reflecting a cycle of small-scale commercial creation and destruction.
Even as the city spread out, not up, and retail moved to arterial big-box stores or to shopping and strip malls, downtown still provides a platform for new commercial activity. But it doesn't exactly feel vibrant, and despite some long-time stalwarts, I have to think the many more failures over the years reflect in part the lack/decline of residential density downtown (but also: retail and restaurants are hard!).
This was many years ago, but part of the marketing of DT Fort Worth was the cool, Olde Tyme signs. This was an urbanist fail. The signs were just window dressing. There was no "bookstore" at the sign reading *BOOKSTORE*. There was no bootmaker at the *BOOTS* sign, etc. Streets should facilitate wayfinding. Signs should mean something.
There was definitely an element of "Disneyfication" to it, including in the architecture of the Bass Performance Hall and the adjacent Cheesecake Factory.
Exactly. It was like the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce was producing a Disney theme park. The solution is urban neighborhoods where it's great to live. Build for residents and tourists will follow.
I used to live in Dallas. Its downtown was often equally empty, but new office-to-residential conversions are beginning to change that. Without even looking at a map or analysis, I bet there's capacity for at least 10,000 more residential units in downtown Ft. Worth. Downtown will likely remain a tourist/special event spot until more people live there.
100% re: Fort Worth—there's a ton of potential for redevelopment. Outside the Sundance Square area, there are a number of parking lots and nondescript low-rise buildings. You could imagine it more peopled.
I was in Downtown Dallas for a conference a couple months ago, and then again briefly when I stumbled across the Jacobs quote—which is to say I haven't spent a ton of time there. But we walked around a lot of it, and almost all of it felt depressed and empty. Unlike Fort Worth, the streetscape was mostly not inviting, with the notable exceptions of Klyde Warren Park and Stone Place (Giant Eyeball). I hope it gets better!
My first professional orchestra audition after the pandemic was for Fort Worth, and had similar thoughts. The downtown is remarkably clean and “nice,” but empty. Notably, there was no downtown grocery store.
After the audition I texted an old teacher that I got close but didn’t get the job, and she responded, “Everything happens for a reason—you didn’t want to live there anyway!” How right she was.
Ha, I think it worked out for you! The lack of a grocery store is likely an underrated part of this story.
Ryan - there is much more to story of downtown Fort Worth than urban design. In the not too distant past (just a few years ago), downtown was thriving. And if you'll read up on the history of downtown and Sundance Square, you'll know that the success of downtown was due in large part to the Bass family...in particular Ed Bass. Mid 1980's-1990's downtown was a desolate, dangerous place. The 2000's saw a downtown revolution. The Barnett Shale brought downtown to new heights. It boomed, more or less, all the way to the late 2010's. What happened? Ed Bass, then 72, married a 36 year old woman named Sasha Camacho. I'll let you Google the details, but the upshot here is that Sasha has since taken the reigns of Sundance and torpedoed downtown. It's been brutal to watch. But overall Fort Worth is still booming. Lots of great stuff going on...just not downtown anymore...sadly.
This is a well-done essay, Ryan, decrying the perceived antiseptic legacy of urban renewal, and suggesting that cultural programming can temporarily mask the voids you describe. I am not very familiar with the area (I remember CNU speaking favorably of Sundance Square). Still, I suspect that more has been written, and that your keen observations are neither in a vacuum nor the result of a district-wide vacuum cleaner. Where are the further links to lead me beyond Jane and the familiar litany of suburban sprawl? Is this stuff working, or is it pablum: https://www.fortworthtexas.gov/departments/development-services/urban-design? I think you are saying, More than Sundance Square, Live There? I get your Wallingford reference from my years as a lawyer in Connecticut, by the way.
Thank you, Chuck! It was my first time there, so take this as an initial inquiry, not the final word. We made quick visits to other parts of town, notably to the excellent Kimbell Art Museum in the Cultural District (which was an anti-pedestrian district) and Panther City BBQ in Southside (a historic neighborhood that seemed to be redeveloping). But most of our five days was spent in downtown—and there it seems that while the mission of the Urban Design Team is well-intentioned, design guidelines aren't sufficient for drawing people in to live and work. There are some redevelopment projects in the pipeline that will bring in more people, but it seems to me that the downtown population is below some critical mass needed to really activate it.
Any interesting remembrances of Wallingford or Connecticut, by the way?
Yes, by all means well intentioned Urban Design guidelines and regulations are not going to be a residential draw without a heck of a lot more public/private partnership efforts, or the efforts of a single minded developer willing to take risks without immediate rewards. I lived this challenge in Seattle, and since I left, things have gone very much the way of consolidating, streamlining and eliminating various design mechanisms, which often coupled with environmental review became the delay tool of NIMBYs. It’s quite a pendulum swing given the community design review system that was built over the years there. And entirely ironic given the United Kingdom’s recent interest in bulking up design review at the national and local levels. There is so much involved in these discussions. And I have a profound sense of déjà vu here in New Mexico, as I watch Santa Fe in particular struggling with affordability. As for Wallingford, my memories, although a bit dated are very much what you describe!
There's a weird corollary to this: the "old buildings" today -- ie the cheap places -- are increasingly the leftovers of the early suburbs. So a lot of the really interesting little businesses are in places like Plugerville... and the artists are moving to Bastrop or Burnett.
It's harder, though. First, most of those places don't have the critical mass of old, cheap space that made it possible for urban centers like Austin to accumulate enough stuff to go from "dilapidated" to "destination." And the spaces they do have are isolated and disconnected from each other by the suburban form, so it's hard for those little businesses to cluster.
But it does happen. In the Denver Area, as the Highlands has revitalized and become upscale, it's kind of gotten stagnant. But just to the west, the old suburban main drag in Wheat Ridge has become very cool as the next generation of creative businesses, that can't afford Highlands, moves there instead.
I stopped by my hometown of Wallingford, CT after the Strong Towns National Gathering and had similar thoughts. Wallingford was settled in 1670 but most of the buildings in its fairly dense historic center date to the late 1800s to early 1900s, when it was serviced by streetcar lines and the New Haven Railroad. Over forty years of living and visiting there, I've seen so many of those historic storefronts change hands, reflecting a cycle of small-scale commercial creation and destruction.
Even as the city spread out, not up, and retail moved to arterial big-box stores or to shopping and strip malls, downtown still provides a platform for new commercial activity. But it doesn't exactly feel vibrant, and despite some long-time stalwarts, I have to think the many more failures over the years reflect in part the lack/decline of residential density downtown (but also: retail and restaurants are hard!).
I love whoever had the idea to do that picture and neon sign
Yeah! It was fun to randomly encounter.
This was many years ago, but part of the marketing of DT Fort Worth was the cool, Olde Tyme signs. This was an urbanist fail. The signs were just window dressing. There was no "bookstore" at the sign reading *BOOKSTORE*. There was no bootmaker at the *BOOTS* sign, etc. Streets should facilitate wayfinding. Signs should mean something.
There was definitely an element of "Disneyfication" to it, including in the architecture of the Bass Performance Hall and the adjacent Cheesecake Factory.
Exactly. It was like the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce was producing a Disney theme park. The solution is urban neighborhoods where it's great to live. Build for residents and tourists will follow.