Illustrations by Ashley Moran
Fort Worth deserves applause for countless reasons — its barbecue, its museums, its friendliness, its open-mindedness (we could go on) — but we’re going to pause our adoration for a brief spell to give you a mere 20 ways our city can become even better. From voter turnout to childhood literacy, there’s always room for improvement.
Reverse Fort Worth’s abysmal voter turnout.
We can talk all we want about ways to improve our city, but without casting a ballot, the talk is all for naught.
In 2017, a study aptly called Who Votes for Mayor? found that Fort Worth, with only 6.5% of eligible voters showing up at the polls, had the second worst turnout for its mayoral election among 50 cities that took part in the study — besting only its neighbor, Dallas. Worst yet, the study found the median age of those who voted was 66 years, while the median age of registered voters is 41 — a 25-year age gap. Only 1.1% of registered voters aged 18 to 34 bothered to cast a ballot.
With local elections seeing the least interest among voters, this means a vast majority of residents’ voices and opinions are not being heard, and the city council makeup and policies reflect that.
“People feel disconnected with our government,” Fernando Florez, a local advocate and grassroots community leader, says. “And the reason is simple, the city council today does not represent, and nor does it reflect the population.”
However, with current events that have catapulted issues to the forefront of locals’ minds — such as the recent extension of the Crime Control and Prevention District tax — there’s been a resurgence in voter turnout. The recent referendum and primary elections had Fort Worthians going to the polls in record numbers (yet still not percentages many advocates hope), according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.
The county, which is in charge of the elections, has done its part to make voting easier. Voters are no longer in their precinct, and you can now vote at any polling station in Tarrant County regardless of your address. However, the county can improve in spreading this word — advertising this change on social media, radio, television, and providing updates on which polling stations have lines and which do not. Anecdotally, Phyllis Allen, another grassroots advocate who tries to increase voter turnout, saw some challenges in the last election.
“[The county] had made a major change that said that you don’t have to vote at your precinct; you can vote anywhere,” she says. “So, there should be information, there should be signs when you come up that says, ‘If this poll has a line, there are five other polls in this area.’ And there should be addresses for those polls to tell people you can vote there.”
What you can do:
Vote. No matter your political persuasion or opinions on public transportation or public education, go to the polls and make your voice heard. While speaking and picketing in front of the courthouse doesn’t hurt a cause, the only real way to create progress within the city is to elect individuals who will fight for the causes you believe in.
“People always want a silver bullet for improving voter turnout,” Allen says. “The thing about voter turnout is it’s an individual choice. We have no problem turning out people for protest, we have no problem turning out people if there is a tragedy, but people have got to do the boring thing — and to a lot of people, voting is boring. People need to understand that if they don’t vote, nothing is going to change.”
Another way to help is to volunteer as a poll worker. Allen says that polling stations are in dire need of young people who understand the technology and can help shorten lines on election day.
Ashley Moran
Embrace — don’t be scared of or merely tolerate — our city’s growing diversity. In 2017, the City of Fort Worth appointed a 23-member panel to examine and recommend ways the city can improve issues related to race and culture. Dubbed the Race and Culture Task Force, it showed a willingness on the part of the city to improve equity. Ultimately, the city approved and is in the process of implementing 22 initiatives that range from criminal justice to economic development to education and much more.
Yet, when asked how the city is dealing with its growing diversity, Estrus Tucker, an independent consultant on civic engagement and native Fort Worthian — a homeboy, as he describes it — doesn’t mince words.
“Increasingly, not very well,” he says. “I was more hopeful during the race and culture dialogs and the 22 recommendations that were brought forth. But now, two years later, in particular in the aftermath of the George Floyd incident and the protests, I don’t see that cadre of leadership listening to our diverse population and what they are recommending and what they are giving voice to.
“Fort Worth is not newly diverse. Fort Worth has had a significant diversity for some time. It just hasn’t been engaged. One of the challenges is a shaky foundation because of failure to embrace the old diversity.”
Tucker suggests that one of the biggest issues is the fact that Fort Worth is very passive and non-confrontational when dealing with diversity. The city and its residents who don’t experience the consequences of noninclusivity firsthand don’t engage the issue like they should. This is in stark contrast to other cities that have seen progress on the matter.
“We’ve been able to do, for the most part, business as usual without much change,” Tucker says. “Part of it is a Catch-22. Dallas, historically, has been in your face and confrontational. Fort Worth has prided itself on not being so vocal or so overtly confrontational, which is not a bad thing. But, unfortunately, Fort Worth has not been progressing. We have not demonstrated that the Fort Worth way works for all of us, and so, increasingly, people have become disillusioned with the Fort Worth way.”
According to Tucker, racism goes beyond personal bias, and people need to recognize racism inherent within policy and the system itself.
“We can’t treat our problems, the racial inequities and disparities, only in terms of people’s personal conduct,” he explains. “I love Fort Worth. I want to see Fort Worth prosper, but we’re never going to get at the cause [of racial inequity] if we don’t have the courage to name it.”
What you can do:
While Tucker says inequities and racism go beyond our personal biases, he doesn’t suggest that we can’t each look inward and become more accepting of the city’s changing landscape. Yes, the city has some work to do enacting the 22 recommendations from the Race and Culture Task Force, but you can do your part by embracing diversity. Speak up, get involved, and make sure your everyday choices reflect your desire for an inclusive and equitable Fort Worth.
“If you value diversity and equity and inclusion, for example, your church ought to reflect that or be working to reflect that,” Tucker says. “Your entertainment, your socializing, where are you go, and what you do should begin to reflect that. You ought to ask a different set of questions if your neighborhood is all one race. You ought to ask a different set of questions if the city budget is focusing on some areas and neglectful of others.”
Consider redrawing our districts to reflect the changing population. Let’s get this straight: Austin, Fort Worth is not. And nor does the city desire to be just like our hip neighbor to the south. But when the city sees Austin’s growth and cultural impact, it sees similar potential within its own city borders — albeit, in a uniquely Fort Worthian way.
One way the city can emulate Austin is by redrawing its districts in an attempt to elect city councilpersons who reflect the population of the city.
Every 10 years, cities are required to redraw their districts based on information gathered from the U.S. census. In 2013, Austin established an independent redistricting committee to redraw its district boundaries, which resulted in a more diverse crop of elected officials. Fort Worth’s recent Race and Culture Task Force recommended a similar independent committee rather than the districts being redrawn by current councilpersons, who undoubtedly have conflicts of interest in such decisions.
According to Fernando Florez, the new census data will likely arrive in March of 2021, and the city council will have to decide on the method in which they should redraw the districts — leave it to an independent, nonpartisan committee, or redraw the districts themselves.
What you can do:
Educate yourself on the redistricting, and contact your city councilperson, letting them know where you stand on the matter.
Ashley Moran
Preserve and transform the city’s architectural wonders into mixed-use spaces. When one drives by downtown Fort Worth on the busy Interstate 30, the most prominent building is a vacant one: the Texas and Pacific Warehouse. Constructed in 1931, this art deco masterpiece stretches three city blocks and has many urban developers licking their chops at the idea of transforming it into a mix of shops, restaurants, and condominiums. Unfortunately, the building’s owners, a Dallas-based developer who envisions a mixed-use development, has moved the project at a glacial pace.
Other architectural wonders throughout the city — the Public Market on Henderson Street, Fort Worth Power and Light on North Main Street, and Grand Theater on Rosedale Avenue — have similarly undetermined fates. These mothballed buildings sitting on prime real estate are slowly dilapidating, thanks to neglect.
The burden is on developers to see the potential these buildings possess and invest in renovating them to retain their architectural integrity while creating an inviting space for potential patrons and residents. Ultimately, the renovation of these buildings will lead to higher population density and traffic within Fort Worth’s urban areas, which will cause greater development, higher use of public transportation, and a more desirable destination for tourists and conventions. This, of course, all equates to more revenue for the city.
“When we preserve buildings, we preserve reminders,” Mike Nichols, a Fort Worth historian and author of Lost Fort Worth, says. “Repurposed movie theaters such as the Ridglea and Bowie are reminders of life before Netflix.”
What you can do:
You can help preserve Fort Worth’s historical buildings by donating your time and/or money to Historic Fort Worth. You can read more about the organization at historicfortworth.org.
Create more green spaces. While the city’s beautiful architecture and concrete cityscape and infrastructure are paramount to keeping Fort Worth a desirable destination, one of Fort Worth’s greatest qualities for its local residents is its green spaces — city parks and trails.
But these spaces — Trinity Park and the Trinity Trails among them — are often overcrowded, forcing locals to ignore social distancing in the time of a pandemic.
“A few of the times that I’ve wandered out to the trails to try and take a bit of a respite, it’s crowded,” Megan Henderson, director of events and communications for Near Southside, Inc., says. “They’re really overcrowded. While Fort Worth has some great green space, it doesn’t have a whole bunch of signature space in each community. We’ve pooled all of our chips into the Trinity Trail System and these large-scale public parks, like Trinity Park.”
Henderson contends that the city needs to take a micro, not macro, look at where to invest in green spaces to make such areas more convenient for residents of all communities. A lot of smaller spaces tucked into communities are underprogrammed and, thus, not as inviting.
“I would like to think that if every community was able to have a park that really met the needs of that community, then the demand on Trinity Park and the Trinity Trails probably wouldn’t be quite as significant,” Henderson says.
But the city, with its small parks budget, can’t take it all on themselves. This is why the onus is on private developers to deliver parks and public spaces within their projects. An example of this is a Near Southside park called the Skinny, where an apartment complex, The Bowery, signed an agreement to take on additional maintenance costs beyond the city’s traditional budget. The Bowery saw the park as an asset to draw tenants, making maintenance of the park more than worth its investment.
What you can do:
Attend community meetings and express your community’s needs.
According to Henderson, members of communities who attend public meetings and engage in conversations about their needs or expectations have been fundamentally important to shaping the green spaces we enjoy today.
“They have vastly improved the design and development of those spaces by providing feedback,” Henderson says. “And in the end, they get a better resource, something that really meets their need.”
Improve law enforcement by implementing recommendations from panel of national experts. Last year, following the tragic killing of Atatiana Jefferson, the city selected a panel of national experts, which included Dr. Theron L. Bowman, the former Arlington police chief, to review the Fort Worth Police Department and provide recommendations for improvement.
“I was called upon to look at [the Fort Worth Police Department’s] policies and practices,” Bowman says. “To look at training, accountability systems, look at how the department documents its work, and to look at collecting and reporting procedures, as well as technology applications. We were called in to take a look in at all of those aspects and report back out to the public on what we found as well as what our recommendations were for the community.”
The work is still ongoing, but the panel has reviewed six different areas, including use of force, community engagement, crisis intervention, internal affairs, development and training, and technology and data. Ultimately, the panel found numerous areas where the department can see improvement. An executive summary of their review can be seen at the following website: fortworthtexas.gov/news/2020/07/PD-Expert-Review-Panel.
While refinement is important, Bowman does not think the public calls for defunding is the answer.
“Calls to defund the police largely are a frustration with the police or what people perceive as the police,” Bowman says. “What people in the U.S. expect is, in exchange for giving the police the authority to make arrests, to stop and search and arrest us, they expect the police to treat them with dignity and respect. And I think that this call to defund the police is by many a perception that the police are not holding up their end of the bargain. I think people are just really calling for the police to be public servants, better serve, to serve the interests of the members of the public.”
The recommendations will likely come in 2021, and, if implemented, Fort Worthians will see a more diverse, respectful, involved, well-trained, and technologically savvy police department.
What you can do:
Don’t be a stranger to police.
“It’s important, one, that residents and members of the community reach out and try and get to know the police officers working in their area,” Bowman says. “Try and know who’s assigned there regularly and get to know them on a first-name basis. Residents of Fort Worth also need to provide the department with feedback, with their opinion in what they notice, or if they believe that they’re not being treated right, or that police officers aren’t as present as they should be. Residents should be more inclined to engage the police and interact with them.”
Ashley Moran
Make the Trinity River more accessible through the Veloweb. Saying Fort Worth doesn’t offer much in terms of outdoors recreation will easily make Stacey Pierce, the executive director of Streams & Valleys, grimace. With the Trinity Trail system, and its current convenience, few Fort Worthians are lacking in access to outdoor activities.
Yet, that’s not to say it can’t improve.
“I think we’re fortunate to have a lot of wonderful trailheads and a lot of good connections,” Pierce says. “We’ve honestly done the easiest connections there are and are now turning our attention to the ones that are enormously complicated. Some of those are adjacent to the river and are just hard because of infrastructure, like an interstate or property ownership or something like that.”
Pierce explains that this all leads to the realization of a massive undertaking called the Veloweb, which is an effort to connect Fort Worth’s network of trails with all of the other networks and, ultimately, to Dallas. Pierce describes this as the Interstate system for those on foot.
“The idea is to knit together all of the trail and park roads in North Richland Hills, Arlington, White Settlement, and River Oaks with all of the various municipalities and cities between here and Dallas,” Pierce says. “We will eventually have more than a 230-mile network of trails.”
Another project Pierce is working on is the rail-to-trail connection, which takes old abandoned rail lines and transforms them into trails. The old Bomber Spur, which makes a 26 mile loop and connects the two forks of the river — Clear Fork and West Fork — is an old rail line that used to take supplies from the Convair Plant to Croswell Air Force Base, what is today Lockheed Martin and the Joint Reserve Naval Air Station. The goal is to make this into a trail that will accessibility to the Trinity River network of trails.
“It’s a great example of thinking about a neighborhood like Bomber Heights or Las Vegas Trail,” Pierce says. “Where you don’t have immediate access to the river or to the network that gets you to the river, but it’s starting to make those connections a reality.”
What you can do:
One way to get involved is through helping out with beautification. Because there’s only so much money to go around, taking on the role of beautification and trail maintenance could help free up funds for the local government to take on projects like the rails-to-trails connection. You can find out more information at streamsandvalleys.org.
“Beautification is not something that we can ask our governmental partners to do because they’re stretched thin,” Pierce says. “But as an advocacy group and a group of citizens who care, we could take that part of the project and make them really something special.”
Dine out and try different foods. Your local club or favorite fast-food eatery might have that specific meal that routinely hits the spot. While this might fill your gullet and appease your taste buds, it’s not doing much to help your city’s phenomenal culinary scene.
“I always get disappointed, especially during COVID, when I see a line wrapped around Chick-fil-A or I see the parking lot of Pappasito’s is full,” Sarah Castillo, owner of local restaurants Taco Heads and Tinies, says. “Hey, I love Chick-fil-A just as much as anybody else, but during these times, try to shop local, support your local restaurants.”
With too many locally owned restaurants to name, it’s important to understand the city is nearly filled to the brim with amazing local food.
“I definitely fall into the category of when I find something I like, I keep getting the same thing,” Ann Zadeh admits. “But in order to continue having a variety and continue having a cool cross-section of offerings, we need to break out of our comfort zones and try new things. When I hear about something new opening, I try to share it and get the word out.”
Dining out and trying new foods will not only introduce your palate to new and interesting foods, but it will also help local restaurants survive and increase your knowledge of the city you love.
What you can do:
Step out of your culinary comfort zone and try some new local food. Make it a point to try a new spot every week, even if it’s for takeout.
Ashley Moran
Read to children. Fort Worth has a goal to get 100% of kids reading at third-grade level by 2025 — third grade, because that’s when students begin to shift from learning to read to reading to learn.
But, like everything else in its wake, COVID-19 threw the course off-kilter. Elizabeth Brands — head of education giving at The Morris Foundation and executive director at Read Fort Worth, the organization leading the literacy initiative — says the group anticipates a regression among students who’ve been out of school for almost six months, what they refer to as the “COVID slide.”
“That is going to be the first and primary hurdle that we’re going to need to overcome as a community to achieve this third-grade reading goal,” Brands says.
Over the summer, Read Fort Worth teamed up with Best Place For Kids to create the Road to Readiness program, which included grade-specific instructional materials, an IT help desk, and social/emotional resources to help keep the momentum while kids were out of school.
Still, Fort Worth has a way to go when it comes to literacy. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) reports that 34% of Fort Worth ISD third-grade students scored at meets grade level or above on the state STAAR assessment in spring 2019 (spring 2020 data is not available due to students not taking the STAAR exam this spring).
What you can do:
One practical way citizens can support Read Fort Worth is to help staff the IT help line, assisting families who need technical support as they adjust to virtual schooling. Prior to the pandemic, Read Fort Worth also hosted a program that allowed citizens to read to children. Brands says the organization is looking at a way to continue this virtually. Visit readfortworth.org or bestplace4kids.com for more information.
Invest in mental health resources. People who suffer with mental health problems are far more likely to experience discrimination, marginalization, and problems with employment, finances, and relationships with friends and family. Every city wants people to live productive lives and participate fully in their community. Ignoring this basic problem that afflicts tens of thousands of Fort Worthians would be turning a blind eye to the root cause of many issues.
Fort Worth’s Morris Foundation, a private foundation dedicated to education, health care, and social services, is embarking on a five-year strategic priority to make Fort Worth a trauma-informed community.
According to Andy Miller, the head of health care and social services giving at The Morris Foundation, trauma plays a big role in mental health disorders and is something that requires treatment outside of the judicial system.
“We need to recognize that mental health issues oftentimes arise out of people having deep, traumatic experiences,” Miller says. “It doesn’t define their lives, but for many folks, it can create a situation where it leads them down the path of becoming involved in systems that aren’t going to lead to any type of healing or better outcomes.”
Miller explains that people who have experienced this trauma don’t do as well in school and are more likely to get involved in substance abuse and run-ins with law enforcement.
“We want to make sure that we have a strong mental health services aspect in Fort Worth,” Miller says. “People who have mental health issues need to have access to treatment regardless of their ability to pay. And we need to make sure our other systems are aligned to recognize when someone has experienced trauma and not exacerbate their issues by placing them in jail.”
The hope is for all service professionals to understand trauma and work to rehabilitate instead of punish. This rehabilitation will lead to less recidivism within the criminal justice system.
“Fort Worth has invested a lot over the last decade training professionals around trauma-informed care. And we think the next step is for our systems, our education system, law enforcement, health care, justice system, you name it, to start becoming trauma informed.”
What you can do:
Recognize the significance of trauma and don’t buy into many of the stigmas surrounding mental health problems.
“There’s still a lot of misperceptions that someone’s just not a strong enough person to deal with life’s challenges,” Miller says. “So, we want people to recognize the significance of trauma. And, if it’s happened to someone you know, we want you to know where resources exist to get help.”
Ashley Moran
Buy into higher density. Like most large cities, many Fort Worthians now have a desire to live closer to City Hall or the Kimbell Art Museum than to a convenient Walmart. This is a trend that’s sweeping the nation, and Fort Worth needs to buy into these changing city dynamics.
Of course, the city sprawl can’t be contained. With massive suburbanization and the incorporation of Alliance, Fort Worth’s footprint is as far-reaching as ever. But, as the population continues to increase, it’s important to provide new residents (and even some who want to escape the suburbs) with housing and resources within the city’s urban core.
“A wider city footprint really spreads the city’s resources very thin,” Megan Henderson says. “So, the more densely that we can build a city, the more opportunity that there is for maximization of the city’s financial and infrastructure resources.”
According to Dana Burghdoff, the assistant city manager, a higher population density will lead to greater efficiency, greater use of public transportation, less congestion, and a lower cost for infrastructure.
But, despite this rationale, why does it remain difficult to get people on board with the idea of increased density?
“There’s, of course, concern from folks who live in single-family neighborhoods that the peace and tranquility that they bought into might be disturbed,” Burghdoff says. “Because if you’re growing in density, then there might be properties near your neighborhood that are redeveloped to become more dense.”
Burghdoff calls this NIMBYism (Not In My Backyard) — a desire to keep one’s neighborhood the way it was when they initially moved in; they don’t want to see their neighborhood get infiltrated with multi-story urban villages.
Yet, with Fort Worth’s growth and an increased desire to live inside Loop 820, the city will inevitably grow upward as well as outward. The city, for its part, is doing what it can to encourage the former.
“You’re going to have suburban growth, and you’re going to have urban growth,” Burghdoff says. “We’re just going to try to do what we can to encourage the urban growth, whether that’s through more permits, permissive zoning, and economic incentives.”
What you can do:
Can Fort Worth be a city that embraces all of its residents?
According to Burghdoff, people need to educate themselves about how fast the city is growing and understand the best ways to accommodate this growth.
The city has identified numerous areas within Loop 820 as growth centers — areas that can accommodate increased population density. And, within these areas, the city has identified smaller subsets called urban villages where larger, multiuse buildings can accommodate growth. The increased density is already happening; it’s now up to local residents to embrace this change.
Build more permanent supportive housing. Homelessness has long been an issue in Fort Worth, due, in part, to the city lacking in permanent supportive housing.
Fort Worth currently has about 1,700 permanent supportive housing units, according to a 2019 housing inventory count by HUD. About 84 units exist within two single-site projects (the Palm Tree Apartments on Race Street and the Samaritan House on Hemphill). The rest are scattered-site, meaning people rent apartments wherever they can find a willing landlord.
More units are on the way, however. The Fort Worth Housing Finance Corporation has allocated $5 million for the construction of permanent supportive housing, with local foundations matching that amount, dollar for dollar. Two projects have already received the green light — a 48-unit project by New Leaf Community Service, near River Oaks, and another 50 units as part of Fort Worth Housing Solutions’ Stop Six Choice Neighborhood revitalization project.
Tara Perez — manager of Directions Home, a city-run program that seeks to make homelessness “rare, short-term, and nonrecurring” — says a major hurdle for the construction of permanent supportive housing is often neighborhood opposition. But housing mitigates the even greater problem of unsheltered homelessness, reducing camping and the number of people on the streets.
“As a community, we have to make a choice,” she says. “You can’t have it both ways. The more permanent supportive housing projects get killed, the more homeless people there are.”
What you can do:
Perez says there’s a disconnect between what the homeless say they need (a better apartment, bus tickets, and help finding a job) versus what people assume they need (food and clothing). One practical way citizens can help is by putting together welcome baskets for those moving into permanent supportive housing, filling them with home goods like towels and dishes. Locals can also donate to the Tarrant County Furniture Bank, which provides basic furniture at little or no cost to those transitioning from homelessness.
Support public schools. Last spring, Fort Worth schools found themselves in a tricky place when the pandemic relegated everyone to their homes, forcing many to homeschool and adjust to a virtual learning environment.
But, as the Fort Worth Independent School District came to realize, the struggle for some students wasn’t just the adjustment to technology — it was access to the technology itself.
“You see our kids standing outside of Poly High School, Eastern Hills, Dunbar, or Wyatt at 8 o’clock at night, working on a computer? It’s because they need Wi-Fi,” says FWISD trustee Tobi Jackson. “You see them standing outside the library or outside of a store? They need Wi-Fi. That is a huge need that we saw uncovered, and it’s a huge way that the community can help.”
Jackson hopes the school district will increase focus on low-income areas like 76105, the Polytechnic Heights neighborhood, where students not only have limited access to technology but also other needs like health care and social/emotional support.
What you can do:
One of FWISD’s biggest needs right now is new — not used — computers for students. Contact Peg Murphy at Community and Strategic Partnerships (817-814-2978, [email protected]) for information on how you can donate.
Pandemic aside, there are other ways to get involved, even if you do choose private school for your children. Invite a student to your workplace and have them shadow you at your job, read with kids, or work as a substitute teacher. You can also attend board meetings, which are open to the public, and speak up on issues that matter to you.
Ashley Moran
Ride public transportation. There are plenty of reasons why public transit advocates are calling for more support. Less road congestion, environmental benefits, better connectivity for those unable to drive or own a car — not to mention the economic incentives like attracting large companies (*cough* Amazon), which in turn bring jobs.
But here’s the problem: Public transit in Fort Worth, according to Tarrant Transit Alliance (TTA) chairman Andre McEwing, is “nondependable” and “nonaccessible.” Some buses take too long to arrive, stops aren’t always safe, and many public transit options don’t travel to enough destinations.
All this, transit advocates say, is largely due to the lack of financial support from the city. Fort Worth is one of the least-funded major cities when it comes to public transportation, says Trinity Metro board chair Jeff Davis. DART in Dallas, for example, spends about $254 per capita; Austin spends about $191; and Fort Worth, $71.
“We have a barebones public transit system,” he says.
This year, Trinity Metro is requesting about $10 million from the city for bus rapid transit, bus rerouting, and ZipZones connectivity (a rideshare service) among other items.
Ultimately, TTA would like to see Fort Worth become less bus-centric and more multimodal. Bus stops themselves can use improvement, like better access for those with disabilities, better coverage to protect from the elements, and electronic signage that shows the bus route schedule and arrival time clearly.
Another goal is to attract more transit-oriented development, like retail and living space that one can easily walk to and from the bus or train stop, says TTA president Rachel Albright.
“We get what we pay for,” she says.
What you can do:
Try it for yourself. Take the bus to work. Take the TEXRail to the airport or TRE to Dallas. Get a feel for the limitations of Fort Worth’s current transit system and envision what it could be. McEwing also recommends that businesses take advantage of Trinity Metro’s EasyRide program, which allows employers to offer transit discounts as part of their benefits package. And, of course, if you do support public transit, let your city councilperson know.
Ease the burden for working parents. As Fort Worth’s population creeps toward 1 million, its workforce continues to grow — and so do the needs of working parents.
According to Best Place for Working Parents (BP4WP), an arm of the Best Place for Kids initiative, 60% of nonworking parents say child care is a top reason they do not participate in the workforce, and 83% of millennials will leave one job for another with stronger family policies and support. On the employer’s end, replacing an employee costs a business six to nine months of that employee’s salary on average.
To help both businesses and the working parents they employ, BP4WP has been working with companies to integrate benefits like paid health care coverage, paternal leave, and remote work. BP4WP’s online assessment tool analyzes a company’s practices and recommends ways to improve, and businesses that are particularly family-friendly can also be recognized with a Best Place for Working Parents designation from Mayor Betsy Price.
For parents having difficulty just finding child care, Best Place for Kids launched a FIND! search tool in May. The tool matches parents with licensed child care providers from a directory of over 10,300 in Tarrant County.
What you can do:
If you’re a business owner or HR manager, take the BP4WP assessment tool (bestplace4kids.com/bp4wp) to see where your company stands when it comes to being a family-friendly workplace and what can be done better.
Another way to help working parents is to volunteer or donate to Child Care Associates, a nonprofit that assists families with paying for and accessing quality child care. But, as president and CEO Kara Waddell says, the best charity is person to person — reach out to your neighbor, speak up if there’s abuse, and find ways to help the families around you.
Shop local. There’s a sense of fraternity that seems to permeate Fort Worth’s local business community. Take it from Morgan Mercantile, an apparel company on South Main that’s uniquely connected to other small shops like itself. Morgan Mercantile specializes in custom merchandise like clothing and accessories for local brands, so when COVID-19 forced many to go on lockdown, business-to-business sales inevitably slowed.
The struggles that ensued from COVID-19 make supporting small businesses even more imperative than before. But Morgan Mercantile owner Chance Morgan encourages shopping local, pandemic or not. He credits Fort Worth makers not just for the quality and creativity of their products but also their willingness to get to know customers on a personal level.
“You get to talking to someone, you become friends, you have a beer, and from that point on, you’ve pretty much made a customer for life,” Morgan says. “You can’t really do that through sitting at a computer and clicking on something that you hope gets there in two days.”
What you can do:
Before heading to the usual big-box retailer, do some research on local shops that provide the same necessities. The online business directories of neighborhoods like Camp Bowie (campbowiedistrict.com/explore) or the Near Southside (southsideguide.org) are good places to start. Consider getting groceries from a smaller establishment (Neighbor’s House Grocery, The Table, farmers markets, etc.) or clothing from a local boutique. As Morgan says, “Any little bit helps.”
Ashley Moran
Back the arts. Historically, whenever there’s economic unrest or a recession, such as the one the nation finds itself in now, the arts are usually the first things that get the ax when the city is working out its annual budget.
“We’re in this moment where the arts may not get as much attention or support because there’s just not the bandwidth for it,” Ariel Davis, local artist and gallery manager at Artspace111, says. “Because if you have a city that’s choosing between putting food on the table for people or putting money into an art project, what are they going to pick?”
The answer is obvious, but the city has a long and proud history of supporting the arts. And not just the city’s amazing museums in the Cultural District but through public art installations and festivals that help support local artists, as well.
“I think what is really important about this moment is that, if it’s not possible for this city to continue to invest in the arts — because they were doing a really awesome job — now it’s the responsibility of private patrons because we can’t always rely on the city to fund art projects if the money’s not there,” Davis says.
Already seeing the need, new grants for artists from private entities have already started to surface. “The New Normal: An Artists Response to COVID-19,” is a new initiative led by the Fine Line Group, the family office of Sasha and Edward P. Bass, to support Fort Worth artists during these challenging times.
According to “The New Normal” website, “[the project] will culminate in the creation of an important and profound body of work that interprets and documents the uniquely Fort Worth experience, during these uncertain, surreal, and often worrisome times.”
What you can do:
Purchase and collect work from local artists.
“I have always said that collecting work from artists that you like is the most important thing,” Davis says. “It doesn’t have to be a big piece. You can collect small things and eventually that might lead up to something else. And, if you can’t collect, go and see the amazing pieces from local artists and blast it on social media.”
You can also use services such as patreon.com, where you can give monthly donations to your favorite local artists.
Live sustainably. Unlike other major Texas cities like Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and (ahem) Dallas, Fort Worth is one that does not have a sustainability office nor director nor climate action plan. As of 2019, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy ranks Fort Worth at No. 44 among 75 large U.S. cities when it comes to energy conservation, scoring 26.5 out of 100.
The city does have an Environmental Quality division and Environmental Master Plan in the works. But John MacFarlane, chair of the Greater Fort Worth Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group, says the current draft of the master plan is lacking in the way it addresses climate change and the impact of pollution on minority and low-income populations.
The Sierra Club is working with climate action group 350.org to draft a sustainability master plan that they plan to bring to the city. They’d like to see city-owned vehicles go electric or hybrid and alternative energy production methods, like solar panels or wind energy, installed on all city buildings, among other recommendations.
What you can do:
Aside from obvious practices like recycling or bringing a reusable bag to the grocery store, MacFarlane also encourages citizens to participate in the city’s Residential Food Scrap Composting Pilot Program — residents receive a kitchen countertop pail and five-gallon bucket that they fill with foods scraps, then drop it off at one of 12 collection sites. More information can be found at fortworthtexas.gov/solidwaste/compost.
To get involved with the local Sierra Club, visit sierraclub.org/texas/greater-fort-worth.
Increase equity. Much of what plagues our city, as it does every metropolitan area, is a lack of equity; there isn’t proportional representation based on factors such as race and socioeconomic status. For instance, despite our large Latino population (35% of the total population), Fort Worth has only one Latino city councilperson, and few of our business leaders are people of color. Much of what has already been discussed will eventually lead to equity — redrawing the city’s districts, improvement of law enforcement, and implementing the Race and Culture Task Force’s 22 initiatives being chief among them.
However, there are additional paths to increasing equity, and it’ll take looking to other cities for inspiration. In Portland, their economic development agency launched an Inclusive Startup Fund, which provides capital, mentoring, and business advising to startups founded by underrepresented groups. Such an inclusive growth strategy in Fort Worth will not only expand equity, but it will also foster innovation, increase employment, and create healthy competition.
According to a study conducted at the University of California in 2014, the length of citywide growth spells directly correlates with higher levels of income inequality and social and spatial segregation. With a stronger, more prosperous Fort Worth the ultimate goal, our city should embrace equity and take steps to encourage inclusive growth.
Every city wants all of its residents to prosper and to have the same opportunities, not just the few, and increased equity means lower poverty, decreased homelessness, and stronger and longer-lasting growth.
What you can do:
Listen to other voices and embrace a nonhomogenous city government. After all, homogeneity would make for a pretty boring big city.
Get involved.
After interviewing a collective 29 people for this story, there was one common thread that ran through each conversation: the need for Fort Worthians to get more involved.
This is an umbrella way to improve Fort Worth; if everyone chipped in and expressed their needs, wants, and concerns to the powers that be — because, believe it or not, they are listening — our city would improve exponentially.
The city is doing its part to foster communication with its residents. City council meetings are now streamed live on Facebook, and people can chime in with questions and concerns, and the city has also adopted a texting service, where Fort Worthians can text questions and get answers. According to councilperson Ann Zadeh, the Facebook Live streams get close to 100 participants. This should be closer to 1,000.
However, for this to work and the city as a whole to improve, it’s important for all to be involved — regardless of the neighborhood or the property taxes one pays.
“In the past, we’ve been a very squeaky-wheel-gets-the-grease kind of delivery system,” Zadeh says. “And it’s important that that doesn’t happen because that’s not necessarily equitable.”
This means the loudest voices get the most attention from the government, leaving areas of the city largely ignored. This is leading the city to try to find innovative ways to reach people in areas that aren’t as politically connected.
Beyond being an attentive and engaged citizen, there are other ways to get involved.
Look into local charities and shelters where you can donate your time and money. If you want to help create change, join your kids’ PTA, become a reading mentor, volunteer, vote, and broaden your network. This is really the foundation of the old Fort Worth way.
