Moving to Fort Worth from AZ

[Floridaherbgirl]

Arlington is one my LEAST favorite cities in the DFW area.

[C24L]

I am from Arlington and it is not a good place to grow up for families in my opinion.

[tcualum]

Whereas I have lived in Arlington for almost 2 decades and think (depending on the neighborhood) it's a great place to raise a family. The parks are excellent and varied, the library system is well supported by the city (I used to be a public librarian and so know what I'm talking about.), and the recreation system has lots of activities for children and families. Where we live we're within 1.5 miles of 4 very different parks and within an easy drive of two branch libraries. The people are friendly (I run into friends all over town making the city feel like a big small town.) and without pretense. There are some lovely neighborhoods with character homes and mature trees. While the restaurant scene isn't great it's improving and it's an easy drive to take advantage of what's offered in Fort Worth and Dallas.

Not all of the school system is good but there are some excellent schools if you know where to look. The residents support the schools and even a few years ago voted yes on a 3/4 billion dollar bond package for the school district. If your child is in high school she has some great opportunities not available in many ISDs. There are programs that allow a student to earn an IB degree plus the student can earn dual credit through AP classes, TCC Southeast campus classes, and/or classes at UTA.

I agree that the city isn't perfect. I think it's nuts that the city doesn't have public transit and am still upset that we got Jerry World instead of transit. For the record I voted for transit and against Jerry World. I agree that the traffic sucks but the city is trying to make improvements to that such as building the Central Drive bridge over I-20 and (hopefully) fixing the mess that is the 360/I-30 interchange. A lot of the traffic though is through traffic that the city can't do much about or problems such as the freight train bisecting the city that are too costly to fix. The city stretches very far north and south and is relatively narrow in comparison which doesn't help. I also agree that the city lacks character but the city is trying to remedy that by improving downtown and making other improvements.

I guess I'm tired of the third largest city in the DFW area not getting the appreciation and respect it deserves for what it does right.