Is Fort Worth Texas's Most Overlooked City? (Houston, Dallas: live, stats)

[marcopolo2000]

Originally Posted by vaupelfda

It's a great city and people around the "metroplex" generally know that and treat it that way.

But to alot of us who aren't from DFW, Ft. Worth does seem overlooked. Growing up in Houston, I never heard anything about Ft. Worth. You knew it existed but there was never really a need to visit. Infact, we just called the entire Metroplex, "Dallas". I live in DFW now and I can count on one hand how many times I've gone to Fort Worth. It has a nice little downtown but other than that,not much is going on for a city that size.

El Paso is overlooked to alot of people because its out west and in another time zone but atleast its the principal city of its region.

Corpus Christi is another city thats overlooked, IMO. One would never guess that its one of the largest cities on the gulf coast, population-wise. You would think it would have alot of what Galveston has but it does not.

[dollaztx]

Originally Posted by TheOverdog

McAllen is an hour from the coast and the ocean there is not an oil slick. If TX coast wasn't so poorly managed, it would be the equivelent of San Diego.

That's true, it has always boggled my head why TX southern coast doesn't have the equivalent of a San Diego. There just seems to be a major coastal city missing there. I know the McAllen/Harlingen area is there but it's not really well organized and not many people know about it on a national level. A professional sports team would do wonders but first the area has to get well organized to land one.

I wouldn't say Ft Worth is forgotton not more than El Paso anyways, but it just doesn't get no respect and is seen as an afterthought because of Dallas. People tend to ignore it for practicality purposes instead of the more formal "Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex" every time you speak of the area.

[dollaztx]

Originally Posted by marcopolo2000

But to alot of us who aren't from DFW, Ft. Worth does seem overlooked. Growing up in Houston, I never heard anything about Ft. Worth. You knew it existed but there was never really a need to visit. Infact, we just called the entire Metroplex, "Dallas". I live in DFW now and I can count on one hand how many times I've gone to Fort Worth. It has a nice little downtown but other than that,not much is going on for a city that size.

El Paso is overlooked to alot of people because its out west and in another time zone but atleast its the principal city of its region.

This

[TT Dave]

Like some of the other posters have already said, El Paso is by far the most overlooked city in Texas IMO. Even though it's a large metro area it just doesn't seem to get much attention at all. With that being said, Fort Worth is still overlooked to some degree.

[cBach]

Originally Posted by dollaztx

That's true, it has always boggled my head why TX southern coast doesn't have the equivalent of a San Diego. There just seems to be a major coastal city missing there. I know the McAllen/Harlingen area is there but it's not really well organized and not many people know about it on a national level. A professional sports team would do wonders but first the area has to get well organized to land one.

I wouldn't say Ft Worth is forgotton not more than El Paso anyways, but it just doesn't get no respect and is seen as an afterthought because of Dallas. People tend to ignore it for practicality purposes instead of the more formal "Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex" every time you speak of the area.

They say Galveston would be the size of NYC right now if the "Big One" wouldn't have wiped it off the map in the early 1900's.

Corpus Christi has a fairly decent port and a military complex, but its port competes with Houston and that is a losing proposition. All rice, corn, cotton, etc... from Texas mainly goes through the Houston port. All imports container wise come into Houston.

The military complex is still in Corpus, as are some refineries, but Corpus never had the same deposits as the Houston area. The beaches are nice but not nearly as nice as S. Padre Island.

South Texas is so remote and that is why it has not developed. S. Padre is a gem, but otherwise S. Texas is a really really poor area.

[winkosmosis]

Originally Posted by TheOverdog

No, south Texas is Texas's most overlooked area, and contains TX's most overlooked cities. McAllen–Edinburg–Mission contains 750k residents and is rising. Now that's less than Ft Worth, but I bet you barely even knew that area existed. If you count population across the Mexican border, it's almost 2 million people. Popular metro areas like Lubbock, Amarillo, and Corpus Christi have fewer people by far but have higher status and popularity.

Ft Worth, on the other hand is one of the state's most popular and internationally known cities.

South Texas is not overlooked. Many undocumented immigrants move there

[RMFW]

I probably should have been clearer in my original post. What I meant was, relative to its size and assets, is Fort Worth the most overlooked city in Texas? Now, obviously if you live right there in the metroplex, you're probably less likely to overlook Fort Worth (I say that, but plenty of people on the eastern side of the metro seem to do it all the time), but I was referring more to people outside of North Texas (i.e. Houston, Austin, San Antonio, etc.).

I have lived all over Texas and in places like Houston and, especially, (oddly enough) Austin, whenever talking about where you might consider moving to, or what city might be worth visiting for a weekend or, what city has this or that to offer, people will rattle through Houston, Dallas (universally despised outside of Dallas, by the way), Austin and San Antonio, but if they go any further down that list, it seems that cities like Lubbock or Waco will come up in conversation before Fort Worth gets mentioned (despite being only a fraction of the size). Of course, whenever someone finally does mention Fort Worth in that type of conversation there is usually an "oh yeah..." moment where they then talk about how nice Fort Worth is and how they "forget about Fort Worth."

So I suppose what I'm asking is is there any other city in Texas that gets the "oh yeah, I forget about that one" treatment as much as Fort Worth and if so, why? I can see El Paso as a serious contender (especially being next down from Fort Worth on the list in terms of population), but I think that that is just a factor of it being so far removed from the rest of the population that most people take it out of consideration (by that point you may as well be discussing moving to or going to Albuquerque or New Orleans). Is Dallas's shadow so large and dark that it can fully conceal Fort Worth? Even though it is DFW, fewer and fewer people really call it that these days (probably due to the growth of some of the surrounding suburban cities like Plano, Frisco, Southlake, etc.).

As a side anecdote, I even once heard someone (a non-Texan to be fair) admit that she thought that "Fort Worth" was just the name of the airport (as in "I flew from Austin-Bergstrom to Dallas-Fort Worth and then on to Houston-Intercontinental). Not saying she was bright, but a funny and (I fear) not uncommon mistake.

[dollaztx]

Originally Posted by winkosmosis

South Texas is not overlooked. Many undocumented immigrants move there

Not really, I'm sure there is but undocumented immigrants tend to live further inland. Think Dallas, Houston, Los Angeles. Most of South Texas residents are documented or Tejanos that have lived there for many generations. In California, Los Angeles which is more inland has a bigger undocumented population and percentage than San Diego. This is the same case as Texas. The only difference being that Whites, Asians and other races haven't embraced the area like they have San Diego.

[rr2005]

Originally Posted by marcopolo2000

But to alot of us who aren't from DFW, Ft. Worth does seem overlooked. Growing up in Houston, I never heard anything about Ft. Worth. You knew it existed but there was never really a need to visit. Infact, we just called the entire Metroplex, "Dallas". I live in DFW now and I can count on one hand how many times I've gone to Fort Worth. It has a nice little downtown but other than that,not much is going on for a city that size.

El Paso is overlooked to alot of people because its out west and in another time zone but atleast its the principal city of its region.

Corpus Christi is another city thats overlooked, IMO. One would never guess that its one of the largest cities on the gulf coast, population-wise. You would think it would have alot of what Galveston has but it does not.

A lot of us from west Texas simply call the metroplex "Dallas". This seems to really frustrate a couple of friends I have from Ft. Worth. But really, coming from the perspective of someone traveling from the western side of the state, the area from Weatherford to Rockwall just seems like one continuous city, which many here just refer to as "Dallas." I agree that El Paso is the most overlooked.

[RMFW]

Originally Posted by rr2005

A lot of us from west Texas simply call the metroplex "Dallas". This seemed to really frustrate a couple of friends I had from Ft. Worth. But really, coming from the western side of the state, the area from Weatherford to Rockwall just seems like one continuous city, which many here just refer to as "Dallas."

Interestingly enough, the City of Dallas's Economic Development Department has been pretty public about their deliberate efforts to encourage people inside and outside of the region to refer to the metro area strictly as "Dallas." Might be of interest to note that from downtown-to-downtown, Fort Worth and Dallas are exactly the same distance away from one another as Washington, D.C. is from Baltimore (though Fort Worth is larger than both of these cities, there are several more significantly sized cities in between Dallas and Fort Worth than there are between Washington and Baltimore and, together with being in the North Texas Plains as opposed to being along the East Coast, that probably contributes to the issue). Nevertheless, I couldn't imagine anyone getting away with referring to just one of those two cities as representative of the combined metro area(s).