A Tale of Two Downtowns

IMAGE

1

I recently returned from Philadelphia. I was pleasantly surprised to see many of the ideas expressed at this website already in place in Philly.
Since Philadelphia is a very touristy town, I decided to see how Fort Worth would compare. I could have done this with any tourist-like location, I just happened to be in Philadelphia.
I created a presentation of ideas and comparisons - http://www.slideshare.net/iamano/we-can-do-it-and-better
I saw a great mix of downtown features. They had businesses large and small. There was a downtown mall with typical mall like stores, Ross, Dress Barn, but they also had funky one-of-kind shops too.
Their public transportation was fairly easy to follow. I was able to get around by bus and subway without too much confusion. The affordable transportation was appreciated, since parking is limited and very expensive.
There seemed to be a lot of rental and condo living space available and a lot of it was over retail. I didn’t have an opportunity to check pricing. One cool thing I noticed were some balconies built-in to the older buildings. I liked the idea that the older buildings still could have balconies.
I found the city to be very walkable, but the sidewalks were very uneven. Although I saw some bike lanes, Fort Worth seems to be more biker friendly.
I saw about the same number as homeless as I see in our downtown. Fort Worth definitely feels cleaner. Philadelphia has a horrible problem with graffiti. A few years ago they offered the graffiti artist opportunities to do murals, so they have some great ones, but there is still a lot of tagging.
At night Philadelphia didn’t seem to be as well lit as downtown Fort Worth and I didn’t sense the security presence like we have downtown, although I didn’t feel unsafe.
As you can see in my presentation, I am not advocating that we become Philadelphia, but since I was there anyway, it was a great opportunity to make some observations.