Fort Worth, TX
Fort Worth has been selected as one of the Best Places to Retire for Republicans. Temperatures in the city reflect Texas’s legendary heat, ranging from the 30s and 40s in the winter to the 80s and 90s in the summer. Fort Worth is the western anchor of the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington metroplex. While the city is known for its cattle-driven history, today aerospace, energy, and technology drive its economy.
Call it a cow town with a bit of an edge. Fort Worth, a city decidedly partial to the cattle-skull-and-cowboy-hat traditions of its roots as a Civil War-era livestock hub, continues to grow because of a diverse group of modern industries. The city consistently ranks well in livability surveys and enjoys a thriving cultural scene. While the stockyards historic district draws raucous crowds to the likes of Billy Bob’s Texas (billed as the world’s largest honky-tonk), Fort Worth also boasts one of Texas’s most walkable downtowns. The Sundance Square area is home to both the city’s best sushi and the Philip Johnson-designed Fort Worth Water Gardens.
For a city its size (population 610,534), Fort Worth also packs an artistic punch. It is home to two world-class art museums, the Kimbell Art Museum and the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, which have notable works by Richard Serra and Philip Guston. The city also has a top-notch performance space, the Bass Performance Hall, which hosts the annual Van Cliburn international piano competition. The Fort Worth Zoo and Botanic Gardens deserve an honorable mention as well, as do several museums devoted to Fort Worth’s history, including the Cattle Raisers Museum and the National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame.
For college football fans, there’s Texas Christian University’s Horned Frogs (the team plays in the Mountain West conference), and the university offers other NCAA events as well. In the professional arena, Fort Worth’s proximity to Dallas puts the Mavericks, Cowboys, Rangers, and Stars within easy driving distance. For local fans, the Fort Worth Cats play baseball at LaGrave Field near the stockyards.
There are few states redder than the Lone Star State, and Fort Worth is unique among America’s larger cities when it comes to a hefty right-leaning bent. Nearly two thirds of its residents identify themselves as Republican.
Colleges in Forth Worth include Texas Wesleyan University and Texas Christian University, plus smaller institutions like the College of St. Thomas More and a campus of the University of Texas at Arlington. The University of North Texas Health Science Center is the city’s only medical school.
The 16 hospitals and 60 clinics in the city limits include Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital, which was awarded the 2008–09 Consumer Choice Award by the National Research Corp. and has held the title for 13 years. Other large hospitals include the JPS Health Network, which last year moved into its new Patient Care Pavilion, a 233,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art emergency and acute-care facility with 12 operating rooms. The Baylor All Saints Medical Center has a fast-growing maternity center and organ transplant services, and the Cook Children’s Health Care System is known for pediatric expertise.
For decades, jobs in Fort Worth have been less about herds of cattle and more about fleets of planes. It’s an aerospace and airline town, with large area employers including American Airlines, Lockheed Martin Tactical Aeronautics Co., and Bell Helicopter. Military contracts are important to some of these companies. But a variety of companies like Burlington Northern railroad and RadioShack have corporate headquarters here, as do retailer Pier 1 Imports and drugmaker Alcon, which bases its U.S. operations in the city. Fort Worth’s position near the Barnett Shale natural gas field also means jobs in energy, and high-tech manufacturing and tourism contribute to the economy as well. The median household income is $41,002.
The median home price in Fort Worth is $128,500. The slump in residential home prices has been less severe than in many other parts of the country as the city and much of Texas managed to skirt the more extreme excesses of the real estate boom and bust. Office vacancies in downtown Fort Worth have held up relatively well also. They’re less than half the rate of nearby Dallas.
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