Why We Love Living in Fort Worth

In 2015, relocated my family and my company, Saddleback Leather, to Fort Worth, TX, but didn’t realize that it is the best big city in Texas to raise a family and relocate a business to until we got here. I had lived in Dallas, San Antonio, El Paso and the Corpus Christi area for years and had always wondered where I’d move to next... until we moved to Fort Worth.

Why I wrote this?

I compiled the data and wrote all of this because when I find something that I like or that helps me, I want to help others to know about it too. Kind of like I explain how to tell the difference between high quality and low quality leather and bags. I also wrote extensively about Polyester and how it causes bad sleep, infertility and skin problems. I know it's a little odd, but it brings me joy. So I did it with my city too because people need to know.

The following points are explained below more in depth and are all based on 2019 public government data and extensive privately funded studies about the 5 Largest Cities in Texas:

1. The city with the BEST WEATHER in Texas is Fort Worth
2. The best city for ALLERGIES and ASTHMA is Fort Worth
3. The SAFEST city in Texas is Fort Worth
4. The FUNNEST city in Texas to raise a family is Fort Worth
5. The LEAST CROWDED city in Texas is Fort Worth
6. The easiest city in Texas TO TRAVEL TO AND FROM is Fort Worth
7. Fort Worth HAS DALLAS AS A NEIGHBOR with all of their attractions
8. The city with the 2ND HIGHEST EDUCATED in Texas is Fort Worth
9. The 2ND best SOCIOECONOMIC environment in Texas is in Fort Worth

This is a big deal because if you feel trapped in your house 6 months of the year because it's hot and sticky outside, you or your spouse will want to move. Wallethub ranked 600 US cities based on 9 key weather metrics like how cloudy, sunny, temperature and days of ideal temperature, humidity, rainfall, wind, fog, and the chance of extreme weather like hail and tornadoes. Their sources were the U.S. Census Bureau, NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center and Weather Underground. They ranked each city based on a percentile compared to others. The best all-year-round mild weather for a city was in the 1 percentile and the worst weather was in the 100 percentile. They also rated each city’s Winter, Spring, Summer, and Fall by percentile. This is what they found.

Mildest year-round weather of the 600 largest cities in the USA by percentile

Fort Worth 34th Percentile, Dallas 82, San Antonio 83, Austin 86, Houston 89

The best Individual seasons of all 600 largest cities by percentile

Fort Worth 11, Dallas 41, San Antonio 57, Austin 67, Houston 82

Spring

Fort Worth 42, Dallas 81, San Antonio 86, Austin 89, Houston 91

Summer

Fort Worth 29, Austin 78, Dallas 79, Houston 87, San Antonio 88

Fall

Fort Worth 13, Dallas 71, San Antonio 74, Austin 74, Houston 91

Miserable Sticky Air - A HUGE, often overlooked, factor for how enjoyable the weather is, is how thick and sticky the air feels. This is determined by the DEW POINT, regardless of the humidity level. The air doesn’t feel muggy until the DEW POINT reaches 65°. If it’s sweaty thick outside, people don't want to go outside. The dew point is measured in degrees and feels like this:

65°- 68° dew point = Sort of Thick and Muggy

69°- 71° dew point = Sticky Sweaty

• Fort Worth has the fewest muggy days in Texas. The Texas summer is just plain hot, period. But in Fort Worth, everyone enjoys being outside most of the year. There are about 1/3 of the days with a 65°- 68° dew point (mid-May thru mid-September) with a few of those days at a 70° - 72° dew point. Dallas has just a few more muggy days because it is 200 ft. lower than Fort Worth. San Antonio and Austin both average a 68° to 73° dew point for almost 1/2 of the year (mid-April thru September). Houston averages around 200 muggy days a year. About 120 of them are with extreme 72°- 78° dew point days and about 80 days are at 65°- 71°.

• Fort Worth has the Coolest Temperatures in Texas on the Heat Index. When the thermometer says 93° and the weatherman says, “It feels like 104° outside,'' he's talking Heat Index, which is how hot our nerves tell our brain it is. It’s a calculation of the dew point and temperature together. Fort Worth is the coolest. Dallas is 2nd coolest. Then San Antonio, Houston and Austin... because of its elevation, dew point, latitude, etc. For example, in the month of August, Austin averages a 98° temperature but with a 69° dew point. The Heat Index says that it feels like 106°. It’s not uncommon for a Christmas day in Houston, Austin or San Antonio to feel like a muggy 85° even though the temperature is only 77°.

• Fort Worth is the 2nd Rainiest City in Texas. Houston can get more rain in a week than most other cities get all year. But of the normal cities, Fort Worth gets the most rain and has the greenest lawns in Texas. Dallas gets the next most rain. Austin is 4th and San Antonio is the driest and most likely to be in drought with watering restrictions. Believe me, I lived there for 9 years.

• Fort Worth gets the most snow in Texas because it has the highest elevation (653 ft.) in Texas and the high latitude North, some years there’ll be 7” of snow on the ground and some years we don’t get any. But Fort Worth averages 2.1” of snow per year. Dallas (at 430 ft.) is in 2nd place with 1.5”. San Antonio (650 ft.) is 3rd with 0.7.'' Austin (483 ft.) gets 0.6”. But it’s a cold day in Hell when Houston gets snow, but apparently, Hell gets cold once every 10 years or so. We lived in San Antonio for 9 years and it only snowed once and iced once. For those who hate snow, you’d love Austin, San Antonio or Houston. 

No Texas city is a cakewalk with allergies or asthma, but because of its elevation, latitude and air quality, Fort Worth has a different soil type and is classified in a different ecological region of Texas called Grand Prairie. Different things grow here. And because of the lower humidity, there is less mold. 2nd best is Dallas, 3rd is Houston. 4th is Austin and 5th is San Antonio. We lived in San Antonio for 9 years and my wife, son, and dad all had ferocious allergies there. In Fort Worth, they have them now and then, but they’re a lot lighter. Employee wellbeing means employee retention.

WalletHub says that 17 of the top 25 safest and healthiest suburban cities are in the DFW area, but I include drunk driving deaths, car accidents, and drugs into my calculation too.

• Fort Worth has the fewest drunk driving deaths of any big city in Texas (565). By living in Fort Worth, my wife and kids are half or a third as likely to die at the hands of a drunk driver than in any other city in Texas. Each year, San Antonio has the most drunk driver deaths in Texas (1805). Austin has the most drunk driver deaths per sq. mile. It’s a strange coincidence that Austin also has the most bars and liquor stores of any city in Texas. Fort Worth has the fewest. Dallas, then Houston are pretty average for drunk driving deaths. 

• Fort Worth has the fewest number of regular car crashes in Texas. But per capita, Austin has the fewest and Fort Worth is second. Dallas is just average. Houston has the second most car accidents per capita and San Antonio has the most.

• Fort Worth has the 2nd lowest crime rate per 100,000 people of any big city in Texas. Austin has the lowest. Dallas is in the middle. San Antonio has a lot and Houston has the most crime in Texas per 100,000 people.

• Fort Worth has the 2nd fewest drug overdoses in Texas. Austin has the fewest per 100,000 people. San Antonio is right in the middle and Dallas is second to last. But Houston has by far the highest rate of drug overdoses. This seems to correlate with the crime statistics as there are more people out looking for drug money.

WalletHub ranks the cities in this order: Fort Worth, Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Houston and calculates commute time into their formula (time away from family). Here’s what I found and why I generally agree.

• Fort Worth’s Tarrant County is home of the Dallas Cowboys, Texas Rangers, The Texas Motor Speedway and Six Flags Amusement Park. And the Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Stars hockey and FC Dallas pro soccer play in Dallas next door. And don't forget about the Fort Worth Stockyards and the nearly one billion dollar development going on.

• Fort Worth has the more water parks within 25 miles than any city in Texas. Fort Worth has 14, Houston has 11, Dallas 9, Austin 6 and San Antonio 5.

• Fort Worth’s Tarrant County has the 2nd most fishing and watersports in Texas. There are 39 sq. miles of rivers and lakes here. Houston’s Harris County is in 1st place with 74 sq. miles because it’s so flat and it rains so much. Dallas County is 3rd with 36 sq. miles. Austin’s Travis County is 4th with 33 sq. miles and San Antonio’s Bexar County has 16 sq. miles.

• Fort Worth has the most playgrounds in Texas per capita.

• I'm not big into cowboy stuff, but The Stockyards are very cool and somewhere we take every visitor that comes. And there is currently a nearly one billion dollar upgrade to the entire area to make Fort Worth the number one tourist destination in Texas.

• Fort Worth is the closest city in Texas to the ski slopes of New Mexico and Colorado. You can leave Fort Worth early in the morning and have a late lunch at most ski resorts. Add one extra full day of vacation time driving to and from the slopes if you live in Houston, Austin or San Antonio.

• Fort Worth has the Best Zoo in Texas according to Trip Advisor. 2nd place goes to Houston. 3rd is Dallas. 4th is San Antonio and 5th Austin.

There are 2572 people/sq. mile in Fort Worth. Austin is the 2nd least crowded. San Antonio is average. Houston is almost the most crowded, but Dallas is the most at 3938 people/sq. Mile. Some people love living in crowded cities for anonymity, but our family and commuting employees love open spaces and less crowded roads.

Because of its US location, the Fort Worth and Dallas metroplex is a convenient hub for businesses and visiting family since it is a maximum 3 hour direct flight from DFW to anywhere and from anywhere back home. It doesn’t matter if your flight is delayed because you don’t have connecting flights to miss. When lived in San Antonio, there was rarely a direct flight to where we needed to go, so we had to transfer through either Houston or Dallas/Fort Worth. With stormy weather, sometimes it was a full day or two of extra travel to get to work and then back to my family. And for almost any family road trip outside of Texas, Fort Worth and Dallas are the closest by far. Those living in the cities further south have to drive an extra 3.5 to 5 hours each way oming and going.

It’s like living on a lake next door to your brother and he has a boat and jet skis and tons of toys that he maintains but lets you use. Fort Worth has a lot to offer to those in Dallas too. And Dallas is loaded because they have so many people. Since they’re right next door to each other, both Dallas and Fort Worth get the benefit of each other’s great attractions and restaurants.

For Saddleback Leather, doing business is far easier in Fort Worth than anywhere else I could imagine for these reasons. 1. It's not hard to keep employees from moving away because their families love it. 2. It's not hard to attract talent to move here. 3. There are so many local vendors to work with since the DFW Metroplex has around 8 million people. It's the 3rd largest in the USA.

Forth Worth citizens have the 2nd most Post Secondary degrees in Texas. Austin is in 1st place. Houston is in 3rd place. Dallas is in 4th and San Antonio is 5th.

In order: Austin, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas. WalletHub based this off of divorce rates, two-parent homes, foreclosures, wealth gap, food stamps, and a few other factors.

Read the WalletHub report, 2018’s Best & Worst Cities For Texas Families here. They explain their methodologies in depth. Their data sources to create the rankings were from: the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, SchoolDigger.com, the U.S. Census Bureau, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Yelp, Renwood RealtyTrac, Areavibes, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, County Health Rankings, TripAdvisor and WalletHub research.