Enjoy live music, great food, and cold beverages at the park tonight when Fort Worth South, Inc., Fort Worth Weekly, and Miller Lite present First Friday on the Green at Magnolia Green from 6-9 p.m. tonight at 1150 Alston Ave. Bring your blankets and chairs, public parking garage across the street. Music from Blackland River Devils and A.M. Ramblers. Food from Chadra Mezza & Grill. Cost of admission: One can of food for the Tarrant Area Food Bank.

Tonight is the night for the fall installment of Arts Goggle on the Near Southside. For the uninitiated, Arts Goggle is an event put on by Fort Worth South, Inc., the group that has led the urbanization of the Near Southside. Local businesses around the district open their doors tonight from 5:00 to 10:00 for an exhibition of local artists and music. This time around, it’s the biggest Arts Goggle yet, featuring fifty-four venues around the district - the big clusters being Magnolia Avenue, Park Place, South Main, and Vickery. Even better, this time around Fort Worth South will be providing a circulator bus and pedicabs, so everybody can enjoy Arts Goggle car-free! A complete program is available here.

I’ve participated in Goggles past - exhibiting my work (Fort Worth urban photography) at Fort Worth Urban Living, Texana Townhomes, and Panther City Bicycles. This time around, I’ve snagged another fantastic spot - I’ll be exhibiting at Spiral Diner, the frighteningly delicious vegan restaurant at Magnolia & 6th. If you attend, stop by and say hello.

(And for the curious - yes, Arts Goggle is free!)

Featured live music for tonight’s Goggle includes: [Read more]

At the sixteenth annual Congress of the New Urbanism, held in Austin last week, Fort Worth South, Inc. was up for the Driehaus Award for Form-Based Codes. The new Near Southside Development Standards and Guidelines were recently approved by the city, and guide development in that district into following high standards of true urban design. They’re very well done and very progressive; if you haven’t read over them, and you’re interested in this sort of thing, check them out (PDF link). They’ll give you an idea of how the Near Southside will develop from now on. Form-based codes address the relationship between building facades and the public realm, the form and mass of buildings in relation to one another, and the scale and types of streets and blocks. The regulations and standards in Form-based codes, presented in both diagrams and words, are keyed to a regulating plan that designates the appropriate form and scale (and therefore, character) of development rather than only distinctions in land-use types.

The Driehaus Award, sponsored by the Form-Based Codes Institute, is an award given to planners and such that create top-quality, innovative, and progress design guidelines and codes that represent the finest in proper urban development. It makes me very proud to announce that we won! That’s right - the Near Southside Development Standards and Guidelines have won the Driehaus Award!

This is a big honor for the city and Fort Worth South. For a city that is (very incorrectly) perceived by some as not being very progressive in this regard, this is a big step that will make a lot of people sit up and pay attention to our continued urban renaissance as it moves forward. A big congratulations to Mike Brennan, Fort Worth South’s project planner, and the rest of the FWSI staff for this great payoff to all their hard work.

This is just the latest in a series of great steps for the Near Southside. Mark my words - that area is really going to become something special and fantastic as it continues to infill and redevelop.

Most people have a love-hate relationship with their local paper — they love to hate it.

Consider this — the latest flashpoint in the culture wars between Dallas and Fort Worth has become, unbelievably, DaFoWoShow, the three minutes of snarkiness brought to you each Thursday by the Startlegram.

OK, that’s massive overstatement. However, there is a difference of opinion between the left and right sides of the Metromess on this’n. I am previously on record as saying I like it, which prompted one S-T editor who shall remain unnamed to say, “I’ve lost all respect for you. How could you think that was funny?”

Well, to paraphrase John Belushi, that’s your bad. You fucked up. You trusted me.

But this person wasn’t the only soul in the Fort with a low opinion. Anthony Mariani at FWWeekly also weighed in with his instant disapproval of the show’s “really lame jokes, or jokes for the blissfully suburban fortysomething-plus set, or for people who’ve only recently become acquainted with the concept of sarcasm.”

But a funny thing happens when you go east of Arlington and HEB where the S-T ain’t so local and there ain’t so much hate for Tarrant’s daily — the show got funnier as it went through the tubes of teh Internets. Maybe that’s why the Frontburner review is far more kind.

Former Startlegramer and current D Magaziner Eric Celeste called DaFoWo “more proof that the S-T gets it. … It’s not riotous, but it’s a clever and amusing webcast, and the use of random video clips is perfect, especially the [David Hasselhoff] vid in the second one we watched. Well done, folks. Should just get better with age.”

Take that D(a)MN! So, is DaFoWo too Dallas? Is it too not funny? Are some people in the Fort just wearing their underwear too tight? Whatcha think? [Read more]

That’s right - it’s time for another Arts Goggle! For the uninitiated, Arts Goggle is a festival of art, live music, and food & drink that happens a couple of times a year in Fort Worth’s Near Southside. The happenings are centered around Magnolia Avenue, with goings-on also occuring on 8th Avenue and other streets around the district. It’s a lively pedestrian-oriented event that always guarantees a great time and plenty of awesome art, photography, sculpture, and music.

Yours truly will once again be exhibiting my urban Fort Worth photography. I’ll have photos for sale, if you’re so inclined, or just to look at. It’ll be fun, as always. I’m very excited, because I’m going to be in a higher profile location than in previous Arts Goggles. Here’s a hint…

Yep, that’s right - I’ll be exhibiting photos at Panther City Bicycles, right on Magnolia! Heck yeah! So, make sure to attend Arts Goggle this Friday, March 28. The event runs from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM, and there will be art, sculpture, and music aplenty. A great time for all ages. Make sure to stop by Panther City Bicycles and visit yours truly/buy some photography/talk about urban development. I always love chatting with fans of West and Clear and Fort Worthology.

For more info, check out Fort Worth South’s site.