Cowtown Pride

North Texas city boasts best downtown in America

Add another feather in Fort Worth's cap: A new survey has named Fort Worth the best downtown in America for 2014. Livability.com cited a growing population, new retail and residential developments, and a more walkable environment in Cowtown's No. 1 ranking.

Providence, Rhode Island, and Indianapolis rounded out the first three slots. No other Texas cities made the top 10 list.

"Having a great downtown is about more than just having a great main street," Livability.com editor Matt Carmichael said in a statement. "A downtown should have a cultural and retail focal point, like a main street, but it has to expand beyond that, providing a solid core for the entire community."

The survey praised Fort Worth's Trinity River Vision Project, which will develop 800 acres connecting downtown, the Cultural District and the Stockyards and could effectively double the size of downtown. Bass Hall and Sundance Square also got a nod, as did Fort Worth's 13 parks and 80 locally owned restaurants.

"Few downtowns have achieved the cohesion between cowboy culture and urban sophistication that Fort Worth has," reads the survey. Livability.com also notes the city's central business occupancy rate of 92 percent leads all Texas cities, and its retail vacancy rate fell by 2.6 percent between 2012 and 2013.

Noticeably absent from Livablity's survey are downtown behemoths such as New York City and San Francisco. The 2014 rankings gave "considerable weight" to population growth, as well as the ratio of downtown residents to jobs. Those metrics gave way to under-the-radar cities cracking the top of the rankings.

"The way to have a really vibrant downtown is to have residents there who can support the businesses and provide that life on the street to make the area seem more lively and safer," said Sheila Grant of Downtown Idea Exchange and Downtown Promotion Reporter.

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working hard

Texas clocks in as one of America's 10 hardest working states for 2026

Photo by Greeshma Gangadharan on Unsplash

Texas has been one of the top 10 hardest-working states in the country for almost a decade.

Texans pride themselves on being industrious, and a new report has confirmed Texas as one of the 10 most hardworking states in America in 2026.

The Lone Star State claimed the No. 7 spot this year in a slight dip from its 2025 ranking, where it appeared in the top five. Texas last ranked 7th in 2024, but the state has consistently appeared among the top 10 for nearly a decade.

WalletHub determined the rankings after analyzing 10 "direct" and "indirect" work factors across all 50 states, and then graded each metric on a 100-point scale, where a score of 100 signified the "hardest working." Analysts then examined each state’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its overall score and used the resulting scores to rank-order the states.

There was only a 10.32-point difference between Texas and South Dakota, who claimed the top spot as America's hardest working state in 2026 with a score of 64.59 out of a possible 100 points.

Texas ranked 6th nationally in the "direct" work factors category, which examined the following six metrics:

The state's average workweek hours.
Employment rates.
The share of households where no adults work.
The share of workers leaving vacation time unused.
The share of "engaged" workers — those that are "involved in, enthusiastic about, and committed to their work and workplace," as defined by Gallup.
The rate of "idle youth" — individuals aged 18-24 who are not currently enrolled in school, not working, and have no degree beyond a high school diploma or GED.

Texas ties with Louisiana for the second highest average workweek hours nationwide, with Alaska topping the list with the No. 1 longest workweeks in America. Alaska is the only state where workers clock in more than 40 hours per week at their jobs, with WalletHub reporting Alaskans work 41.4 hours on average weekly.

In the "indirect" work factors category — which encompassed workers' average commute times, the share of workers with multiple jobs, annual volunteer hours per resident, and the average leisure time spent per day — Texas ranked 36th nationwide.

Here's how WalletHub ranked Texas in three individual metrics:

No. 10 – Average commute times
No. 20 – Average leisure time spent per day
No. 30 – Employment rates

According to the World Economic Forum, Americans clock in about 1,800 hours at work per year on average, which is 468 more hours per year than workers in Germany. And many are leaving vacation time on the table, WalletHub says.

"Even when given the chance to take time off, many Americans won’t, as nearly half of workers don't expect to use all of their allotted vacation days," the report said. "It is possible to work hard without overdoing it, though. Hard work is key to success, and the residents of some states understand that better than others."

Source: WalletHub

The top 10 hardest working states in America in 2026 are:

No. 1 – South Dakota
No. 2 – North Dakota
No. 3 – Alaska
No. 4 – Hawaii
No. 5 – Wyoming
No. 6 – Nebraska
No. 7 – Texas
No. 8 – New Hampshire
No. 9 – Tennessee
No. 10 – Georgia

texas reports labor day wallethub