So I just moved to Worcester a little over a year ago. I am moved from Fort Wayne, IN. When I first moved to Fort Wayne it was fine, had some decent restaurants, and 2 big malls (one being an outdoor mall). It was a college town as well. But during the 8yrs I lived there was tons of effort put into improving the city. It was awesome!

Honestly, when I visited Worcester several years back, the little area where Birchtree Bread Co is was just taking shape. I felt that Worcester was a similar size to FW and hoped it would end up taking steps similar to FW. I live here now (not really by choice) and I'm disappointed in the lack of, well, everything. In my opinion at least.

-The city paid to fix up the exteriors of houses in several rundown neighborhoods. Neighborhoods where I was once afraid to walk to my car with a group of friends I was suddenly able to walk to my car by myself because the area went from meth lab chic to having working street lights and dedicated parking with nice looking homes.

-The city had a really nice farmer's market and it became huge. The city would shut down like 4 blocks in the downtown area, there were tons of vendors, live music, and lots of food trucks. The farmer's market was the most hoppin' place on a Saturday.

-Parking was free mostly everywhere downtown. And there were lots of parking options. It was rare to struggle to find decent parking.

-There were events that the city would throw a few times a year that encouraged people to visit restaurants, small businesses, and neighborhoods that didn't get lots of traffic.

-The city had more festivals than I've ever seen in a city. Every other weekend in Fort Wayne would be the GreekFest, GermanFest, Hobnobben movie festival, Middlewaves music festival, Buskerfest, Pride Festival, the county fair, Taste of the Arts. Pretty much if there could be a festival about something, Fort Wayne would make it happen. There was an event called "Be A Tourist in Your Own Hometown" where a lot of local businesses, museums, etc would have discounted or free options and host events to get people to come check them out if they hadn't before.

-Food Trucks!! Man, I miss the food trucks so much. They are a big part of Fort Wayne. There's SO many food trucks offering amazing food. I don't see any of that here in Worcester. Every day of the week had dedicated places where food trucks would be so they could serve different areas of the city. Like, the food trucks would always be in the downtown town square area around noon and then in the evenings they'd be in one neighborhood one day and another neighborhood the next day. Some of the best food I've ever had. There was a huge food truck culture in FW.

-The outdoor mall started hosting outdoor concerts with local artists on Fridays. It brought them a lot of traffic. Honestly, the music scene in FW was pretty awesome. Lots of good bands and tons of events to support them.

-There were tons of random events like the Le Tour de Fort where people do a bar crawl across the city on bikes. It's a big event that raises money for charity I believe. And also brings a lot of business to all the local bars and breweries.

-Right before I moved Fort Wayne renovated this whole rundown area near downtown and turned into a safe walking area, playground, and a place where you can shop and dine at locally owned places.

-Fort Wayne also had a minor league baseball team. During the colder months the buildings/stadium/parking lot are used to host a farmer's market and, you guessed it, food trucks.

I do have to say that I feel Fort Wayne did a really good job supporting locally owned businesses in general. I would love to see Worcester make strides like FW but I won't hold my breath.