Buffalo Chips

Posted by: Nate Berg

26 October 2007 - 11:00am

Over the past 75 years, Buffalo, New York, has gone on a long downward spiral of deterioration and depopulation. Instead of pumping money into this failing city, legislators should focus on helping its people, writes Edward L. Glaeser.

"At the onset of the Great Depression, Buffalo had 573,000 inhabitants, making it the 13th-largest city in America. In the 75 years that followed, this once-mighty metropolis lost 55 percent of its population, a decline most dramatic in its blighted inner city but also apparent in its broader metropolitan area, one of the 20 most quickly deteriorating such regions in the nation. Twenty-seven percent of Buffalo’s residents are poor, more than twice the national average. The median family income is just $33,000, less than 60 percent of the nationwide figure of $55,000. Buffalo’s collapse—and that of other troubled upstate New York cities like Syracuse and Rochester—seems to cry out for a policy response. Couldn’t Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer use their influence on Capitol Hill to bring some needed relief?"

"The truth is, the federal government has already spent vast sums of taxpayer money over the past half-century to revitalize Buffalo, only to watch the city continue to decay. Future federal spending that tries to revive the city will likely prove equally futile. The federal government should instead pursue policies that help Buffalo’s citizens, not the city as a geographical place."

Full Story: Can Buffalo Ever Come Back?

Source: City Journal, October 1, 2007

Login or register to post comments
Email this page

Would love to hear some other views on Western/ Central NY...

Submitted by grichane on Mon, 10/29/2007 - 22:14.

Anybody have any other good articles from the planning perspective on Buffalo, or Western NY in general? Any other wannabe planners giving any thought as to what it would take to re-populate the place?

Though the "lower the taxes" bit is of course relevant, as one of the thousands of educated 20-somethings who have left I have found myself wondering of late what else could be done for places like Buffalo, Rochester and Syracuse?

Upstate NY and other rustbelt cities

Submitted by Zvi Leve on Wed, 10/31/2007 - 19:06.

There is an interesting article on rustbelt cities in this week's Economist: http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10024690

Their conclusions: keep to the basics (a la Joel Kotkin), and promote a regional approach to development. "For decades cities and suburbs have competed for jobs, residents and state and federal aid to ill effect." Create plans which include supporting companies that build on local strengths, such as universities and medical centres, and improve workforce training for high-tech manufacturing, health care and other understaffed sectors.

Rochester, Buffalo, and Syracuse all have many of these qualities. A more coordinated regional approach may be able to create urban synergies....

Missing a few points

Submitted by Zvi Leve on Mon, 10/29/2007 - 12:48.

This article does a very good job explaining how changes in transportation/shipping technologies have impacted on the regional development (and decline) of upstate NY. Note that the article did not mention weather as a primary factor in the region's decline, and I concur.

Without a doubt local politics and terrible decision making have also contributed to the city's relative decline. The five years that it took to build the rail system left the main street as an open pit and effectively killed off any remaining retail in the downtown core.

I went to university in Buffalo (UB) and actually found the city to be a student's paradise (cheap and quite livable, despite having all of my stuff stolen)! One of the points which the author neglected to mention is the huge number of university students in the city (~200,000), and the various research institutes that have spun off from the academic institutions.

Anyway, all of these sun-belt cities which are so attractive today are based on the assumption that cheap energy (both fuel and electricity) is here to stay. Just like the Erie Canal was a very brief period in time, so too will be this period of obscene energy consumption.... It will be interesting to see the relative positioning of these cities in another 25-50 years time. Don't be so sure that Buffalo will not have another renaissance.

Survey says

Submitted by stevewr on Sat, 10/27/2007 - 22:55.

I have never been to buffalo myself, but my uncle has been a test pilot or private pilot for 40 years now and has criss-crossed the country thousands of times. He has said that Buffalo has the absolute worst winter weather he has ever seen. So I think that is probably the main contributor. There is Denver, Minneapolis, or Milwaukee cold, but Buffalo seems to kick that up a notch.

Growth isn't universal

Submitted by freeyoke on Fri, 10/26/2007 - 11:47.

I'm a Yankee who has recently moved into the edge of the Atlanta urbanized area. I'm surprised how many people here believe the population growth is happening throughtout the U.S.. I came from an area in decline like Buffalo so it's a study in contrasts.

The article does a pretty good job of summarizing Buffalo's rise and fall based on the advantages and disadvantages of the location. With air-conditioning and sunny weather, the South and Southwest may seem better for year-round business and for quality of life for residents but personally, I don't understand the allure of the Sunbelt's climate for so many people. What happened to the people who like a more pronounced change in the seasons?

It's not just the climate,

Submitted by cdamgen on Fri, 10/26/2007 - 12:46.

It's not just the climate, though it helps (especially not having a 5-month long winter)... better jobs and lower taxes equal more discretionary spending for many people. Atlanta is actually becoming expensive, but there are still plenty of other places in the south where costs are still low, such as Charlotte, Raleigh, Birmingham, and Greenville.

begs the question

Submitted by Michael Lewyn on Sat, 10/27/2007 - 17:57.

1. Atlanta and most cities in Florida are plenty expensive, but those places are growing just as fast (if not faster) as the low-cost markets cdamgen cites.

2. Referring to "better jobs" begs the question- how did southern states get the better jobs in the first place?

And the bigger question (which Glaeser tries to address but not very well) is: how come some cold-weather cities are also growing (e.g. Denver, Columbus, Boston, Indianapolis)? What do they have that Buffalo doesn't?

Glaeser says those cities have better higher education- but Buffalo has some universities too (and probably would have more had it been more prosperous in recent decades).