A Tale of Two Niagaras

"'Ontario has developed its Niagara area with pretty good adherence to a macro-regional plan that encompasses transport, agriculture, green space, industry, residential development and tourism, and that utilizes regional governance structures,' says Bruce Fisher, who directs the Center for Economic and Policy Studies at Buffalo State College. 'That approach simply has no counterpart here.'

Most of the individual pieces that have come together to turn Niagara Falls, Ontario, into a Canadian success story also exist on the American side: the Falls themselves, a publicly owned park, a road along the river, hydropower plants, a casino. But until recently, few people in New York—not locally, and certainly not at the state level—seemed the least bit interested in making them add up.."