Recent investment in Buffalo, New York has been celebrated in the press and the city as a renaissance after decades of decline. But rising tides don't always lift all boats. A recent article describes a unique effort to call attention to the divide.
The opening of the article by Ethan Powers:
"The city of Buffalo has an identity problem. One half has been reborn like a phoenix from a graveyard of industrial ash – experiencing an economic and cultural resurgence that has transformed many previously barren areas into bustling centres of commerce and entertainment. Yet the other half sits in a state of utter disrepair – its streets manifest a palpable level of poverty, blind to the recovery and optimism growing across town.
'It’s a true tale of two cities,' said blogger and photographer David Torke, who created the Tour de Neglect. 'You have the more prosperous and emerging West Side contrasted with the East Side, which has been neglected on all sorts of levels for decades.'
Torke uses his fixBuffalo blog to catalogue the structural devastation which plagues Buffalo’s East Side. Eight years ago, Torke decided that his blog was too detached from readers stuck in front of a computer screen – and the Tour de Neglect was born. It is now an annual event."
Read the full story: The Tour de Neglect: a cycle ride through Buffalo's deprived East Side
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