Buffalo Rising Online

Both initiatives need a home and a credible entity to oversee what is a regional regeneration initiative. The University at Buffalo Regional Institute would provide an ideal institutional setting for the work. Universities possess the needed skills and are in ideal positions to navigate the complexities of the political, academic, and policy worlds as neutral conveners and coordinators. Inviting and supporting innovative practices for the purpose of advancing knowledge and expertise is consistent with a great university’s mission. In addition, each federal agency engaged in community and economic development (HUD, EDA, EPA, and DOT) already fund special university centers that do research and provide technical assistance. Universities can enlist faculty and community resources to design and test new policies and could actively engage peer universities from other shrinking cities.

An effective Regional Real Property Information System is a critical first step toward implementing regional and citywide land-use plans, such as those proposed by the Framework for Regional Growth and the City of Buffalo’s Comprehensive Strategic Plan. Such plans should focus identifiable resources to existing communities with the greatest potential for successful revitalization, while relieving growth pressures on the region’s fringe which, in light of current and future energy and economic trends, will become more difficult and expensive to sustain.

In older areas the opportunities to develop or upgrade information systems are constrained by limited public agency staff and budgets. However, opportunities for the city and inner-ring communities to share resources with the University at Buffalo to design and implement a property information system at a reasonable cost and with a relatively low ongoing commitment of local public resources should not be missed. It is a perfect place to put Federal resources to work.

We can learn from productive information system partnerships at work in neighboring states. The Northeast Ohio Community and Neighborhood Data for Organizing system (NEOCANDO), is administered by Case Western Reserve University; the University of Pennsylvania hosts Philadelphia’s Neighborhood Information System; and Richmond, Virginia has engaged its university to identify and catalog historic properties in order to preserve and restore them. In Youngstown, Ohio, where the nation’s most active planning for right-sizing is taking place, the city is being guided by a partnership with Youngstown State University.

Once information is in hand, the Living Laboratory becomes a place to test new plans and innovative designs for reclaiming vacant properties and revitalizing neighborhoods. It offers a unique vehicle for integrating federal, state, and local revitalization policies on a regional and perhaps mega-region level. It would act as an incubator for innovative responses to the problems of shrinking cities, conducting innovative national and international design competitions, managing pilot reuse projects, facilitating planning and zoning code reforms, and serving as an important forum for civic engagement on right sizing.

The Living Lab’s legal structure and operating structure would require federal legislative and policy flexibility so it could streamline existing programs and pilot new economic and community development models. Strong and innovative state leadership will also be necessary to support local governments, universities, and businesses as they work toward alternative, community-driven redevelopment approaches to transform blighted areas. New York State has responded to the need for extraordinary support for our cities through their Restore NY program and the Block-by-Block program, a pilot program specifically for Buffalo.

We have made progress coalescing new partnerships to address the county-wide vacant property issue, and there is county, town and village support for an Erie County land bank. There has also been solid progress on a number of brown field restoration initiatives. Buffalo and Erie County are showing an ability to restore sites to productive reuse that exceeds that of most other communities. The ability to reuse vacant land for further economic development activity, to build a network of greenways and add additional park land, to add mass transportation links and to use vacant land to mitigate the water management problems should not be missed.