Buffalo Rising Online

I totally agree, these sorts of articles happen very often as other readers have mentioned in the NY Times and other national papers or journals. I see it as productive and influential to tell the other side of the story. Otherwise it would be a kin everyone watching Fox news and assuming everything they say is unbiased news.

There are always two sides of the story and for those of us who care about this city it is our responsibility to be heard. I think a major part of our self defeating mentality and its side-effect of out-migration comes from too few voices saying why we should stay. Maybe if someone actually published and wrote those letters 25 years ago we wouldn't have lost so many citizens to begin with. Sure some would have left for opportunities but many might have stayed and started their businesses here instead of "greener" pastures.

I have given my opinion on this story on several blogs. I won't repeat everything here except to say that I thought it was a very poorly written and argued story. Buffalo does have huge problems to over come but even looking just at the portion highlighted here I find gross assumptions with nothing to back them up. For instance he says

"...Yet though such policies would improve things, they would not restore the boomtown of the early twentieth century; the economic trends working against such a prospect are simply too great..."

How does he know that reformed govenrment policies would would not restore a boom town economy to Buffalo? On what basis is he saying that. Legitimate scholarship would have included something to back up a far reaching statement like that. The fact that the original story was illustrated using a 30 year old winter picture of downtown says a lot about the author's bias going in. Just because your employer is Harvard University does not assure that everything the guy writes is a truth carved in stone. This is a bash job cloaked in scholarship.

I am going to read the entire article and then come back with a shit fit...stay tuned...

I disagree with this take from QE:

Though the article does its best to dismiss our city entirely,...

I did not interpret the article that way. Sounds like an overly defensive interpretation.

About the "Can Buffalo ever come back?" question in the atricle's headline, if that question means will Buffalo ever again have anything close to the prominance it had as the 15th largest U.S. city (which it was in 1950), then I agree with the sub-headine that a good answer is: "probably not".

The article is on point in at least one area that most of us already know: Massive silver bullet public subsidized projects have never really helped the Queen City as it fights to come back. I like the idea of thinking small when it comes to progress...build a foundation for economic renaissance brick by brick. Thinking big is a fool's errand at this point.

that dude was just making a political statement and the only reason he makes such a dire prediction that buffalo will never regain any resemblence of prosperity is that it would counter his thesis that "tax and spend" liberals have destroyed the city (so badly there is no hope for a future). The drama is only for effect.

I think he makes some good points and buffalo is overtaxed but the situation is not so hopeless...

I don't think Buffalo should try to recreate it's past of being a 'Boomtown'.

BAE, I don't think there's any danger of that. But it raises a question - what is a reasonable objective definition of "success"?

How about this: eventually rightsizing ourselves such that the City of Buffalo does not lose population in a Census count as it has in 1960, 70, 80, 90, 00. Certainly that won't happen in 2010. From all signs we'll have a loss vs 2000 that will be rank us among the fastest emptying cities in the U.S. Will 2010-2020 maybe be the first decade since 1940-1950 that we gain? Anybody's guess.

Or maybe that's not a good thing to look at?

the only reason he makes such a dire prediction that buffalo will never regain any resemblence of prosperity is that...

nyc - The article does not say Buffalo will never regain any resembalnce of prosperity.

To the contrary, at the end it explicity mentions the possibility of increased vibrancy and even "greatness".

Dismissing the article doesn't help. It would be more appropriate to invite Prof. Glaeser to a debate or just an interview. Call me old fashioned but I tend to value the thoughts of Harvard Profs more than what I find in blog posts.

Someone's trying to justify taking the Buffalo Bills away. By the way, I live in NYC, and it ain't that glorious, either.

Seems like history is repeating itself again. Just like in the 80s I guess it's au courant to bash Buffalo again. I suppose it's safer and easier to bash Buffalo than the power elite that's been running this country for the past ten years and overseeing the dismantling of our manufacturing infrastructure and constiutional rights. And it didn't begin with the Chimp, either!

NYS as a whole sucks. Politicians at all levels do not care about anyone but themselves. If you believe otherwise then either you are related to one and enjoy their benefits or live under a rock. The only way Buffalo could regain greatness and get out of the slums of National jokes and ridicule would be to continue to add high caliber jobs. We don't need 10,000 unskilled worker-manufacturing-anyone-can-do-it jobs. China will win those (until the same politicians wake up and fix that problem too). We need IT, Management, Medical Sciences, Engineering Jobs. So GOTO SCHOOL. Make your kids goto school. And not only ECC, but more than that. I'd rather see a city of 40,000 intelligent, contributing Americans than 400,000 McDonald's workers. Some of the highest regarded cities in America are in the same fashion: Research Triangle in NC, McClean VA, Norfolk VA. So you upgrade the city? Upgrade your education first.

he sounded pretty dire, i'd have to read again. i think he makes good points but too makes many generalizations. and debate is always good, i wasn't dismissing him.

Is this the article that appeard in the Sun? The one that mentions Buffalo's control board , but forgot that NYC had a control board and will have untill 2033.. The one that forget to mention that the state assumed sevicing that debt after 9/11? The article that forgot to mention that while a financial plan was being developed for NYC , the Buffalo economy was still vibrant. The article that talks about Buffalo's population loss, but fails to mention that in the early 70's NYC lost almost a million people, and was considered, by many, to be in irreversible decline. One would think, the fact that City was able to recover as well as it did, would somehow lead to a more optimistic conclusion for Buffalo.

tonyarmani - NYS doesn't suck and is there such a city as Research Triangle? Also, Norfolk lives off of the U.S. military. Virginia gets more military money per capita than any other state in the country.

He neglected to mention that much of the so called billions and billions of federal spending in Buffalo was dedicate to clearing neighborhoods and then concentrating poverty into housing projects in other neighborhoods.

He neglected to say that these housing projects have been failures in every city that they were constructed and are responsible for dragging down adjacent neighborhoods with them.

He neglected to say that much of that federal spending was dedicated to tearing up Buffalo's neighborhoods and parks with highways. He neglected to say that the the feds spent untold trillions to make sunbelt development possible at the expense of places like Buffalo and other rustbelt cities.

He neglected to say that cold weather has never stopped a city from growing.

But then he uses these very things as proof that Buffalo can never come back. He uses these projects as examples of why ANY more spending on Buffalo is useless. It is just not good scholarship no matter what his resume says

This kind of story is an apologist piece for our throw away society. We throw away our cities the same way we throw away a McDonald's wrapper.

Jefferson:

Overpowering Unions Life Draining Taxes Bad Politicians Living Next Door to Niagara Falls and watching the state charge us at higher rates than the middle of the desert Losing 40%+ to Federal, State, County, City, Town taxes.

People aren't stupid, there's a reason the state has lost so many citizens.

I get so tired of these discussions. If its not our own african american community tossing empty barbs of racism to get their agenda thru then its downstate. Well Buffalo isnt racist and Buffalo has the only NFL and NHL team in NYS (NYC has theirs in NJ).

Oh and lets not pretend that there is no money being sucked out of albany for downstate in fact downstate isnt just sucking the money they are writing the laws. In fact more things would be happening in Buffalo if its local institutions werent all appointed to and run by Albany.

Things are happen but not fast enough. We have lost entire industries and entire generations. I love Buffalonians and Buffalo but you cant build a life on love alone.....which is why some people have to leave.

I have no doubt that economic forces will eventually return to Buffalo. A nuclear bomb on NYC or an oil boycott and Buffalo would have the cheapest hydro electric power in the nation. In a country where 75% of the country is experiencing drought...we have plenty. Its only a matter of time before Toronto discovers Buffalo. We have transportation, trade, telecommunications, basic industries and plenty of food and good healthcare. We have good natural assets that unused and ignored.

Cleveland and Pittsburgh may be bigger but they are islands....isolated for hundreds of miles. Buffalo is not and that means alot going forward!

The question becomes...can Buffalo find its niche and add value in places other than banking and healthcare.

I get so tired of these discussions. If its not our own african american community tossing empty barbs of racism to get their agenda thru then its downstate. Well Buffalo isnt racist and Buffalo has the only NFL and NHL team in NYS (NYC has theirs in NJ).

Oh and lets not pretend that there is no money being sucked out of albany for downstate in fact downstate isnt just sucking the money they are writing the laws. In fact more things would be happening in Buffalo if its local institutions werent all appointed to and run by Albany.

Things are happen but not fast enough. We have lost entire industries and entire generations. I love Buffalonians and Buffalo but you cant build a life on love alone.....which is why some people have to leave.

I have no doubt that economic forces will eventually return to Buffalo. A nuclear bomb on NYC or an oil boycott and Buffalo would have the cheapest hydro electric power in the nation. In a country where 75% of the country is experiencing drought...we have plenty. Its only a matter of time before Toronto discovers Buffalo. We have transportation, trade, telecommunications, basic industries and plenty of food and good healthcare. We have good natural assets that unused and ignored.

Cleveland and Pittsburgh may be bigger but they are islands....isolated for hundreds of miles. Buffalo is not and that means alot going forward!

The question becomes...can Buffalo find its niche and add value in places other than banking and healthcare.

BuffaloBloviator comments on the above New York Sun / City Journal editorial:

The City Journal story certainly supports conventional wisdom. But does the old popular doomsday theory explain the three billion dollars in new downtown development by our biggest developers? Does it really explain the current urban migration? Does it really explain the new wave of optimism and community participation that we are witnessing? Does it really explain how so many average individuals such as myself are optimistic enough to be willing to invest their life’s savings into our downtown? Or, are these just the examples that prove their rule? Perhaps not.

I ask my BuffaloRising.com friends to join me in a brief exercise of devil’s advocacy. We all know how to do that. For the purposes of our exercise, lets set aside our actual beliefs and for the moment accept a different assumption. What if Buffalo is still on the cutting edge and we just don’t recognize it yet? Consider that during the industrial revolution it was widely believed that our region was heading down hill because we were loosing our agricultural base and the values that were part and parcel with that agrarian economy. Many people were alarmed by the flight to the city because they did not recognize this as progress at the time.

Assume that once again Buffalo is on the cusp of a new definition of prosperity -a brand new prosperity that once again requires brand new metrics. The new metrics measure quality of life. The new metrics take account of values that cherish water, air, time, and very importantly merciful vehicular traffic rankings. (I heard this week we ranked #2 for best commute.)

Think about it. We were among those few who invented big American cities. Cities like Atlanta and Los Angeles have finally caught up, but they came to the game too late. The game in this century is overall quality of life. Not density and congestion. I’m sorry but in my book you have no quality of life when you are stuck in a three-hour traffic jam every day and you can feel your lungs because of the poor air quality.

How does the average guy benefit by living and working in a density-and-congestion city? His take home pay doesn’t go any further than in Buffalo. He doesn’t sock away more money. He doesn’t get to spend more time working. He doesn’t get to spend more time playing. He doesn’t get to spend more time with his family. The only advantage to the old model of urban success is that governments can collect more money to feed their own organism. Remember, taxes never go down no matter how many new taxpayers there are. I’m doing fine in Buffalo and if I moved to an old 1800’s definition of success density-congestion city, I would not be living better.

Sure we hated to go through the painful right-sizing process we endured. Remember, our ancestors endured pain when Buffalo led the industrial revolution too. We hate splitting our families up and seeing our kids move out of town, but keep in mind that Buffalo was founded by individuals who left their families behind in Europe. They made the ultimate sacrifice for Buffalo and so have we.

Our predecessors struggled so that we could enjoy a better life. Thanks to preservation through neglect in Buffalo, their gifts have survived. We shed our old industry and replaced it with new industry. Moody’s has ranked us #1 in industrial diversity. We led and currently lead the revolution in adapting. The painful dues have been paid. Now Buffalo is on our watch. Perhaps we should use what we have and not pine over our lack of density and congestion. The God given resources that made us great in the first place are making us great this time around too.

Isn’t it easy to imagine that the density-congestion cities may soon be pining over what Buffalo has to offer? (Just wait and see what happens when they start running out of water!) Our next problem may be keeping people out!

Could it be that Buffalo, once again, is literally defining to the nation what metro economic success is?

By Howard Goldman, BuffaloBloviator.wnymedia.net

This articles has the distinct ring of someone who doesn't intimately know Buffalo's history or its particular achievements. The condescending generalizations about Buffalo's "brawn" vs. typically "skilled" cities is typical. This is ignorance about the actually complex skills of much manufacturing and the overrated keyboard tapping of so-called skilled cities. Whatever the merits of soem of his suggestions, and there are a few, it is still a callous thing to do to write off a city's future (which he essentially does).

I thought the article was horrible...the man does a great job of pointing out all the failures in Buffalo's history but doesn't mention any of the positive development...He makes no mention to the growth of UB and the UB medical campus downtown, nor the increase in high-end condominiums, or the growth in trade and commerce with Canada because of the falling US dollar. I especially enjoyed his comments on the weather of Buffalo being a deciding factor in the downfall, come on...our winters are not that bad and they have nothing to do with our demise...This is a typical article by an Ivy League economics professor...WRONG.

Bloviator, you da man!

And Steel, I needle you all the time but on this one you da other man!

Does it really explain the current urban migration?

Blovaitor - are you trying to make Sally's head explode? If she sees this, be prepared for a Census beating.

is there such a city as Research Triangle?

He meant Research Triangle Park (no not that kind of park, QE and Jay).

Wikipedia:”Research Triangle Park (RTP) is the largest research park in the world. It is located near Durham, Raleigh, and Chapel Hill, in... North Carolina. ...As of 2007, there are over 130 R&D facilities existing in RTP with more than 39,000 employees working for a total of 157 organizations. … The park is home to one of the largest IBM operations in the world; the company has around 11,000 employees in RTP. The park hosts one of GlaxoSmithKline's largest R&D centres with approximately 5,000 employees.”

Buffalo could also do better than the author suggests if entrepreneurs here create new industries, and if the city works to make itself an attractive place to live and do business.

Chicago Observer – very good comment and that sentence sounds nice but a difficulty is those last three words “and do business”. Seems there’s a lot of anti-corporate and anti-free market sentiment around here that believes the only good businesses are local forever-small businesses, the only good taxes on the job creating class (a.k.a. “the rich”) are high taxes, there’s no such thing as a good suburb, cars and efficient roads for them are evil, the only good manufacturing or construction jobs are unionized, and so on.

Obviously not everybody around here feels those ways, but enough to keep leftward politicians comfortably in power and distributing generous hand outs back to us for... you name it - high public employee costs and binding arbitration, apprenticeship laws, the Taylor Law, highest cost workers comp, high corporate tax, high income tax, high property tax, high sales tax, and many other things. To their credit, NYC can thrive with all that and more because it’s NYC. Chicago too perhaps. Us, not so much. I do agree with you that we shouldn't bad mouth NYC, but the ever-increasing downstate dominance in the state govt would make it very hard to improve our upstate business environment even if our upstate politicians wanted to do so (which in most cases they don't anyway).

lets stop worring over our image. once we take care of our own shit it'll speak for itself.

bored with blaming everyone for everthing thats happened. bored with worrying about what everyone thinks of us. it is what it is. its october 29, 2007. lets just deal with what we got and make it better...no matter what a harvard prof says.

This guy's perspective reminds me of saving private ryan.

we should all offer to take him out to lunch downtown. it would be funny and help the local economy. show him who's the boss after a few drinks.

If you go to his website he also supports the Paece Bridge expansion into Black Rock. This man must be stopped! If Olmstead read this article he'd be...

I was on such a Buffalo high with all the great news thats been released recently and this just brought me down. I don't like the article on how he judges our future on our past but most people who read this article will go along with what he says and will have a negative immage of Buffalo perhaps forever. Somber news indeed. So I'm going to look at some of my pictures to cheer myself up...

Instead of attacking what the writer said, why not understand it and make change. The small victories do not indicate a change in business as usual in buffalo, selfish politicians, parochialism and anti-intellectualism. The larger picture needs to change, instead of writing emails to this gentleman, why not send them to the people who can actually have an effect on the region? Bitching is easy, action is not.

When it comes to chronciling the decline of the city during the last half of the 20th Century, I'd rather read Mark Goldman who's credibility is unquestioned. It's too bad the readers of City Journal don't know that. It's evident that Glaeser didn't come to town and talk to anyone; I suspect the leafy sanctuary of academia is too hard to part from. If he had, he would have discovered the "non-federal" imvestors who've either stayed on through hard times or have emigrated to town and have pumped life into the city by virtue of their own blood and sweat equity. He would have heard from them why Buffalo will continue to be a viable place to live despite not returning its "glory years" of a population of 500,000. It's not about returning to an earlier period but a new one that presents an alternative to the sprawling cities of the south and west whose growth now faces challenges due to the decrease of cheap fuel, water and capital. Buffalo's not a panacea for all of those things but it's looking better all of the time.

The complete Hubris of this ass is remarkable! I recently visited Buffalo and found it to be a much nicer place that I left it in the 1970s. For a trite Bostonian calling Buffalo, well, subpar, is, well, trite... But what do you expect from a citizen of such a racist, angry, trite city like Boston... Keep it if you ask me! Go away and never come back. Harvard can have you, if they even want you. Boston deserves you and your snobbish ouput! Buffalo is trying to get it's bearings and I give it a hell of a lot of credit. Boston is part of the economic, subprime, meltdown that we find our national economy in... We will bail Boston out before Buffalo but for crooked and criminal reasons... At least Buffalo is honest! Subprime Lending Dickhead!

The complete Hubris of this ass is remarkable! I recently visited Buffalo and found it to be a much nicer place that I left it in the 1970s. For a trite Bostonian calling Buffalo, well, subpar, is, well, trite... But what do you expect from a citizen of such a racist, angry, trite city like Boston... Keep it if you ask me! Go away and never come back. Harvard can have you, if they even want you. Boston deserves you and your snobbish ouput! Buffalo is trying to get it's bearings and I give it a hell of a lot of credit. Boston is part of the economic, subprime, meltdown that we find our national economy in... We will bail Boston out before Buffalo but for crooked and criminal reasons... At least Buffalo is honest! Subprime Lending Dickhead!

And I mean DICKHEAD in the strongest of terms! Snob too!

the county's population increase over time is impressive. Erie County population 1930: 762,408. Erie County population 2000: 950,265. That's more than a 25% increase in population.

Twenty freakin five percent over 70 years. Hamp - how’s that in any way impressive? Isn’t it the opposite of impressive? Even using your cherry-picked interval of 1930-2000, the average county in the U.S. grew by 128% over those same 70 years. 128% vs 25%. The average county grew by more than five times Erie County’s growth.

And in more recent times, say 1970-2000:

Erie County: -14.6% (1,113,491 shrinking to 950,265)

Avg. county in U.S.: +27.8% (203,302,031 growing to 281,421,906)

He is a Boston SNOB! Give him his due... They are always right, just ask them... Saw off New England and give it back to the Queen!

Hamp, the difference is that even the stat you cherry picked as the most positive possible sounding way to spin it, is not the least bit impressive. 25% over 70 years. Make a case if you want that population growth isn't important. But to insist Erie County has had impressive growth over that interval is, well, not impressive.

Some might not agree with my pessimism and crude remarks in the past, but it is done out of love and the need to defend the city which I grew up in.

Although, I appreciate the optimism on this site, there are many people that need to be shocked back to reality. The reality is, BUFFALO IS VERY FAR FROM MAKING ANY KIND OF REAL COME BACK. Many people in this town need to be more realistic concerning our situation and think more critically on how to reinvent the city.

The fact is that Buffalo gets trashed throughout the country on a daily basis. Our national image is horrid. Buffalo is 60% vacant. SO LETS NOT TOAST OUR GLASSES TO A TURN AROUND BECAUSE THERE ARE A FEW LOFT APARTMENTS BUILT DOWNTOWN.

Become proactive and elect the right people to lead.

Can anyone name a city that has honestly "shrunk to greatness"? Seriously, point to a place where the economy and way of life has been restored through deliberate shrinkage.

kahawa, Buffalo is an obvious anwser, right? Since 2000 it seems we've been shrinking people fast (lots of references on Fix Buffalo web site) and during this interval many smart people are saying again and again and in many ways that our greatness is on a strong upswing (lots of references on this site). Even getting angry sometimes when anybody says it's not.

Just follow that to it's logical conclusion: Shrinking and rising greatness, right?

Oh wait, just noticed you said honestly and seriously. Opps.

when every idea is negative its not helpful but childish. Im sorry but criticism is much larger then telling everyone buffalo stinks.I don't walk out the door thinking about how bad buffalo's image is, i wouldn't know how to.

People, stick up for yourselves....write back to Dr. Glaeser - I DID !

For a professor in economics from Havard, he should be embarassed. This article borders on slander.

too many generalizations here, not enough specific data to back it up.

Perhaps he should address the federal aid given to the illegal immigrants and welfare recipients in the NY's five borroughs sucks the little towns dry in upstate NY.

ALSO, what is the purpose of writing this article? What is his motivation? To kick the little guy when he is down?

Does this really provide for good afternoon reading? Do the people of NYC and Boston need to analyze the reasons why Buffalo has "shrunk" in size 50 years after the fact? Do they really care? Is it that important to them?

THIS IS KIND OF OLD NEWS - WHY REHASH?

I did a little research into Edward Glaesar. He graduated from Princeton and then got his PhD from the Univ of Chicago. Has a regular column for the New York Sun and appears to be affiliated with the Cato Institute a "think tank" which is was founded on libertarian principles. that is, the best government is no government. Could explain his reference to "bribing" people to stay. As far as his cold weather comment goes, I suppose that explains why cities such Beijing, Seoul, Tokyo, Toronto, Chicago, Minneapolis, NYC, Copenhagen, Berlin, Stocklholm, Warsaw and Moscow are dying. Oh, gve me a break Professor.

I have never been more frustrated with BRO personalities then right now. Optimism is good, there is a reason for it in this community, but so many of us are blinded by it. Say what you will about the article, try to debunk it, but the fact of the matter is that it is in large part true- yeah he is pessimistic, but we do need to focus on our human capital. A turn around of Buffalo will not occur without a turn around of the schools, there will be no population growth in the city until the schools are righted- schools are the most important issue facing this city- not the existence of the sky way, not the building of Gates Circle's condos, not the building of new office towers, not the development on the waterfront.

Drowning out viewpoints because they aren't glowing will do nothing but dilute the truth- cant we discuss the fact that maybe we have our priorities wrong? Shouldn't that be the discussion this article sparks? Or should we just continue in blissful ignorance stating "facts" that make us feel good, and nit pick on single lines in the article that hurt our feelings?

In closing let me just say this: the fact that this article was written is GOOD for the city- all this BS about bad publicity is nonsense, we need people- especially educated outsiders- to discuss the problems our city faces, and propose policies to solve them... we should all listen with open minds, not closed hearts.

The only part about this article thats an absoulte joke is that you can take "Buffalo" out and "insert" dozens of other north eastern cities in its place.

- No point in mentioning cold as a factor in success. I.e. - Minnesota, Milwaukee, Chicago, etc. - Ditto on the education... thats where it all lies, couldn't help but wonder what moving the ECC campus downtown would do for poverty levels?

He's also right about the ability to reinvent.....not only are we not trying to reinvent ourselves here.. but we're investing in job creaters of 50 years ago. (i.E. Buffalo Lakeside Commerce Park).... that "brawn over brains" part of the article really made me think..... what is this city or even county doing to bring/keep/create white collar jobs here???

The whole country is going service sector and white collar... manufacturing is leaving nationwide yet the only inner city investments I can find have to do with that sector.... funny

- Articles like this make me hope buffalo city tower gets built...and filled w/out of town companies.

- Very interesting points about the federal funding... I'd love to see it broken down into transportation, welfare, urban renewal, and decontamination funds and then compared to other areas our size.

- Also states very well... that as long as we're part of this state... Albany plays too large of a role in our success or lack there of..

- Taking the Buffalo Hat off.... ya we're nothing from a stunning metropolitian area... but who could ignore the list of projects that are currently in progress/planned in the area and say the same thing??? I wouldn't think its possible.

I was born and raised in Buffalo, but left in the late '70s for grad school in the Midwest after several years as a sports reporter. Factory-worker friends were being laid off and a morning metropolitan newspaper was on the verge of going under, something unheard of in those days. I truly loved being brought up in Western New York and still have family there.

I have returned almost yearly since my departure, and as an outsider now, Buffalo ain't such a pretty sight. I still admire the priority put on arts and culture, and I love the food and people I've known for decades. For years now I have been a daily reader of the Buffalo News online and monitor all local news stations. I think Glaeser did hit the mark in saying politics, or lack of progressive politics, is part of the problem. But it takes more than inept politicians, snow and high taxes to make people leave the place of their birth in such high numbers.

When I see Buffalo as depicted in your local media, I see a city with a public education disaster, violent crime run amok in the underclass, and once vibrant Catholic parishes shutting down from Niagara Falls to the Southtowns. The "future" seems to hinge on a mega outdoor retail superstore, a new bridge to Canada, or yet another casino-hotel complex. Well, except for Vegas, cities don't get outside or tourist capital from casinos . . . at least not enough to revitalize a population.

There are plenty of smart people in WNY. The Glaesers of this world will always be lurking. And they serve no purpose except to rile up those prone to bad-mouthing and counterstrikes. But to turn a blind eye to reasons behind the loss of a city's most valuable resource - its populaion - keeps in motion a recipe for disaster.

In short, agree totally with what TBone said here:

...Say what you will about the article, try to debunk it, but the fact of the matter is that it is in large part true- yeah he is pessimistic, but we do need to focus on our human capital. …Drowning out viewpoints because they aren't glowing will do nothing but dilute the truth- cant we discuss the fact that maybe we have our priorities wrong? Shouldn't that be the discussion this article sparks? Or should we just continue in blissful ignorance stating "facts" that make us feel good, and nit pick on single lines in the article that hurt our feelings

Longer:

If you read the article using logic not emotion, brain not heart, shoulders free of chip, defensiveness on hold... you'll see it doesn't say everything about life in Buffalo is bad, or that it's the worst place ever, or that it can never have any hope of making any sliver of progress ever. It doesn't say it's a horrible city, nor does it say we're the only city having these kinds of problems.

But in economic terms, Buffalo (mostly city, but metro too) has fallen a lot from where it was relative to the rest of the nation say 50, 60, 70 years ago, and key factors that caused that fall are still in place. Reasonable people may differ in what should be done at this point, but to deny the premise seems delusional, and to be outraged over it is the worst kind of closed minded see-no-evil cheerleading.

If the article had written that absolutely no positive economic news ever happens in Buffalo and no construction is occurring downtown, then many of the comments here would refute those statements. But the article said no such things. People who perceived it saying those things were either using their imagination or making straw man arguments.

And nothing about a few welcome construction projects downtown inherently disproves anything he wrote either. It discussed his analysis of the bigger picture from the perspective of a well respected economist. If he visited Buffalo and fell in love with it emotionally as many of you are, that should not change anything he wrote about his analysis of its economic condition. Attacking a highly repected economist for having lived in NYC or Boston, or working at Harvard, speaks for itself in its lameness.

Why is it impossible for so many of you to believe the following can all be true at once?

1.) City with a very high poverty rate and in the midst of long term population shrinkage with no factual evidence to date showing any population turnaround or stabilizing.

2.) City with some nice construction projects downtown and some very nice neighborhoods, but most of its neighborhoods having serious decline ("most" in terms of population and geography).

3.) Metro area basically stagnant in population, some recent shrinkage much less than in city, but compared to U.S. population growth, undeniably lagging far behind over any interval within past few generations: 10, 20, ...70 years, whatever.

4.) Job growth statistics undeniably weak over past few decades when compared to average U.S. metro areas, although some recent anecdotal good news such as Geico call center, Citi back office, and some small biotech venture startups.

5.) City and metro area both have good potential for improvements in many ways, but still are probably not (same wording as Glaeser uses: "probably not") in the forseeable future likely to come back to an objective level of relative wealth and size that it had prior to 1960s.

Why is it so upsetting to rationally consider the possibility of truth in that, and also to consider with an open mind the changed approaches Glaeser suggests? As TBone noted, the main themes the article builds up to seem to raise not even a passing interest among all the heated defensiveness.

This article focused on population and growth. What in God's Green Earth puts that as the measuring stick on qualitity of life? I for one would take Buffalo over Boston any day of the week! I have lived there but prefer NYC over Boston because of quality of life issues (people are narrow minded and racist). I prefer Buffalo over Boston as well. Statistics may show low growth, but who would want to live in a high growth city! Be careful what you wish for, it may come true...

In regards to this man's beloved Boston, ask him is he better off now (property value wise) than he was one (not ten) year ago! Boston is in bad shape. Far worse than Buffalo!

It's very clear to me what has occurred here.

Most academic faculty are expected and/or required to have a number of "scholarly" articles published annually in journals. Glaeser simply took a cheap shot at Buffalo to fulfill his scholarly "quota". In my opinion, his article is not much different than that of a student's poorly written term paper that was thrown together the night before it was due. His article is more of an OP/ED than a scholarly article that uses empirical evidence to substantiate the hypotheses.

Additionally, it angers me that since he has the brand "Harvard" attached to his work, he is considered an expert on Urban Renewal. I spent some time in the mid-90s as a student at Oxford University. There is a phenomenon there commonly known as the "Oxford Effect". It occurs when the press considers any Oxford professor an expert on everything. For instance, while I was there, a professor was very vocal in dismissing the Internet as a passing fad. Turns out he was an expert of theology, not information based economies.

What I found most outrageous, is that an economist would fail to acknowledge "efficient markets". More than anything, efficient markets are what will stimulate Buffalo's renaissance. It's already begun to happen. People have moved here for quality of life reasons, to escape endless commuting, traffic, density, etc. Buffalo is becoming a city of interest for investors like Bashar and others. It was market efficiency fueled the growth in the South that Gaeser so affectionately refers to. I can remember as a child growing up outside of New York City, hearing that my friends were moving with their families to North Carolina because "houses were so much cheaper there". Businesses left crowded cities like New York, Washington DC, and Philadelphia and headed to Atlanta. And once again, the market will correct itself as Atlanta has begun to explode and holds the record some of the longest commute times in the nation. Could Buffalo become attractive to Atlanta? You bet.

His argument about the demise of northern cities is absurd. Look at Chicago, Toronto, Denver, or Minneapolis, which has had a renaissance of its own.

I spent the last 5-years in NYC before moving here, and NYC is by no means a model of success. It's a hellhole. Sure, it has a great downtown core, surrounded by slums like the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, Harlem, Newark, etc. If you're "privileged" to work there, for 12-14 hours per day, you’ll spend the rest of your life competing with 15 million other people to afford a million dollar 2-bedroom apartment. I left NYC because of the new information economy, the Internet, that allows me to work from Buffalo. Again, efficient markets at work. Glaeser fails to account for the effect this market force will have on Buffalo.

Sure, Buffalo has problems that need to be resolved. Anti-business sentiment, government beurocracy, etc, but our demise is not as eminent as Glaeser's diatribe.

He should do Harvard a favor and resign before he tarnishes their brand any further.

Hey Atwater, It is stull a pretty nice place to live! You have the lake, the park, lovely streets, great schools, proximaty to everywhere, great art, music, theatre, home price ownership... need I say more? Buffalo is cool!

This article focused on population and growth. What in God's Green Earth puts that as the measuring stick on qualitity of life?

Auburner - it sounds like you agree with him. See article's last paragraph which suggests Buffalo not focus on its size, but rather on vibrancy. That's perfectly consistent with your point that size isn't paramount. And nowhere does the article dicsuss Buffalo's current quality-of-life pro or con, except for poverty levels and far below average income, which can be debated every which way but clearly dosn't help quality of life. Generally the article is not about quality of life - he's an economist discussing our economy, not a "places rated" author or lifestyle maven.

This is what I mean by looking at what he actually says rather than as so many have chosen to do and act as if every word of it criticizes us in every possible way. There's actually a lot that many people will agree with. I realize anybody hell-bent on Buffalo really growing in size will stongly disagree with much of it, but if they're really pinning their hopes on that happeneing the article should the least of their worries.

Hey Atwater, It is stull a pretty nice place to live! You have the lake, the park, lovely streets, great schools, proximaty to everywhere, great art, music, theatre, home price ownership... need I say more? Buffalo is cool!

I won't debate about "great schools" being easily available to most city residents (which btw is another thing the article advocates be focused on here rather than big projects), but aside from that, yes I agree those are good points. We agree.

And btw, where does his article or my comments say anything in disagreement with those?

Again, the article was about the big picture economics here, not lifestyle. In my comment above, I lumped all that stuff in my item #2 "...and some very nice neighborhoods...". I could've elaborated a bit along the lines you did, but it doesn't change the other points.

Problem is I think it's safe to say most neighborhoods in the city don't have the "lovely streets" you mention, they have devastated crime ridden streets full of fire traps, blight, and crime. A Tale of Two Buffalos in some respects, along with a lot of in-between at risk. Many neighborhoods I remember in having lovely streets not all that long ago have fallen fast. And those issues all come back to economics.

Don't read this to say everything’s a disaster area. Of course EV, Delaware District, and some others are very nice. But the trends don't seem good for most of the city when you consider it geographically or percent of residents.

STOP TALKING AND JUST DO IT!

Glad this all happen, I thiought I was alone. Buffalo is a very comfortable and nice place to live. But also lacking in so many areas. Too many people here do not recognize how far behind we have fallen, nor have any idea how to CATCH UP.

Too much smoke and mirrors about projects that never come to fruition.

you have one life to live, Buffalo is an undervalued asset, we all have a chance to contribute and make A difference.

Too many passionate people in this town that want to see it succeed.

Lot of intelligent people and great ideas on this site.

STOP TALKING AND JUST DO IT!

DJCramer, agree or disagree with his views but Glaeser is considered a fast rising star in his field and has received several prestigious directorships and unusually high praise from multiple Nobel winners. Not that they're always right of course (fill in AlGore joke here), but to imply he's just some hack who's cranking out writing to meet some quota and degrading the Harvard brand...

Atwater Louse, Don't you think, though, that there is an essence, a spirit, to a city that a truly deep thinking economist (even a hardnosed one) should fold into his analysis of that city's future? Glaeser's article has a veneer of knowledge about Buffalo's history and economic issues, but there is very little nuanced context for many of his statistics and your assertions. The nebulous phrase "the rest of the country" crops up so much in conversations about Buffalo: we're so far behind "the rest of the country." That is not only untrue (what exactly is the "rest" of the country?), but completely unconstructive; it ignores the huge spectrum of wealth, lifestyle quality, civic pride, potential, and spirit that factor into the sense of self-posession in cities across the country. Buffalo's ills are in fact shared by nearly all Northern cities; yes, there are degrees of intensity, but it's somewhat like the difference between a 325 degree oven and a 400 degree oven--they're both hot and can burn.

But most importantly, when somene pronounces somewhat dismissively on the future of regular people's lives and dreams--and that is what we're talking about in Buffalo's herculean effort to reassert itself--it is not only callous for that person to use his "status" as a Harvard economist to cast a skeptical shadow over these people's dreams for their city, it is strikingly dimwitted: other American cities have resurrected at least partially from dire straits, and not by swallowing the advice of economists.

All of Mr. Glaeser's ideas have been in currency in WNY for years; he is suggesting nothing original. I have to wonder, then, what the motive behind such a gratuitous article was. It wasn't compassion, certainly, and it wasn't intellectual curiosity; the article is too cliched and uniformed about what is happening in Buffalo now to believe that. As an academic myself, I have a nose for articles that are written out of an "I know-better than-thou" mindset, and this one had that distinct scent. What's often disappointing about them, and this one in particular, is that what they claim to know or predict is not very useful to people's everyday stories and goals.

Eric - no I don't think it's feasible for an analysis to try to account for a city's "spirit". Too vague for one thing, and who's to make judgments about such things for different cities? About the "I know better" mindset you see in his writing - well it's an article about his own views so that should be expected. If that kind of writing were in a news story I'd agree it's a problem, but it's clearly an opinion piece so he's telling the reader what he thinks is best.

About dismissing regular Buffalonians or their lives or dreams, keep in mind he's suggesting new approaches that he thinks best for Buffalonians, and explaining his reasoning. He's not saying to bomb the city or outlaw living here, just suggesting changes in emphasis based on his theories and analysis. It seems you disagree with his suggestions - whatever. I've felt for quite a while that a greter acceptance of shrinkage and trying to do that in as smart a way as possible would make sense here because of some factors we can't control which I won't list here. You should rest assured 100% of local and NYS politicians see things your way and not Glaeser's or mine. About other cities including northeastern ones, he's commented on those in various ways in other writing as you probably know. This time he focused on Buffalo. Sounds like many here would prefer he ignore us from now on.

There's tens of thousands of current "regular people" residents in much of Buffalo for whom living wage jobs will not be showing up here any time soon under the current way things are happening, and he's describing other possible approaches. Trends that caused relative economic decline here are still firmly in place. He didn't cause those but he's studied them at length and suggests some ways forward based on what he sees as very likely to happen in the future - not what people may hope will happen and try to convince themselves will happen (such as water-seeking popluations beating a path to our door, etc).

Hey, people can feel free to dream up all kinds of possibilites that might solve our problems. I hear the latest new discovery is that we're near Toronto and they're growing. Damn, if only that had been the case for the past few decades. Oh well, spilled milk. Btw, I do agree with you about "rest of the country" being a bad way to word things. I never say that, and I don't think his article does either.

What other explanation could there be for this epic waste of his and everybody else's time? Well we don't have to sit idly by and admire this trash blimp filled with noxious gases..

Damp - Is it possible he became aware of you somehow, and decided he had to write about Buffalo then sit back and watch the web to find out if you think his writing is a gas filled trash blimp? That's one other explanation.

This is the direct result of 40-plus years of horrific government leadership...and career politicians...where the majority of our population is numb enough to continue to vote for unqualified people based on party affiliation alone.

doc...wut da hell ar ew toukin abaut?

"A turn around of Buffalo will not occur without a turn around of the schools, there will be no population growth in the city until the schools are righted- schools are the most important issue facing this city"

if that was the only case then why do some of the fastest growing states have the highest rates of high school drop outs in the country from today's news article...

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/specials/interactives/wdc/dropout/index.html?SITE=NYBUE

The fact that maybe we pay higher taxes actually means we have better schools. Sure there are sucky school around but look at Florida (my mother constantly complains how horrible the education system is there) or the Carolinas where a full 50% of the schools have 40% or higher drop out rates... Yes schools are a city problem.. but regionally and state wide we should be thankful but always critical to make them better.

When I saw that picture from the Blizzard of '77 for an article on Buffalo 30 years later it quickly lost credibility. Lets write an article on San Franciso and we can show a picutre of the collapsed highways from the '89 earth quake to prove some point.

There is not one thing new here. I've read other articles in the past on Flint, etc. They offer no solutions and comments on a one sided view of the past on a lone subject to prove a point while ignoring way to many other important variables. Basically worthless, especially from an academic standpoint.

Fix the schools! No shit sherlock. Does one need a Harvard degree to put out that one paragraph solution? Who here has the answer on how to? Obvisouly he does not or is he saving that for another article? Not very easy is it when a majority of the pupils are under the poverty level and from broken homes and boarded up streets? Much easier to move to a school district where the make up is different no? Thus leaving a bigger concentration of unperforming students behind and thus worse school performance. When Buffalo schools were desegragated is schould have been county wide. Then the school districts could act better than everyone else.

Just keep leaving everything behind. Everything is disposable until it effects us. We complain when a company goes south leaving behind a huge complex behind but it is OK for us to pick up and move to a burb. We can just keep moving to a different town, state, etc leaving behind a mess "that''s not our problem". The chain of events is all well and good until it starts to affect us personally. Like when a corporation decides that is wants the cheaper pastures that lay out side the country. Then all of a sudden we pout how life isn't fair because we can no longer pick and move too. Pick which way you want it.

Who is willing to step up and cultivate new buisnesses and jobs? Who is willing to step up and instill pride in their children so that some day, even if they have to leave, they will want to return with new skills and connections to make the area better? Obviously not many. Its much easier to point out the obvious, and act like we are not part of it by sitting back and knocking it.

What ever does get accomplished around here, the minority that is laying thier passion and dedication on the line to get it done can take pride that they did it with the dead weight of the majority of others who rather do nothing then point out the obvious of whats wrong. All while ignoring the obvious of what they are not doing to make it any better.

First time I can ever recall agreeing with a hamp comment:

Invite Glaeser to debate Gunderson at Albright Knox. This should raise some good issues, and focus more attention on upstate economic development.

In response to chris 69, he states that when Toronto discovers Buffalo then things will pick up for this city. Torontonians know Buffalo already. The problem is there is an international border which brings with it many obstacles to the free movement of people and businesses. If a Canadian business is going to set up shop in the U.S., then he views Buffalo as American as Atlanta or Phoenix, geography might not be the issue. This town needs a Buffalo special interest group/office working in Toronto on a full time basis trying to attract investment. Buffalo has a lot going for it, it just has to sell itself.

Buffalo Bashing is a subject, and to some who have little knowledge of the city but feel smug in the conceit of their own burg, a sport that I am very familiar with. I have lived in the Boston, Massachusetts area for over 30 years. I left Buffalo to go to college here with the intent of setting foot in Buffalo as little as possible for the rest of my life. In the first 10 to 15 years after college, I often joined many of the ill-informed Buffalo Bashers in their sport, especially after consuming 6 or more beers. We all laughed gleefully at a sterotype Buffalo that the ill-informed bashers thought was the truth about our hometown while those of us who knew different, thought that Buffalo ought to be or is getting closer to that sterotype every day. During this period of my life in Boston, I also met Buffalonians who suffered from "Buffalo Shame", so much so, that when asked where they were from answered the question with "Upstate New York", "Western New York" and my favorite, "Near Niagara Falls". These "vague" expats, shamed by the place they were born in and had grown up in, reminded me of the New Testament story of St. Peter denying knowing Jesus in the Garden of Gethseame(Sp?). There still exists expats who live in Boston who resort in Buffalo shame when asked where they are from. Thanks to some life changing experiences that caused me to grow up quite a bit and also to say good-bye to beer and other such beverages, I began to realize that I really lied Buffalo after all. As time went by, I began to realize that I actually loved Buffalo and became proud to say I was from there and to stand up to the bashers and their poisonious sterotypical horseshit by telling them how and where they were wrong about Buffalo, even as their obnoxiousness grew as the New England Patriots first embarked on what now appears to be an endless Super Bowl victory run. For me, I just asked myself one day what I like about Buffalonians that is in short supply here in " the outside", "the normal", "the advanced", "the economically progressive", "the up-to-date world" , "the technologically current or advanced world" to the East and West of Exits 50-55 of the New York State Thruway. My answer to that question starts with the genuineness of Buffalonians, i.e,, bullshitters and bullshit artists are in short supply in western New York. How about the friendliness or the genuineness of a person who offers to help someone out, an offer that is rare here in the "normal outside of Buffalo, rest of the country"? I've done a lot of business traveling around our country and I have yet to discover or find any city that doesn't have most or all or even some unique to their place problems. Buffalonians, it's all in how you want to look at and approach the outside world. If you're unhappy in Buffalo or discouraged by what you see as unique and unresolvable problems, leacve Buffalo and see what you find. I know what I found-most citiesin the USa have the same problems that Buffalo does.

Ritaritz, The Burchfield-Penney's dreary new building is basically paid for by the public, not by private money. Some twenty plus million dooars of public money, I think. And most culturals in the area would be dead without public money. Both private and public money are essential, but if you look at the private donors, we're talking about a relatively small handful of business and individuals, which is sad.