Today's Wall Street Journal brings this news from Buffalo, NY. Here's the article (sub required). Archived here. Buried on page B6 and written by Maura Webber Sadovi...
Last time Buffalo, NY made the Wall Street Journal - September 1, 2006...an East Side Business!
It's an indication that the outside world's perception of Buffalo is changing.
-Rich Tobe
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Artspace Archive • Annals of Neglect • BAVPA • Where is Perrysburg? • Broken Promises...
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Artspace Archive • Annals of Neglect • BAVPA • Where is Perrysburg? • Broken Promises...
Writing the City • Woodlawn Row Houses • faq • my flickr
the creativity exchange
5 comments:
David:
Have you seen this article the NY Times posted at Bruce Jackson's www.BuffaloReport.com?
Being 'internet-challenged' I cannot successfully post the link!
Dick Kern
COPY:
February 19, 2007
Buffalo Looks for Work but Debates Casino’s Value
By KEN BELSON
BUFFALO — The gray girders going up in an uninviting stretch of the Cobblestone District near downtown Buffalo seem a promising sign. Almost any economic activity is usually welcomed in this city that has become an emblem of faded industrial glory.
It goes back to that theory I told you about a while back.. the Return on Perception. Hopefully it keeps on going!
Dick,
Here's the link to the recent NYT article, February 19, 2007 - Buffalo Looks for Work...
Sean,
You know what I think about "hope" as a plan...we need density - people with $$$ and everything will be just fine...
i live in florida, and i definitely see hope in buffalo.
real estate prices in florida are sky-high, although florida is a low-wage state. insurance companies have virtually ceased writing any sort of homeowner's policies and investment property policies, resulting in an insurance catastrophe.
A renaissance for Buffalo would not be an enigma if community institutions, particularly SUNY Buffalo, would cooperate and focus on the city core. Hoping for "any steel girders" and any business that comes along is a dangerous proposition. The cheap real estate is a temptation to swindlers, who will use the place as a way to make a fast buck and move on.
SUNY Buffalo is a terrible disappointment for Buffalo. The clique of "investors" who secretly got it planted out in Amherst should never have been allowed to get away with what they did. Just because they did so is no reason to leave the situation just sit as it is. Some activism to make this huge money-making, community spawned institution realize its civic responsibility would be better focused energy than simply oppoing casinos and/or any and all other seedy enterprises that want to scoot onto the empty horizon.
Buffalo also has old, old cultural institutions of great merit, like its symphony orchestra, Albright Knox Art Gallery, and many others. These used to be strongly integrated with university activities. UB brought almost every famous composer and performer in the world to the city in the 60s and early 70s, before the "move" out to the boon-docks. Now faculty sit out there doing "electronic music" and, by admission of retired faculty from the long-term Music Dept., "have absolutely nothing to do with the affairs of the city."
Buffalo could be the sort of city Richard Florida writes about, but not with a clear vision to be so and an engine like SUNY to make things happen fast.
All the wistful groaning and grubbing for anything that will come along to fill the void do nothing much to move Buffalo along. Meanwhile, Amherst and the suburbs prosper in the "donut" while the city falls to ruin and to nationally record-low real estate value.
Of course a company that already invested a ton in one enterprise downtown will try to sound upbeat, but the fact is there is not much on the plate.
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