What would revitalize Buffalo?

If you could name just 1 thing that would revitalize Buffalo, what would it be?

Basketball Team?
Performing Arts Center?
New Shopping Mall?
etc.

Wow... I was hoping someone would post something like that, but that hit the nail right on the head.

So when are you running for office? =)

[EricStratton]

As Clump said, the main thing is jobs. Everything about an area, sports - arts - schools - hospitals etc, hinge on solid reliable employment. If a region can employ its people, retain its people and bring in new people with good, private sector jobs evertyhing else fall into place.

My wife and I, for example grew up in NY. (Me in batavia, her outside Utica), went to college in NY and now live in NJ because thats where the jobs are. We are two of thousands of young (33) people who have left.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs

BYW - Major league sports (baseball, basketball) haven't been the answer in other cities.

[BillsNYC]

i really think they need a public transportation system connecting the city and the suburbs. orchard park has an unused train station..wouldn't it be great if you could jump on a train and be let off at down at the HSBC building? that would be expensive....but a great down the line plan. i believe they should offer an express bus service from all the suburbs...this would bring people into the city for dinner and shows...and also cut down on drinking and driving because people could take a bus to chipawa and then take the bus back that night. i think this would greatly stimulate the economy!! it would rejuvinate whatever area they put the bus station in and bring money into the city. after that is done i think the businesses will come. building a beach on the water next to the Arena with bars and restaurants would also be key.

[Pete35]

CP. The unions in Buffalo are a huge problem. One of the reasons the sunbelt is so economically successful is that they have right-to-work laws. Want to revitalize Buffalo? Entice companies to relocate and bring high paying professional jobs with them. The industrial revolution is over, but most Buffalonians don't know this. Manufacturing and service jobs, the prime targets of unions, are not going to revitalize Buffalo. Companies know that manufacturing costs in Buffalo are prohibitive, particularly because of the union activity.
Get rid of the present cadre of politicians who think that government is going to revitalize the are. Governments have never created wealth. Bring in free market outside the box thinkers. I live in Florida. Why is it that we have no state income tax but our roads are 100x's better maintained than NY's?

[BillsNYC]

cp...i think you gotta make downtown more hospitable and welcoming..i think if people start spending more time down there..businesses will follow...why in any company want to open a business in downtown buffalo? its like a ghostown...

[3rdbase]

1. Take a month off the start of winter and give it to fall.
2. Take a month off the end of winter and give it to spring.
3. Cut the state income taxes in half.
Seriously, Buffalo is paying a big price for the union/democratic party cartel set up in the 60's for the mutual longevity and prosperity of both. Electing that one woman job creation/industrial recruiting wrecking crew the last election really hurt. If you don't live there you may not be as aware, but she is viewed as the antichrist of business. Buffalo has a big disadvantage because of it's perceived back woods relation to NYC. BUF gets all the bad and little of the good because of it. Need to move the political critical mass more towards the center/west. Right now the state is viewed as as NYC with supporting actors to the west.
Such a shame, because Chicago has thrived with a very similar political atmosphere.

[Kramer]

Infrastruture isn't going to help a DAMM until Buffalo and NY in general gets rid of the DAMM suffocating tax structure. I'm a professional (Electrical Engineer) who grew up in Buffalo and there is no way in hell I'd work for a company in Buffalo. The taxes are suffocating. It's a damm shame that too many people think that tax revenues will solve all the ills of the community. Does anyone really think that your tax structure is enticing to corporations? I know, I know...soak the rich and corporate america ******* em! Until everyone changes there viewpoint and elects politicians that will make in enticing to both live in Buffalo and locate a business, the city will remain the "amazing shrinking metropolis"..I love Buffalo but I am deeply sorrowed at how this city (with the endorsement of the voters) is self-destructing!!!

[Kramer]

3rd base u are right on the money!!!!

[BuffaloRanger]

High Taxes, Lack of Jobs, and bad weather (some can't handle the snow, the rest just b*tch about it!).

What is the city of Buffalo's National Identity? Losing SuperBowls and Lots of Snow.

Alot of businesses don't want to move to Buffalo because of all the snow and it's loser image (magnifyied by inept politicians).

Not loser because of sports but loser as in "losing 250,000 residents since 1955" It's still considered by many to be a dying city.

Something needs to be done about the high taxes. Do you know the clinton house they bought in westchester county cost 1.5 million. A similar house in Amherst would have only cost 1 .2 million. The difference is property taxes in westchester county add up to $20,000 a year. In Erie county - $55,000.

Lower taxes somehow - that will attract more economic growth.

Finally build a true signature bridge! Not an economical, we are a dying city with no style or future, standard bridge. It's a bridge that connects 2 countries not just parts of a city. Make it awesome! When you think of San Francisco what do you think of? OK, not the gays, I'm talking about the Golden Gate Bridge. A great bridge would be the symbol of the city. Have you ever noticed that during sporting events when they show Buffalo they have nothing to show but Niagara Falls? We need more.

[Moon Mullins]

Originally posted by 3rdbase
1. Take a month off the start of winter and give it to fall.
2. Take a month off the end of winter and give it to spring.
3. Cut the state income taxes in half.
Seriously, Buffalo is paying a big price for the union/democratic party cartel set up in the 60's for the mutual longevity and prosperity of both. Electing that one woman job creation/industrial recruiting wrecking crew the last election really hurt. If you don't live there you may not be as aware, but she is viewed as the antichrist of business. Buffalo has a big disadvantage because of it's perceived back woods relation to NYC. BUF gets all the bad and little of the good because of it. Need to move the political critical mass more towards the center/west. Right now the state is viewed as as NYC with supporting actors to the west.
Such a shame, because Chicago has thrived with a very similar political atmosphere.

Pat Williams sized MEGA DITTOES 3rdbase! The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results; but the same group of people responsible for the Great Buffalo Depression of the past thirty years keeps getting elected. The economic boom that the rest of the country had in the Nineties passed right by Buffalo, and as long the unholy alliance between the big labor unions and the Democratic Party continues to govern the region into the ground, things will not change, and professionals who might have fueled an economic turnaround will continue to be forced to find work elsewhere.
I lived in Chicago for ten years, and it is a great place, but they ARE the NYC of Illinois, while we're becoming the East St. Louis of New York State.

[Iron Mike Tyson]

Let me box there.

Glutton Bowl II- if the olympics revitalized salt lake- why not?

[BillsNYC]

YOU HAVE TO PUMP MONEY INTO THE CITY TO LOWER TAXES!!!! GET THE BURBS TO GET OUT OF THEIR LITTLE NEIGHBORHOODS AND GET INTO THE ***** CITY AND SPEND SOME MONEY...THEN YOU CAN LOWER TAXES AND THEN PROGRESS CAN BEGIN...the people that live around buffalo hate going there...that has fgot to change first!

[Pete35]

Wrong BillsNYC. Your thinking is the same definition of insanity that Moon Mullins talked about. Pumping money into the city isn't going to make people relocate while the tax structure still remains confiscatory. That concept is utterly ridiqulous.

[Moon Mullins]

Originally posted by BillsNYC
YOU HAVE TO PUMP MONEY INTO THE CITY TO LOWER TAXES!!!! GET THE BURBS TO GET OUT OF THEIR LITTLE NEIGHBORHOODS AND GET INTO THE ***** CITY AND SPEND SOME MONEY...THEN YOU CAN LOWER TAXES AND THEN PROGRESS CAN BEGIN...the people that live around buffalo hate going there...that has fgot to change first!

Amherst was THE safest city in the country for the fourth year in a row, while Buffalo's murder rate shattered records. Spend some money on what? Bullet proof vests? The fact is that the "little neighborhoods" will be bigger than Buffalo by the year 2020. That sad fact might have been avoided had there been the foresight to put the UB campus and the football stadium downtown, or not to have taxed businesses that employ people into moving elsewhere. You've got it backwards, and you can drop all the F-Bombs you want about people who choose to live where their children are safe, and it still won't change the fact that you don't have a CLUE what you're talking about.

[BillsNYC]

well...considering that i am from orchard park...and left buffalo for nyc to attend college and within probabaly 5 years will be making twice the ammount i would if i was in buffalo and would also not have the accesability that i do here...that is keeping me away from buffalo....not TAXES...its a great place to live and raise children....but the city is boring and dead....you can lower taxes all you want...but why the hell would i want to go back to a dead city...

well..if that is insanity as you call it..then i guess rudi guiliani is insane..10 years ago the west side of manhattan was a junkyard filled with bums and strip joints. he went in there, got rid of the strip clubs..cleaned up crime, and got businesses in there that would improve the area and attract people (disney). now its a gold mine...and its not only the west side he did that to..he did it for all of manhattan...did reducing taxes cause the boom of interest in manhattan during the 90's? no....expenses actually skyrocketed...it was simply getting tourists and people from the surrounding areas to start utilizing what nyc has to offer.

lower taxes will not save buffalo...making the city somwhere where people WANT to spend their lives in will.

[Moon Mullins]

As long as taxes are too high, businesses will continue to leave and, for the same reason new businesses will not replace them. hence, unemployment will continue to skyrocket, as will crime and urban blight.
Mayor Giuliani's success in NYC is EXACTLY what I'm talking about. The Democrats (Koch, Dinkins et. al.) who ran the city prior to 1990 created the conditions that you described, just as they have in Buffalo. Rudy (a Republican, by the way) REFORMED NYC, and was deserving of the title of "New York's Greatest Mayor" even before the extraordinary leadership that he exhibited in the aftermath of Sept. 11.

Making the city of Buffalo somewhere people will want to spend their lives cannot and will not happen without lower taxes, tougher crime policies and the type of political leadership that Giuliani practiced in NYC.

[BillsNYC]

no clue what i'm talking about huh?

a)grew up in western ny
b)love western ny
c)within 5 years will have an mba
d)do fundraising for a living
e)would like to move back to buffalo..if things improve there

you know what i am? exactly the type of person buffalo wants in the city of buffalo. I...am exactly who buffalo is trying to market to. young, highly educated, loves the city, and have a lot to contribute....and i think it matters what my opinions are.

[BillsNYC]

i hear what your saying...but people bring in businesses...not vice versa...

[EricStratton]

And that all circles around to bringing jobs to the area. Why don't you live in WNY BillsNYC? I don't because I can't get a comparable job there.

Jobs (in part brought by lower buisiness taxes) bring people bring money bring more business bring lower crime brings more jobs bring ....

[BillsNYC]

small businesses and attracive area brings people which attracts bigger businesses which brings.......Jobs bring more people bring money bring more business bring lower crime brings more jobs bring ....

went to fordham u in the bronx...external affairs is my business and nyc is the capital....if buffalo could improve city i could make a nice living there in a cuple years after the experience i get here..

[EricStratton]

For who Clump?

[BillsNYC]

yeah really cp...what are ya talking about?

[EricStratton]

There have been court cases around the country about that, the suburbanites (not to be confused with Johnsonites or Flutiites) always win. Something about the constitution.

[billsfanone]

Sounds like communism clump. Sorry bro.

[EricStratton]

While I agree with you Clump that muny employees should life in the town or city they work in it isn't always practical. The argument in my area (outside NYC) is the wages of Fire, Police, Sanitation, etc arn't high enough to allow people to live in the city.

Including residency as a condition of employment for new workers has been done but as the workers gain years on the job they have always been able to move out. Most cities haven't had the fortitute to challage them.

[Moon Mullins]

Originally posted by BillsNYC
no clue what i'm talking about huh?

a)grew up in western ny
b)love western ny
c)within 5 years will have an mba
d)do fundraising for a living
e)would like to move back to buffalo..if things improve there

you know what i am? exactly the type of person buffalo wants in the city of buffalo. I...am exactly who buffalo is trying to market to. young, highly educated, loves the city, and have a lot to contribute....and i think it matters what my opinions are.

You condemn people for living in the suburbs, then you tell me that you know what you're talking about because you grew up in Orchard Park? WHAT? You've got to be kidding me! I grew up in BUFFALO, and worked in BUFFALO. and nobody loves BUFFALO more than I do, and that's why it breaks my heart to see a once-great city on the verge of insolvency. My Grandfather has lived in the same house for fifty years in what was a beautiful North Buffalo neighborhood that is now INFESTED with scum and crack dealers. His next door neighbor, an elderly woman, moved last year (after forty years) after she was attcked and raped in her own home.

It's been a thirty year downward spiral that started when Bethlehem Steel left town and took 50,000 jobs with them. But do you think other businesses came in to take their place? HELL NO! No business in their right mind would relocate or start-up in the most heavily taxed State in the Union.

NYC has advantages to businesses that Buffalo will never have. Those advantages, in many cases, can offset the disadvantages of doing business in New York State. In Buffalo, we are stuck with all of the disadvantages, with out the benefit of being the financial capitol of the world.
While everyone's opinion matters, your's is based on misguided notions. Buffalo had 40% more people thirty years ago, but economic policy has driven businesses and people out of town.

[BillsNYC]

may have grown up in orchard park but lived in the south bronx for 2 years....6 months in a low rent crackhouse..so i know both worlds. see, i think they should take an area like chipawa or waterfront...make it nice (maybe cobblestone roads?) and offer express bus service between that area and the burbs round the clock....the burbs can use this transportation for work and play...meaning this area would be nice and crowded at all times. as the area becomes crowded...small businesses will be attracted to the area and the size of the area will grow...as more businesses come in, more shops and stores will open. now is when things can get interesting..because my demographic would be interested in living in this kind of area (fun, nice, and could possibly walk to work saving money)..which means the value of aprtments and houses would increase in the area. if the area flourishes...any housing within walking or quick drive will also experience a rise in value...and businesses will be attracted to those areas as well.
in otherwords, i say fix one part and let it spread...this is a very short version of what i would really do but hey..i'm at work!

[Moon Mullins]

Remember what I said about Amherst being the safest city in America? The do you really believe that the city of Amherst will EVER allow public transportation to jeapordize that? And around the clock no less. Why don't we just pass out keys to their houses. Brilliant. Let's all hold hands in a circle and sing Kumbaya.
Small businesses are great, but they don't provide enough jobs to employ enough people to buy the groceries or patronize the specialty stores or to live in the condos that Jack built. Besides the Keystone Kops that have been in charge for the past thirty years have been talking about doing the same thing, and they've gotten nowhere. The Masiello's and Pitts' point to Chippewa as progress. The truth is that whatever progress has occurred, (if you can call a row of bars progress) came from a very small group of entrepreneur bar owners with no help from the local government.
Do you think that the moron bureaucrats who can't even get a bridge built are going to create a succesful and thriving downtown? Don't bet the farm on it.

[BillsNYC]

you can get round the clock service from the bronx to greenwich, ct which is the NICEST place in the country arguably.....if they can do that i think amherst could...which has to get over itself.

i do agree the city is run by sh!theads...and chipawa isn't much to brag about.

[Moon Mullins]

Having lived in both, the only things that NYC and Buffalo have in common are that they both have NY at the end of their names, and they both have the daughter of Satan for a Junior Senator.

[BillsNYC]

lmao!!! i can't stand her!!!

buffalo needs a guy like bloomberg as a mayor...masiello has gotta go.

[Kramer]

Moon Mullins: Like your opinions...Kumbaya my lord, Kumbaya..

Buffalo is to business what cyanide is to health food. This town is still stuck in the New Deal.

What needs to be done:
1.> We need to break the unions. Union membership is akin to socialism. They are not as american as we are. Make NY a right to work state.
2.> Find a way to implicate Pitts in a scandal, then remove the commie bastard from office.
3.> Put a free market libertarian thinking majority in city hall.
4.> Cut taxes significantly.
5.> Don't run from the snow, embrace it!!!. Buffalo is second to no one in the WORLD at fast snow removal. Let people know this. Sell people on how wonderful your winters are.
6.> Provide long-term tax breaks to corporations as an incentive to relocate. ( I know...I know..this one justs goats you liberals...yeah, yeah....I know what you are saying....******* the rich and corporate america)

[Mouldsie]

Let Tyson fight Baby Joe Here!

[Mouldsie]

OR.....

LIke Clump said: Jobs

and 2nd:

The Buffalo Wings Basketball Team! (would have to buy rights to name) There is a lot of sports fans in Buffalo and a lot of B-ball fans. Also, there has been a lot talent coming out of Buffalo area sports programs lately involving basketball Niagara High School, Bennet, Turner/Carroll have all produced good college players with low budgets. And Jamestown HS isn't bad either!

[BuffaloRanger]

A basketball team won't solve anything, there is not enough disposable income in this town to support a team.

I advocate something drastic. Many metropolitan areas have regionalized - that is combined the suburbs with the city government. Atlanta, Houston, LA, Wilmington, and Louisville to name a few. It will lower taxes, and attract more businesses.

Unfortunately the political roadblocks and suburban snobbery towards the city make doing this in Buffalo almaost impossible.

I'd like to know how it worked in other cities. Rochester is thinking about doing it with Monroe county.



Oh yeah, and build the coolest looking bridge in the country, if it's not too much trouble.

[BillsNYC]

i agree with the bridge discussion...that would be a good start...after living in nyc and seeing the george washington bridge and the tappan zee bridge..i realized what a joke the peace bridge really is. new yorks ugliest bridges are nicer than the peace bridge. i say build a double decker suspension bridge and make travel back and forth quicker and more convenient.