Can Buffalo Ever Come Back?

[Ralonzo]

http://www.nysun.com/article/64879

A long but worthwhile read.

[Green Lantern]

I find it easier to understand the misery and cynicism of the average PRS poster from Buffalo now.

[35Pete]

State and local government did little to improve Buffalo's chances—in fact, they worsened things considerably. First, New York's high taxes, burdensome regulations, and pro-union laws made Buffalo less attractive to employers than its more successful southern competitors. In 1975, the Fantus Legislative Business Climate rankings sorted the American states based on corporate taxes, workers' compensation laws, and many other rules. New York was the least business-friendly of the 48 states in the continental U.S. Being antibusiness might have been feasible when New York enjoyed strong natural advantages, but not after those advantages eroded. Despite 50 years of population loss, Buffalo has one of the steepest metropolitan tax burdens in the country—including one of the nation's highest local property tax rates, according to a 2003 study.

Buffalo also suffered from lousy local politics. During the 1960s, the city government failed to deliver either safety or good schools. Race riots shook the area, and crime rose steadily. Fiscal crises became epidemic. Buffalo had difficulty recruiting police because of low wages and the dangers of the street. Leadership was especially dismal during the late sixties and early seventies, the city's worst years. Mayor Frank Sedita, who faced ceaseless fiscal problems and surging violence from 1966 to 1973, was a traditional urban politician, better at playing to the city's various ethnicities than at confronting its ongoing crisis.

As the 1970s went on, cities began to acknowledge, however grudgingly, that the high costs of concentrated poverty made it disastrous to keep repelling the well-off and attracting the poor. The exodus of the middle class and businesses led many cities to repudiate tax-and-spend left-liberal politicians, who had dominated urban politics in the sixties, in favor of pragmatic leaders promising a better deal for more prosperous residents. In 1977, for instance, New York City voters rejected left-liberals Abe Beame and Bella Abzug and elected reformer Ed Koch. And in Buffalo's mayoral race that year, voters rejected a left-leaning Democrat, Arthur Eve, and embraced James Griffin, the law-and-order candidate of the Conservative and Right-to-Life Parties. Like Mr. Koch, Mr. Griffin focused on improving basic city services, such as public safety, and encouraging business investment.

Anyone listening?

[35Pete]

All this spending aimed at resurrecting Buffalo as a place—very different from government aid that seeks to help disadvantaged people, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit—was destined to fail. Urban migrations aren't random. America's deserts and mountain ranges aren't densely inhabited for a good reason: few people want to live in such harsh places. Similarly, people and firms are leaving Buffalo for the Sunbelt because the Sunbelt is a warmer, more pleasant, and more productive area to live. The federal government shouldn't be bribing them, in effect, to stay in the city.

Such bribes are notoriously ineffective. Scores of close to worthless urban projects have received government funding not because any cost-benefit analysis has justified them but because of hazy claims that they would make some once-great area thrive again. It's almost impossible to imagine that the billions already spent on Buffalo's urban-renewal projects would satisfy any reasonable cost-benefit analysis for helping to reverse the city's decline. The desire of people and firms to move is just too strong. For the government to tear down old houses and build new ones in a place like Buffalo is particularly misguided. The hallmark of declining cities is having an excess of housing relative to demand. Econ 101 teaches us that any further increases in housing supply will just push prices down more.

Ahem!!!!!

[35Pete]

The author is a professor of economics at Harvard. I am a mere near anonymous genius at all that I survey. We have the same opinions here.

As for state and local politicians, reducing New York's unnecessary taxes and regulation would be a good idea, since if Buffalo is ever to rebound, even somewhat, private innovators, not government projects, will be the primary reason. Better schools and safe streets would also be key to improving Buffalo's chances of survival. 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. The best scenario would be for Buffalo to become a much smaller but more vibrant community—shrinking to greatness, in effect. Far better that outcome than wasting yet more effort and resources on the foolish project of restoring the City of Light's past glory.

Now gather round and let me tell you how to fix the joint. :D

Come on. Gather round'. Form a circle.

[unklechucky]

sits and waits in anticipation.

[mshafer71]

One glaring problem for Buffalo's future is its aging population. As the years pass, more people will be on fixed incomes and will be in need of more govt. assistance programs....the tax base will continue to shrink...this, I believe, is the number one problem for Buffalo and its future...coupled with the fact that 1 in 4 people by age 25 leave this place (brain drain) sets up a scary dynamic...

[35Pete]

One glaring problem for Buffalo's future is its aging population. As the years pass, more people will be on fixed incomes and will be in need of more govt. assistance programs....the tax base will continue to shrink...this, I believe, is the number one problem for Buffalo and its future...coupled with the fact that 1 in 4 people by age 25 leave this place (brain drain) sets up a scary dynamic...

Yep.

They need to find a way to disperse the poor too. Right now it is a magnet for the poor. Get them to move to other cities so that they can be a human burden on other cities but perhaps spread out so they don't wreck those communities too.

I know that sounds incredibly callous. But you can't build a great community on uneducated poor worthless slobs. You have to get them, and their voracious appetite for public programs, the hell out of your neighborhood. Buffalo is one of the most uneducated and poorest cities in America. That has to change.

There needs to be a great exodus. Send them to NY, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. Slash the safety net. In fact, tear it down where possible.

You start by slashing as many local public programs as possible. And increasing police presence in their neighborhoods. These people are a goddamn crime spree. Get them out. Make it inhospitable to be a "taker". Once they see the food being ripped off of the banquet table then these wedding crashers will leave on their own.

Bring the "producers" back.

[mshafer71]

My proposal is to turn Buffalo into a theme park called, "Beyond Thunderdome".....if you think about it, most of the city looks straight out of Mad Max...we could build the world's largest minnaret and hire Tina Turner to sing, "We Dont Need Another Hero" every hour, on the hour.

[Billsman]

Pretty soon you'll be able to buy up a block of homes and do what you please with them.

[mshafer71]

Pretty soon you'll be able to buy up a block of homes and do what you please with them.

This is already happening on the East Side.

[Green Lantern]

Yep.

They need to find a way to disperse the poor too. Right now it is a magnet for the poor. Get them to move to other cities so that they can be a human burden on other cities but perhaps spread out so they don't wreck those communities too.

I know that sounds incredibly callous. But you can't build a great community on uneducated poor worthless slobs. You have to get them, and their voracious appetite for public programs, the hell out of your neighborhood. Buffalo is one of the most uneducated and poorest cities in America. That has to change.

There needs to be a great exodus. Send them to NY, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, and Detroit. Slash the safety net. In fact, tear it down where possible.

You start by slashing as many local public programs as possible. And increasing police presence in their neighborhoods. These people are a goddamn crime spree. Get them out. Make it inhospitable to be a "taker". Once they see the food being ripped off of the banquet table then these wedding crashers will leave on their own.

Bring the "producers" back.


You can be the Mayor of Simpleton.

[35Pete]

You can be the Mayor of Simpleton.

Go sing kumbayah.


Your central planning methods are a proven failure. Read the article.

[Green Lantern]

Go sing kumbayah.


Your central planning methods are a proven failure. Read the article.

MY central planning? I do not do that.

If you read the article, you read that part where the author said that all the jobs left THEN the poor people moved in because real estate is so cheap. And if you understood that part, one would wonder how you plan on gentrifying the neighborhoods, without employment, after you shipped off the poor to other cities.

[35Pete]

MY central planning? I do not do that.

If you read the article, you read that part where the author said that all the jobs left THEN the poor people moved in because real estate is so cheap. And if you understood that part, one would wonder how you plan on gentrifying the neighborhoods, without employment, after you shipped off the poor to other cities.

You don't "ship" them. You just pull the public rug out from underneath them.

Aqua. They are squatters. How are they gentrifying anything?

[Green Lantern]

You don't "ship" them. You just pull the public rug out from underneath them.

Aqua. They are squatters. How are they gentrifying anything?

If they moved in when values dropped, I think that makes them residents. And my question was, how do you get anybody with money to move back to a place that has no work for them?

[35Pete]

If they moved in when values dropped, I think that makes them residents. And my question was, how do you get anybody with money to move back to a place that has no work for them?

By making it too juicy for startup companies and crazy for them to NOT locate there. That's one starter.

Aqua. You have to spread "those people" out. You concentrate them in Buffalo and it's a stone around the cities neck.

[Chewbacher]

If they moved in when values dropped, I think that makes them residents. And my question was, how do you get anybody with money to move back to a place that has no work for them?

Thank you, exactly why I am not there anymore.