Missing Teeth

This article is right on the money and points out one of the issues that we can't easily hide when we tour people around our city. Buffalo's urban landscape is full of holes and missing teeth. Especially downtown and between Chipewa and Allentown. It also turns out to often not be cost effective for a developer to try to recreate anything attractive to replace a historic structure with new construction. That's why it is so important to at least leave the facades when a building has reached a demolition by neglect stage. I keep saying that rather than build any more towers in Buffalo, we need to be building pedestrian friendly structures of no more than 5 stories to fill in all of these missing teeth throughout our city. We also need to fill up the storefronts we have now. It's illegal to leave one vacant for more than six months but some property owners leave them vacant for years. Lower the lease, fix the building or sell it. Otherwise at least turn the spaces over for student and artist display space until something else is done.

great article. its amazing (and saddening) when you suddenly notice that there is almost no street in Buffalo with buildings ON BOTH SIDES. its usually small strips with parking on the opposite side of the street.

yes yes yes!

kunslter's argument in the past has been that americans developed a knee-jerk green-space reflex because we've had generations of new builds that degrade rather than improve the streetscape. the lex co-op ended a 40 year run when the only new builds on elmwood were one story cinderblock chain stores with front parking.

other streets have not been so lucky. broadway got a k-mart with the most colossally wasteful parking lot in all of buffalo and not having learned that lesson, added a shiny new strip plaza.

under the circumstances, a grassy lawn might seem preferable. but as kunslter might say, the answer to bad urbanism is not juniper ensembles, it is good urbanism.

Did you show this story to the Mayor and his so called 'city planners'????? If not, you should.

What city planners? Where's the planning director that the city tried to recruit in June with Brian Reilly's public announcement at the Congress for the New Urbanism conference in Denver in June, and the ads on the American Planning Association and CNU national Web sites in September? For a city its size, Buffalo has a practically nonexistent planning agency, and I'm beginning to think The Powers That Be want it that way. Among the economic development crowd, there's the belief that planners only get in the way of "progress".

Anyhow, related to what sin|ill wrote, try to find a signalized intersection in a city neighborhood business district that has storefronts built to the sidewalk on all four corners. Allen and Elmwood, Hertel and Sterling, and a couple of others are all that remain. Lots of once vibrant intersections have been ruined with a gas station or suburban context Wilson Farms on one corner.

This is exactly why we need an over all city development plan.

People dont even realize that they attracted to a fully built up streetscape.

Where do people like to live/shop/visit? Delaware in Kenmore, Main St in East Aurora, Hertel and Elmwood in Buffalo. They go to these places as tourists or pay a premium to live there, without necessarily understand what it is that draws them, they just know it feels right.

But its a simple thing: all it takes is placing parking behind storefronts - not in front.

Its such a simple solution, take Wegmans on Amherst St. If the structure was fronted to the street with parking in the rear, or even to the side, imagine the visual impact that could have had on the neighborhood.

Or have the Tops on Niagara Street built with it's front entrance ON Niagara St. with rear parking. Would look sooo much better.

A few reactions.

First, I again agree with Whatever on this subject, as we have argued before. Elmwood wouldn't enjoy its current success without the parking lots across from Spot, next to the Coop, the ramp at Children's, etc.

Second, bring in the people to live in all these densely built apartments without off street parking and the market will respond. Not everyone sees the beauty of living in Manhattan. But if enough do, then the market will react.

Third, I'm not entirely on one end of the spectrum on this topic (though I generally take that side of the argument since it is so woefully underrepresented in these discussions), but: if you think parking isn't necessary and desired by your neighborhood consumers and retailers, then add up the dollar amounts spent in retail with big parking lots vs. those quaint old fashioned storefronts. Take Elmwood between Kenmore and Hertel (Home Depot, Tops, Target, movie theaters, etc) vs. the amount spent in any other equivalent stretch of Elmwood filled with all those storefronts built to the street. Guess where more money changes hands? There's a reason retailers demand parking. The reason is that consumers demand it. They demand it by leaving the quaint streetscapes in droves to go shop by the parking lot. If you don't like that, preach your gospel and try to save souls, but don't be surprised when the masses don't attend your church. Some of you think Delaware in Kenmore is the picture of health? It's clinging to life. I agree the parking behind the stores helps a lot. Without it, the street would be dead.

Fourth, I don't get the hatred of green space. I completely disagree with Kunstler on Boston's big dig park, for example. I love parks. The more, the better to my mind. I'm not an architect. I'm not infatuated with buildings. I appreciate architecture, but I also appreciate beautiful gardens and parks. Some of you (Steel, Kunstler) absolutely hate greenspace. Theirs is not my aesthetic. For I'd much rather have less dense housing with beautiful side lots on every street as opposed to low rent vacant housing which doesn't allow any off street parking. I also disagree with with the Kunstler's hatred of the Troy greenspace. I would love to see the river if one flowed through my town. This guy wants every place to look like Manhattan. That's his taste. I agree with that mayor. To my aesthetic, Kunstler is off base.

As Whatever said, it's largely a matter of taste and choice.

Not sure if it means anything but the street in DT that has the least amount of "missing teeth" is Main where the Metro runs along it.

Now, odds are this is just because it would be difficult to demo or that cars can not access anyways...but it is interesting.

As for Steel's comment that "The most attractive and vibrant cities in America have very few gap-toothed streets." I would counter that those cities also have great public transportation.

Someone posted on another thread, I forgot who and what thread, that the Elmwood Village is a walkable neighborhood. In reality, if you are a business, this is far from the truth.

Yes, the most dense area of Buffalo is this neighborhood and it is no coincidence that is has the most vibrant business community. However, in order for it to survive, it needs to draw in people from outside of the 5 blocks that are N,S,E and W of the neighborhood. Yes, this means providing parking for those bastards from Amherst. But it also means providing parking for people who live on the West Side, Lower West Side, Blackrock, North Buffalo and other somewhat dense areas of the city.

Now I am not an expert on the city bus system but...say someone from the Columbus Park area wants to go to dinner in the Elmwood Village on a Friday night.

First off...they have to be home by 10:30 because the Bus system does not run that late.

Next, they can catch the #22 bus near 7th and Porter around 6:35. But better be on time because the next bus is not for another 75 minutes.

They then take this to catch the #20 bus at Elmwood and North around 6:49. Once again, better be on time because the next one does not come till 7:30.

The arrive somewhere in the Elmwood Village before 7pm.

So it takes 30 around 30 min via public bus to get where it takes 10 min to drive. Not a bad trade off...however, if you miss your bus, they run so infrequently, you are screwed. Oh man..if it is cold...even worse. The NFTA is a big reason why Buffalo has missing teeth.

In San Francisco, they have electric buses that run about every 10 minutes and go almost all day. THAT is how it should be!

I wonder what Buffalo would look like if the bus system was actually productive. It would not be that hard to do a pilot program.

Take the city West of the 33, South of Forest to Downtown and run 8 lines East and West and 8 lines North and South. Run them every 10 minutes and from 5am to 2am.

I would bet that over time, people inside of this loop could adapt and ditch a car or at least use it only to travel outside of the loop.

i'm going with insights from donald shoup's talk last week. i don't think his lecture was filmed so here's a substitute.

http://www.streetfilms.org/dr-shoup-parking-guru/

Great comments, good arguments from all sides, a real pleasure to read.

I have no problem with the big box stores in the Elmwood/Hertel area but our traditional business districts need to respect the contiguous street scape that was designed to a human scale.
Parking should be inserted with a "scalpel" not jammed in with a "hatchet" and certainly not bludgeoned with an axe, as has been the case here in Buffalo.

Even in places like New Orleans and NYC, there is a strong demand for parking. So what if the French Quarter is devoid of surface lots? Just a few blocks away, around and along Canal St. are plenty of garages and surface lots. Often I've seen "quaint historical districts" that are redeveloped to give the illusion of an old timey wonderland without cars only to look beyond and see where the sacrifices were made, where neighborhoods were ravaged to satisfy the demands of carloads of tourists. Indeed, that was the whole 'pedestrian mall' model: provide a lovely pedestrian shopping experience within a sea of surface parking. I've also seen where contiguous streetwalls were maintained, even built up and a shopping, dining and entertainment district thrived. But there was parking too: underground, in garages, behind smaller buildings and near transit points. It's about BALANCE. If Mr. Kunstler wants to turn the clock back to the 1890s he failed. It won't happen. Too many people love cars and the personal freedom and mobility they offer. There's no such thing as "smart planning" without parking. Sorry.

Take this with a grain of salt...but people with your mindset is the reason why issues like parking never get solved.

I pointed out that the parking challenge is simply a byproduct of poor public planning in regards to transportation in general. In order to correct parking...you need to address things like effective mass transportation.

Your counter...I am going to go by what a professor from UCLA says. Everyone should walk or ride their bike. Even if you live in a place like Buffalo, where it is currently 29° and a good chance of snow. Oh..it is going to be 59° in LA today.

Sony points out that even if you create areas that are 100% filled with buildings and "walkable", there is parking just around the corner. He said there needs to be a balance between walking and cars. Suggesting productive things like underground ramps, in garages, behind smaller buildings and near transit points.

Your counter...charge the hell out of those bastard drivers and no need to worry about cars...they are going the way of the dinosaur with oil prices on the rise.

Here is a little bit of reality for you.

If you succeed in making parking such a divisive issue, all that is going to happen is businesses will leave the urban core in places like Buffalo. The epitome of cutting off the nose to spite the face. What you would be left with is two empty structures side by side rather than a business and a parking lot.

Lastly, the car is never going to die because of oil prices. Current technology already allows for HEVs to get 3x the mpg as a normal car. People will find a way to drive in a budget because there will be a business that figures out a way to build cars that allow them to do so.

The only way to get people to give up their cars is to provide an alternative to driving that is a close comparison in regards to convenience, travel time and enjoyment.

I live right off elmwood and i RARELY drive around there. The point of an urban center is to shop, work and live in one area. I moved from california because i HATED driving everywhere. In fact, things were so spread out, i couldnt even use my bicycle most times!!!!

I walk everywhere, bike or take the bus. I share a car that is used mainly for long distance purposes. Who needs a car when there is decent transportation, walkable neighborhoods and bicycle friendly streets???

Urban centers attract people, like myself, who want to be in the center of it all. We dont want to drive to a concert thats 20 minutes away. Why drive to starbucks when spots around the corner? Why shop at the mall when you can walk down to Urban?

Urban areas are for walking.

-Regardless. What are you ultimately arguing for here? More parking lots? It doesn't sound like it. Are you just defending the existing parking lots?-

No. My original point was if you are going to have a conversation about parking lots, we should discuss why they exist. They are a byproduct of thinks like a poor public transportation system and low density neighborhoods. Businesses in Buffalo need to draw customers from a larger area than a business in places like Chicago or LA. Once you go past a mile, the walking option no longer is an option.

So if you are going to go to the business owner and say...you should not have a parking lot next door, you need to have a solution with that same conversation that does not hurt his/her business.

Which is why I suggested things like better bus service and lower cab rates. These two items would allow for people inside of the city to move around without the use of the car and not cost them more time and money then they do in other areas.

You have to give drivers something in return for asking them to give up their cars. You can not just say, we will charge them out of existence.

The second point was it is unfair to compare Buffalo to other places like LA or Chicago because those places have things like weather and mass transportation options that do not exist in Buffalo. Square peg..round hole.

If the conversation was framed as...this area is doing this and Buffalo could do something similar...BUT we have to overcome item 1, 2 and 3 that do not present itself in the example area...I would have agreed to the premise of the conversation.

apologies for beating a dead horse, but one last follow-up.

Really wrote:

> Your counter...charge the hell out of those bastard drivers and no need to worry about cars...they are going the way of the dinosaur with oil prices on the rise.

let's dismantle another straw man.

"charging the hell out of drivers" is not the definition of market rate parking. in buffalo, market rate might mean $.50/hour for certain places (broadway) or times of day and $5/hour for others (allen st.). it is also called -performance based pricing- or the goldilocks principle. you price so that somewhere between 10% and 20% of curb spaces are available on any given block at any given time.

oh, and like it or not, the global demand for petroleum now exceeds supply, and every day there is less of it in the ground. in a free market, capitalist society, that means prices will rise and shortages will occur.

what would be wrong with putting tracks built into the street and having a streetcar system like in the past?

I find it a shame that economically healthy city and suburbs cannot coexist in Buffalo. It is a shame that we are so far down that we have to resort to fighting amongst ourselves, instead of determining how to work together as a region to resolve the problems that plague our city. It is a shame that we have to blame the suburbs for the problems of the city. We cannot talk about economics or poverty without blaming the suburbs for taking away the money or conspiring to keep the poor in the city. We cannot talk about jobs without blaming Amherst and UB for building outside the City. We cannot discuss a more economically viable Buffalo without pointing a finger at the suburbs and saying "They took our jobs!, They took our wealthy!, They took our taxes!, They are getting rich off our poverty!".

We live in a beautiful city, full of rich architecture and loads of potential. We also live in a city plagued with corruption, poor decisions, inept decision makers, and poverty. We live in an area that offers our residents with housing options that do not exist in all other cities our size. Instead of embracing this as a positive, we see it as a threat to the city and vilify it. It is a positive that our middle and lower middle class residents can afford homes in safe neighborhoods with good schools, this is where most people want to raise their children. I have lived in other parts of the country where families must make tremendous sacrifices to up their quality of life. This is something that we should be using to sell the area, instead of trying to stop it.

I think we all agree that suburban sprawl is an issue. To restate that the issue that we should be focusing on is SPRAWL, not SUBURBS. New developments take from the entire area, when they are done without planning and consideration for the impact to the entire region. Unfortunately, as they say, what's done is done. We can whine about it and use a very broad brush to paint all suburbs as a new McMansion development in Wheatfield or Clarence, or we can work on highlighting the positives of the built environment. We can use a broad brush to paint all the suburbs as vinyl villages devoid of character, or we could use the contrast to sell some of the more architecturally significant buildings in Buffalo. What do we need to do this? How about fixing the real estate service for the City of Buffalo. How about advertising and showcasing homes and buildings in the city that are for sale and making them easy to purchase from the City of Buffalo. How about partnering with banks to quickly turn-over foreclosed homes to new buyers. How about advertising this to other cities where people are so under-water in their mortgages that they need to start over.

What about fixing the schools? The schools are a major issue and we cannot talk about them without blaming the suburbs for having wealthier residents and more college educated parents. There is one thing that we can do to reverse this, improve the schools. Take a look at the DC public schools as an example of where the administration and teachers are holding back progress because of they are more concerned about themselves than the students. Teachers who want to strike because they are held accountable for how well they maintain a classroom or deliver the content to students. Yes, there are more challenges in the city than the suburbs, but we need a school board and administrators who can address the issues. Take a look at some of the headlines relating to discipline issues and lack of leadership in the BPS as examples of where we can improve.

We have many other issues that we need to address, and we need leadership and a fresh perspective to overcome these issues that are currently obstacles to our growth and future. Instead of infighting with other local residents in our region, we should be focusing on attracting new residents to the area. We lose too many people to other areas of the country. Have we spoken with some of them to figure out why they are leaving? Have we spoken with the ones who have returned to figure out what attracted them back? This is valuable information that we could use to figure out our path forward.

The growth of the suburbs is a symptom of the problems with the city, it is not the cause. Let's get real and focus on the root cause of our issues instead of trying to explain away our issues. If we are serious about a regional approach to government and services, then we have to figure out how to bring our area closer together. After all, our region does include the City AND the suburbs.

Well said!

I'm with you 100% on the schools. They are the biggest impediment to Buffalo's prosperity.

The problem with the city schools has to do with high concentrations of poverty. Read Rusk's work for more on this.

If everyone in this area would think regionally and put in place a county-wide school district, then things would get better everywhere (of course, there would be a ton of busing needed to make this work). Virgina and many other states have county-wide school districts. Children of poverty would be disbursed evenly throughout the county - as would all other students. People in the suburbs would benefit from being about to compete for slots at City Honors, Hutch Tech, etc... as well as bringing diversity. Diversity is sorely lacking in most suburban schools and it's a disservice to us all.

Unfortunately, this will never happen. So, city residents have a few amazing options open to them in the public school arena (City Honors, Hutch Tech, DaVinci, Olmsted). Many charter schools exist as well. And, since taxes are lower in the city, residents can also more readily afford the private schools which abound in Buffalo (where many suburbanites send their kids). Scholarships to these private schools are available as well.

All things being equal (and having lived in both the suburbs and City of Buffalo), I will choose a walkable diverse community any day of the week.

I am all for eliminating arbitrary regional political boundaries. Combine Buffalo schools with Tonawanda, Amherst etc. Of course we both know it will be a cold day in Hell when that happens.

Everyone loves to brag about their town's school district but we also know that the real reason the city schools fail is because of the intractable problem of generational poverty and the issues the students inherit before they ever enter school. The Vaunted Amherst schools would do no better educating kids that come from the dysfunctional homes that are so highly concentrated within the city.

One Erie County School District, with every child required to attend the nearest school, and all the schools being equally good. How radical.