City September 28, 2010 4:48 PM

Showing Our Scars

Buffalo Rising 25

Submission to BRO by Greg C:

After reading the BRO post about Race and Ethnicity, it encouraged me to finish a project of my own. I marked every unimproved property owned by the City of Buffalo using Google Earth. As someone who spent a large amount of his childhood between the suburbs and the city, I've heard my fair share of horror stories of urban decay. One day, I just decided to take a list of addresses and put them on a map. The map represents the over six thousand properties offered by the city for purchasing (see PDF).

Mapping these properties tells a story of urban decay. It's showing our scars. It shows what people abandoned decades ago. Almost entire blocks are for sale. And in some small cases, entire streets can be purchased. I'm not going to talk about the reasons why all of this happened. That too often is discussed on BRO.

I just recommend to look at the East Side. Check out Humboldt Parkway. Look at the vacant homes right near the Central Terminal. Notice the amount of homes for sale in between Genesee Street and Broadway. Why do we need the Kensington Expressway today (or pipedream boulevard proposal in the future) when there are little to no people living on or near the major roads of the East Side? Has it served its purpose?

I figure a map like this would be a starting point to a better and more specific conversation of revitalizing neighborhoods. I encourage people to come up with other ideas for map overlays, so we can all better understand the trends. I did think of adding a crime map, but Spotcrime.com's mapplet didn't work for some reason. I also tried to find a traffic map for specific times of day, but I couldn't find one.

vClick to enlarge^

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Comments

25 Comments Leave a comment

STEEL

September 28, 2010 4:10 PM

Can we have a link to the map?

[ Reply ]

Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

Greg

September 28, 2010 4:45 PM

You're going to have to download Google Earth, but here is the file.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B560dtZum58aNzg0MTUzZmItOWQ5OC00ZWY1LTg1ZGYtNWU2NWNmMGM2NTFk&sort=name&layout=list&num=50

[ Reply ]

replied to STEEL

Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

5to81ALLDAY

September 28, 2010 4:37 PM

wow

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Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

benfranklin

September 28, 2010 6:22 PM

Thanks for also providing the file. The top of the .pdf says 'unimproved' property, are these vacant lots?

The number of 6000 is a bit different than the 4300 or so that are listed as being ready for the upcoming auction.

Does the city own 10,000 properties, or is one a subset of the other. Guess I'll have something to look into tomorrow at work.

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Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

burbsarenotbuffalo

September 29, 2010 9:41 AM

ben- I think that the 4300 properties listed for the InRem auction are not considered to be owned by the city (at least not at this point)..someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I'm also curious about the other great questions you brought up- does unimproved=vacant house or empty lot? and does the city own 10,000 or 6,000? I'm very much interested in what you find out.

to the rest: we can do without the racial stereotypes, and other generalizations about people who may live east of main st. save it for the buffalo news website. it doesn't belong here.

[ Reply ]

replied to benfranklin

Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

BuffaloNiagaraPlanner

September 29, 2010 11:47 AM

The City does not own the properties on its in-rem list. Those are properties that the City has listed for potential foreclosure. Property owners can remove their properties from the in-rem list by paying back taxes. If the City sells a property on the in-rem list, it has to complete the foreclosure in order to take title to the property and complete the sale. A property on the in-rem list continues to accumulate taxes. One of the main reasons why the City keeps properties on the in-rem list instead of foreclosing is because once the foreclose is completed, the City owns the property and is fully liable for it.

[ Reply ]

replied to burbsarenotbuffalo

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

burbsarenotbuffalo

September 29, 2010 2:12 PM

thanks for the clarification Planner- are you able to explain what "unimproved" means? Are they actual vacant structures or vacant parcels of land? Or both? Since this was from 2009, I looked to see if the vacant land I purchased was listed, and it was not. I then looked for addresses of known vacant structures in my own neighborhood, but found none. So, what exactly is the .pdf list of "unimproved" properties?

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replied to BuffaloNiagaraPlanner

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

BuffaloNiagaraPlanner

October 1, 2010 9:02 AM

Unimproved property is indeed vacant land. "Improvements" refers to construction or preparation of a site for development. A property that once had a building, but was demolished is classified as unimproved, though in my opinion it should have a different classification like “formerly improved.”

That is a list of unimproved properties that are owned by the City, which I confirmed by looking up parcelinformation here: www.ci.buffalo.ny.us/applications/propertyinformation/default.aspx. It did not work with a street number, so I just entered the street name and it gave me a complete list of all properties on that street. Anyway, privately owned vacant lots are not included in that PDF.

Here is what is most disturbing about that list – 20 records per page x 314 pages = more than 6,000 unimproved properties owned by the City. That list is even bigger when you add improved properties that are owned by the City, though I couldn’t find that number. There are approximately 96,000 parcels in Buffalo, so that begins to give you a sense of how much land the City has taken title to over the years. I’m guessing that the City owns well over 10% of all parcels. No taxes are collected on those properties, but the City still has to pay somebody to mow them, board them up, market them, etc., which is a huge financial burden on the City.

[ Reply ]

replied to burbsarenotbuffalo

Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

bobbycat

September 28, 2010 7:12 PM

This map looks very similar to the ethnicity map from the other day. I wonder how this would look as an overlay on that map. Do you think its a coincidence that the vacant areas are in the don't snitch on your homeys ghetto?

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Score: -2 ( 16 votes )

Black Rock Lifer

September 28, 2010 8:31 PM

No, I think the vacant areas are indicative of the poorest neighborhoods in Buffalo. African Americans just happen to be the poorest people, behind only Native Americans. Their poverty can be traced to the racism that defined America for the first couple of centuries and still is kept alive in certain segments of our society today. Must make you proud to be among that group.

[ Reply ]

replied to bobbycat

Score: 9 ( 15 votes )

bobbycat

September 29, 2010 5:34 AM

Poorest parts of the city are filled with don't snitch on your homeys, pregnant by 15, gang banging, school dropouting, no daddy having, welfare sucking, jail going, thug life living, racism blaming, 6 kid having, too proud to work for a living, welfare society.

[ Reply ]

replied to Black Rock Lifer

Score: -8 ( 14 votes )

sho'nuff

September 29, 2010 7:07 AM

The thought that the demographics of these areas are primarily made up of African Americans is incorrect. Take a look at www.city-data.com/zips/(enter zipcode) for information regarding these areas.

For example, the area covered by zip code 14208, 14209, 14211, and 14212 are featured in the map above. These areas are roughly 50% - 55% African American, and roughly 80% are living below the poverty line. A further look at the US Census numbers from 2000 shows that poverty afflicts roughly the same percentage of white and african americans in these neighborhoods. I combined the percentages for the areas covered in the Google Earth map above.

Given the demographics and data, I wonder if racism is truly at the root of poverty in these areas, given that racism (and Bobbycat's stereotypes) only account for about half the population in these areas. There must be other forces at play here.

I would love to see both Bobbycat and Blackrocklifer move beyond the tired stereotypes, excuses, and myths and start looking at the facts. This is the only way for us to come up with real solutions to these real issues.

[ Reply ]

replied to Black Rock Lifer

Score: 1 ( 5 votes )

Black Rock Lifer

September 29, 2010 12:28 PM

The areas with the greatest concentration of blue are indeed predominately African American neighborhoods. Any informed observer of the city would know that. Zip codes are not good boundaries for comparison because neighborhoods do not fit into postal zones drawn without regard to the makeup of the area.

Real life experience and observation are needed to properly interpret statistiscal data, relying on data alone leads to erroneous conclusions.

You can keep pretending racism is not a factor in poverty, but the facts indicate otherwise.

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replied to sho'nuff

Score: 2 ( 4 votes )

BuffaloByChoice

September 29, 2010 10:48 AM

Your comment perfectly and succinctly sums up my thoughts! Thanks for quickly dispatching that one.

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replied to Black Rock Lifer

Score: 1 ( 3 votes )

Pegger

September 28, 2010 7:24 PM

This is quite a visual depiction of how Main St. serves as the great divide in Buffalo. The stark contrast to the Delaware District and Allentown is stunnung.

[ Reply ]

Score: 4 ( 4 votes )

fixBuffalo

September 29, 2010 12:04 AM

oy vey

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Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

WNY_Nick

September 29, 2010 2:12 AM

As requested, heres the ethnic map as a Google earth overlay. Hope i did the upload right.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B0Iz5PbneoioY2I2OTFhNjEtMzFmYS00ZTc2LWEzMWQtNDYwOTEyMGVjNDI3&hl=en&authkey=CLmU9ws

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Score: 3 ( 3 votes )

Greg

September 29, 2010 9:35 AM

Thanks Nick

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replied to WNY_Nick

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

Jesse

September 29, 2010 7:15 AM

Using the blue marker with the black outline just obscures the data within its more interesting parts.

But yes, it's all because we're racist suburbanites.......

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Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

Greg

September 29, 2010 9:33 AM

I added another layer of Parks in the city of Buffalo. In order to see it though with ethnic map, you have make the map at least 50% transparent. It's interesting the lack of parks for the majority of the area occupied by Blacks.

https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=0B560dtZum58aNzczNGE5NjQtNWQ0My00YTNiLWEyODItNmJmMWE1YjJhNDNh&sort=name&layout=list&num=50

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Score: 0 ( 0 votes )

geomike

September 29, 2010 9:47 AM

The distribution you're seeing in income and unimproved housing in the city, isn't so much one factor. It's the result of the economicly mobile/middle class (mostly caucasians), wanting to have bigger houses when the suburbs started springing up in the 40s & 50s, coupled with the lower-income and minorities in he city just gaining some economic & social freedoms (not necessarily equality). As the middle class moved to the suburbs, that left cities with more lower-income residents, than upper income. This reduced the city's tax base, and further strained their ability reinvigorate the housing stock, invest in schools and generate good paying jobs within the city. All of that is a self-perpetuating Catch 22. It's not exclusively racial, or economic, or special to Buffalo, but as a mid-size city with a smaller overall economy it's harder for a city that size to recover from such a socio-economic shift quickly.

[ Reply ]

Score: 2 ( 2 votes )

AngelDark

September 29, 2010 10:00 AM

NO. It's not coincidence the east side dominates in this map or any map showing crime, gangs, drug dealing, single parent families, welfare, unemployment, murder. The majority, not all, don't care about values or responsible behavior. It's quite sad as I spent the majority of my life at Genesee and Fillmore. The area has changed for the worse. The younger generation is ignorant beyond comprehension.

[ Reply ]

Score: 3 ( 9 votes )

BuffaloNiagaraPlanner

September 29, 2010 12:17 PM

I agree with you. The problem lies in the culture of poverty. Failing inter-city schools do not offer the prospect of a good education and without a good education there is no prospect of a good job, which is exacerbated by the fact that this is an economically distressed area where access to good paying jobs is already problem, which makes a good education look worthless, hence the rate of dropouts. There is also a lack of cohesive family structure that might otherwise promote family and community values such as education, hard work, and responsibility. You hear people talk about "getting out of the ghetto," but it's not easy as just moving, which is impossible anyway if you don't have the resources. I think that expression is more about climbing out of the neverending cycle of poverty, which starts with access to a good education and/or a good paying job, but the culture in these communities does not value these things highly enough. So, you're right, the problem is ignorance.

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replied to AngelDark

Score: 0 ( 2 votes )

magnachef

October 1, 2010 1:13 PM

As part of the WNY OpenData Working Group, I have created a system for fetching 511 traffic information and have written an API to the data. I'm hoping to have it online in the next couple of weeks. The crime data you want is probably available through CrimeReports.com, but they are bastards in the fact that they charge the city, get the crime data feeds, but only allow access to it through their site (no access to raw data).

Just an FYI to those of you interested in gathering more OpenData for WNY, there is currently a group who is working to consolidate all types of WNY open/government data and consolidating it into a uniform API.

Check us out for more info on what we're about and what we've been working on:

http://groups.google.com/group/wnyopendata

[ Reply ]

Score: 1 ( 1 votes )

fakemidnight

April 4, 2012 11:45 PM

I would like to use these images in my thesis proposal presentation, and also want to properly cite Greg. Any one know him or a way to get into contact with him. email me: fakemidnight [at] gmail [dot] com. thanks

[ Reply ]

Score: 0 ( 0 votes )