2011: What is most needed in Buffalo?

A winning sports team. Team USA U20 Hockey comes to town and becomes losers. Or loosers, as many on BR like to spell it. Bills, Sabres, all UB teams, all Canisius teams. Any way you spin it, athletics in Buffalo = losers. The Bandits are our only hope. And Canisius synchronized swimming... yippee.

We need DEVELOPMENT PLANS that will actually happen. No more 'Studies' on everything, we spent the last 50 plus years studying every f'n thing that we should be geniouses by now. Time to build new over the vacant lots and give breaks and deals to lure companys here instead of scarying them away as we always have.

I think it's a combination of almost all of the above.
What I think we need:
1. We need to absolutely reduce taxes here. I know that NY state makes it hard, but we're paying more in property taxes and sales tax than even other parts of the state. That suggest to me we could do things a lot more efficiently around here.
2. We need to reduce the amount of government around here. Why we need to keep numerous small little municipalities upright around here has always puzzled me. Having places like Sloan, Williamsville, North Collins, and Depew (among others) might have made sense a century ago when a lot of the places were created, but they're wasteful redundancies nowadays.
3. On a similar note, there are too many school districts. Why Amherst has to have 4 school districts and Hamburg has to have 3 never made sense to me. Again when they were originally organized it made sense, but it leads to incredible wastefulness nowadays. Each district has to have its own bureacracy and superintendents. This is a big part of why we pay so much in property taxes around here.
4. We need to get rid of patronage generators like the water authorities. The county authority in particular. How we can sit on one of the largest bodies of fresh water and still pay as much as we do. Even Rochester pays 2/3 as much as we do according to the Buffalo water authority itself. Why we need 3 part time water commissioners making 23 K plus benefits never made any sense except that it gave friends of our politicians what amounts to little more than a sinecure.
4. Not that it would ever happen, but we seriously should look into combining police forces. Toronto has a metropolitan police force, why can't we do it? I'm sure people out in the suburbs with low crime don't want to have to subsidize the city with its much higher crime rate, but we're all in this together, right?. If the city goes down, it drags the area down with it. But imagine how much we could save if could buy things for all of the diverse police forces in bulk instead of piecemeal. If nothing else, we could get roll some of the police forces together. The village of Hamburg and Blasdell police forces come to mind.
5. We need to completely deconstruct the government in the city of Buffalo(probably could stand to do it in the suburbs as well) and reconstruct it in a way that addresses what services the city needs. The city government we have now was from an era when the city had more than twice the population we have now.
6. We should see what money we can get from the federal and state governments, along with any local money we can spare to improve the infrastructure around here. I can still remember that business with discharging excess sewage from storm and sanitary drains into the lake that was going on around August. The part that sticks in my head was the condoms and tampons that were floating nearing the new canal slip. I also remember watching a show a couple of years ago ( I was living in Miami at the time) where they were talking about water loss from old water systems and I can remember them mentioning a loss rate of something like 30%. It was a show on Discovery I think about America's failing infrastructure.
7. We could also use that money to demolish old buildings around here that are cluttering up the area. I'm talking about things like abandoned houses on the east side, old factories and grain elevators that give the city a Stalingrad circa 1943 feel.
8. We need to overhaul city and county regulations regarding licensing and permits(among many other things). Remember James the Ice Cream Dude(is he still even here in Buffalo still)? I always felt like that was a case that demonstrated how regulations were stifling any kind of entrepreneurial spirit in this city. He was always having to deal with the city and its myriad different procedures and to his credit still seemed determined to try to make a go of things. Another thing that would be useful would be for us to overhaul how the preservation board does things. Remember when OSC went in front of the board and made a case for why they should be able to tear down the deathtrap nextdoor to them? They had their request tabled because they didn't have a statement ready that explained the building's historic significance or a feasability study addressing possible reuse? That suggest to me that preservation board should have a checklist of things that proposals need to have before they make their case. And while we're at it, why can't we make the preservation board an elected institution?

I'm sure there's a whole lot more that we could do around here to get things moving in the right direction. I know none of this will ever likely happen, but in any case those are my suggestions.

Jobs are a critical issue in the area and that's undeniable.

The best thing the current residents can do is to reduce taxes and fix the infrastructure. And probably most importantly, get involved.

We should reduce municipalities. This is actually a point in Cuomo's plan for New York (although he doesn't specify how). Start small with lighting and water districts.

We should improve infrastructure and the aesthetics of the area. Create more parks space and remove old utility lines in areas where houses have been demolished. Add a medium sized park someplace between Ellicott and the East Side. Add more bike lanes. And every day that there's a giant hole near that waterfront, the city looks horrible. I think of Detroit or Chernobyl.

Most importantly, taking the time out to only write on here is not going to fix our problems. Even if you live in the suburbs, these are your problems too, or else you probably wouldn't be reading or commenting on here. Get involved in some capacity or we will be sitting here complaining about the same stuff ten years from now.

1. Stop with the loser mentality.

2. Stop looking for silver bullets.

3. Save the things that are irreplaceable and make us unique.

4. Make it easier to do business here.

EASY EVERYTHING

Pampiniform pretty much nailed it with a well thought-out analysis.

I think leadership and then government restructuring are the critical issues. We lack leadership here, and statewide, in the worst way. Too many do-nothing career politicians who act like good people come the election and no one wants to criticize (Sam Hoyt is the best example). All politicians cater to their campsign-financing special interests and that takes the average citizen out of the democracy. This place is an embarassment when it comes to leadership.

And it's critical for the good new leadership we so desparatley need to recognize that the city-town-village structure created in the early 1800s is no longer worthwhile, relevant, cost-effective or an efficient way to govern and deliver services.

Any arguments over the value of 50+ municipalities in Erie and Niagara Counties can be countered, either anecdotally or through actual research,

Everything else after that is merely wishful thinking. The economic development model pitting one muni against another is and always will fail in the absense of regional management/goverance. I would argue tax incentives and creaks to promote business is useless and that lower taxes, making the communiities we have better not bigger would go a long way toward enticing development and business and help our population grow. The current model creates winners (Amherst for example) and losers (Buffalo) that permanently tip the balance of economic and social equity for the entire region, in a negative way.

What is happening in WNY is akin to a dog chasing its tail. Buffalo continually spend money on police and fire protection, installing millions of dollars of surveillance cameras to stop crime and improve safety and it doesn't, nor ever will. Economics (jobs, poverty, etc) is the more significant variable in crime, not the amoiunt of cops and cameras. So by continuing to respond to the SYMPTOM of the problem and not the cause, you fail to make any meaningful change. It's the same with the economic development. For decades this region has thrown money at businesses in false believe it will change us for the better.

When? When the last person has left and turned out the lights.

I would go off gypsydreamer idea. Make the area south of Canalside a green business district. Tax incentives, transfering NFTA land, anything it takes. Brings NEW green jobs to the area, while sandwiching downtown with the constantly growing Medical Campus.

Build off the SteelWinds project in Lackawanna, make Buffalo a leading city in Green technology. Push peoples ideas of Buffalo from being snow and depression to medical and environmental innovation.

We have all that land there, and all we us it for is to hold Route 5. And if people want to use the shoreline for entertainment, thats fine. Push the business to the east of Route 5.

shopping downtown....instead of bass pro on the waterfront, how about barnes and noble on delaware, or old navy on delaware...tie it in with pitt petri, tiftjikian(?) oriental rugs, new era cap co. and you might actually have a downtown shopping district...i am convinced now more than ever that we need name recognition to effectively market ourselves to tourists...they don't have to be the highest quality stores, but recognizable names that are accesible to all...brands like these would be perfect 'anchor tenants'...

you have new residential apts and restaurants popping up all over downtown; now you need Gaps and Barnes and nobles to complete the equation.Once this happens, more retail will immediately follow and should be in conjucntion with the city planting trees, installing street furniture and period lamps and walla! just watch

I think we need to wake up and realize we have a booming Southern Ontario right next to us and take advantage of that. Encouraging regional development in tandem with Ontario, making it easier for citizens to commute both ways, improving transit links with better rail service; all of these things would benefit both of us.
Our representatives and senators should really be trying to push policy to open that up, which would not only benefit us but many other border cities. If we could tap into just a fraction of the growth that was happening over there, we'd be on our way to a much better situation.

Personally, I think the big deadweight dragging down the Buffalo region (and other older cities) is sprawl. The Buffalo metro area now has roughly the same population as it did in 1950, but we are burdened with the maintenance costs of over three times as much infrastructure (roads, utilities, sewers, buildings, schools, emergency services, etc.). That is why taxes are high all over the region and why the city of Buffalo has great difficulty providing reasonable services with such a limited tax base.

What will it take to stop sprawl and put a self-imposed moratorium on further expansion? A profound cultural change. An end to hyper-materialism and to racism and classism. People embracing the idea of living a greater portion of their lives in the public realm of neighborhoods and communities once again, rather than isolated in the private realm of their own cul-de-sac homes. People of all types (race, gender, cultural heritage, religion, socioeconomic position, etc.) finding a way of assimilating into a shared set of values that give them common ground and identity.

Personally, I'm not too optimistic for that, but you never know. Bigger societal shifts have happened before.

The other, probably more likely, possibility is that peak oil, unavailability of easy credit, and other economic realities make the sprawl lifestyle economically unfeasible and people are forced to grudgingly accept the idea of living in denser communities. The big question is whether America can gracefully adjust under those pressures or whether our civilization will effectively implode under a prolonged burden of $5/gallon gasoline. That would stop sprawl in a hurry, too, but it wouldn't do Buffalo much good either.

This may sound stupid but if people could fly into buffalo, take rapid transit to downtown(any kind), take a train from downtown to NF and the TO, the Downtown Hotel market would sky rocket. IDK what would go into this but but plenty of people come to BUF for hockey games/ football games and plenty of people as in millions come to see NF. WHY not feed off of it.

Train stop in BUF, NF, St. Catherines, Hamilton, Mississagau, and then TO.

Again idk what would go into this but there are alot of people in that stretch and a wonder of the world.

OBV this would need way more then a year, but I wish someone would be at least explore pipe dreams.

I never expect any of this is ever going to happen. It was just my ideas about what Buffalo needs. As several people said, everyone around is tripping all over each other trying to get their little piece of the pie, regardless of whether or not it is good for the region as a whole.
It's easy enough to say we need Barnes and Noble or something else on Delaware or downtown. Or that we should make a certain area a green jobs zone. What is hard is to actually give businesses an incentive to risk money there. Why would any business want to have to deal with the maze of redtape and taxes that our region offers business owners? The fact we have to try to bribe businesses with empire zones and low cost power says volumes about what is wrong around here. That is the main thrust behind what I was arguing.
The role that government should be playing is to provide the basic infrastructure and services that allow things to develop on their own. They should strive to do so without creating ruinous tax burdens. The government should stay out of development as much as possible. We all know what kind of a track record they have when it comes to development.
I suppose the people that live around here are also to blame to one degree or another. We always seem to want leadership and vision, and keep electing the same careerist politicians. We had a chance to to eliminate some of the little redundant layers of government around here when they had referendums on dissolving Sloan, North Collins, Williamsville, and Farnham, and all of those failed. I'm not sure what to make of any of that, but it does seem to indicate to me that most people want things to change, as long as someone else has to do the changing.
Oh and another thing, we need to pay attention to what other cities are doing. A good example of this was with Bass Pro. I can remember when they first proposed the idea I thought it sounded like a cool idea. However, I was talking to a buddy of mine from Baton Rouge, LA who was telling me about how badly they wanted a Bass Pro and all the concessions that they had to make to get one there. I couldn't believe what he was telling me, it sounded like he was talking about Buffalo. If we had seriously looked at what that corporate welfare - addicted company was up to down there, we could have cut our losses years earlier.

This is like a broken record...

As JSmith points out sprawl without growth is certainly holding us back. That sprawl has stratified our society to a point where there is no longer a common interest. A good portion of our community have isolated themselves from the problems and therefore have no incentive to do the right thing. They see the world only through their own lens of self interest and are blind to their own responsibility in creating such a separate and unequal society.

Our leaders are also just as blind, looking only at the short term instead of laying the groundwork for the future. Chris Collins is the poster child for this lack of vision, he has maintained the status quo acting mainly as an advocate for suburban taxpayers rather than taking on the more difficult role as a leader of the region.

The sad part is I doubt we will see any significant change as long as our society continues to be so divided. Forty years of trickle down economics has created the largest disparity in wealth and income since the great depression. Communities that are growing can better absorb or hide that disparity but here in Buffalo it is impossible to deny how much ground we have lost. I think Buffalo is just ahead of the curve in the growth of poverty, we were one of the first places to experience the reality of a new economy that put profit ahead of the greater good. As wages continue to be driven down and jobs exported the rest of the country may soon find themselves in the same situation.

common sense

i'll just put in my $.02 for a ban on any new surface parking and incentives to build on existing parking lots. name one downtown comprised of 50% parking that is healthy, successful, appealing, or in demand.

The problems are pretty clear - lack of leadership, lack of jobs, a public sector that is too large in two ways (cost to maintain and a bureaucracy that is itself an impediment to private development), and a failure to capitalize on regional assets. I'd add to the list a tendency to romanticize about the Buffalo of the 1940's or 50's and seek to go back to that state (increase urban density, restore old buildings, encourage manufacturing, put cars on Main St., etc.) rather than focus on what will work in the future.

Some of the "solutions" presented on this page are good descriptions of a desired end state, but the how to get there from here doesn't get enough attention. We are good at identifying the obstacles for why we can't get everything we think that we want (poor leadership, public sector unions, etc.), but we don't identify the incremental steps we can take with relatively little opposition.

Let me start with a few principles to guide reform. These are not ideal, and in a perfect fantasy world I would probably reject most of them, but leadership begins with recognizing reality - and any reform proposal that doesn't follow these principles is doomed to failure by entrenched powerful opposition.

(1) Achievable Reform must accept legacy costs. As a community, we agreed to contracts. We can't change the rules of law because our bargaining position has diminished. We have to manage around them. Public utilities and auto workers once had contracts very similar to today's public sector contracts and management was able to negotiate concessions. There are legitimate strategies to negotiate with unions. We need to stop whining about making a bad deal in the past and deal with it at the negotiating table.

(2) Achievable Reform must not eliminate or diminish the existing pay of a public sector employee. Changing benefits not yet earned is fair game. Changing job titles or roles is fair game. Not replacing retirees is fair game. Offering early retirement is fair game. Negotiating contract changes that are voluntarily accepted which offer more now for less later is fair game. Paying someone not to work is fair game. Just don't leave someone worse off next year than they are this year. I don't like this rule, but unfortunately it is a prerequisite to moving forward.

(3) Achievable reform must respect people's right to choose what type of community they live in. Not everyone wants to live in the Elmwood Village and walk to a subway stop. Some would rather talk to the councilman they see at Church about a snow plow issue rather than call 311. The village elections that rejected dissolution were not the result of an uninformed electorate, they were the result of people realistically determining that the $150,000 cost of a mayor and village council spread over a few thousand residents is worth it to maintain a sense of community. The extra hundred bucks on the tax bill to have a policeman that knows their neighborhood respond to a call in 2 rather 10 minutes (or never) is worth it to them too. As for the cost of highways and infrastructure, when you consider gasoline taxes, sales tax on automobile sales, and property taxes in the suburbs being approximately double what they are in the city, the reality is that the suburbanites are paying their own way - and have chosen to do so. Respect their choice.

(4)Achievable reform must not consolidate schools or emergency responders. They are the two government services the general public most cares about. Leave consolidation of them off the table. Yes, Superintendents and Commissioners make a lot of money. The 5 school districts in Cheektowaga are probably wasting $1.5 million in administrative salaries, but spread over the 100,000 people in Cheektowaga, it's $15. The consolidation proposition is a red herring. Duplication is not the real driver of property taxes, but fighting it is a sure way to inspire opposition.

(5) Achievable reform must accept that all problems can't be solved at once and that sometimes doing something imperfect is more progress than doing nothing at all.

With those principles outlined, my next post will outline achievable reforms we can do.

All Buffalonians should move to Rochester. This will dramatically end fruitless efforts to rehab the Hilton eyesore. It should also seriously reduce drunken driving and well as end efforts the 'bring Buffalo back,' and the idiots who are determined to take an essentially 'blue collar' small city losing population and yuppify it. As a city empty of people Buffalo may actually attract tourists!

"Buffalo in Free Fall!"

All Buffalonians should move to Rochester. This will dramatically end fruitless efforts to rehab the Hilton eyesore. It should also seriously reduce drunken driving and well as end efforts the 'bring Buffalo back,' and the idiots who are determined to take an essentially 'blue collar' small city losing population and yuppify it. As a city empty of people Buffalo may actually attract tourists!

"Buffalo in Free Fall!"

A few achievable reforms:

(1) Replace Empire Zones / ECIDA packages / etc. with a simple "tax holiday" law. Simply give every business locating or expanding at least 25% in Erie County a sales tax exemption for the direct costs of capital investment/expansion, an exemption from property taxes for 2 years and phased-in taxes over years 3-10. Everyone gets this deal anyway, so let's just make it the law and stop making businesses jump through hoops to qualify.

(2) Ask the State Senate to pass a house rule requiring bills being considered to have a section addressing whether it should be applicable to Downstate, Upstate or both. There are State laws that are only applicable downstate, but most laws are applicable to the whole state even if they were designed to deal with a downstate only issue without considering unintended Upstate consequences.

(2a) Ask the State Senate to hold hearings on whether their are existing laws originally passed to solve downstate problems with unintended Upstate consequences.

(3) Consider consolidation of government services that people are not emotionally attached to. If you can focus on garbage, snow plowing, sewers, lighting, road paving and maintenance, you may get more traction than aiming for eliminating village boards, police departments or schools.

(4) Allow greater flexibility in public finances. Many government financial decisions are based on cash basis budgets that are required to be balanced from year to year. School districts also have caps on how much they can hold in reserves. This sounds good, but forcing balanced budgets actually skews decision making and tends to ratchet up spending over time. In "good years" when the stock market is up driving pension costs down (see 4a below) and a strong economy is creating high sales tax revenues, the government is flush with cash that it is barred from saving - forcing it to either lower taxes or find new spending opportunities. We all know which path is chosen. Then in bad years, the new spending opportunities still need to be financed, but there are shortfalls in sales tax and a big pension bill, so taxes are raised and the governing board complains it is out of their control. If the government was allowed to save money or run a deficit, the cycle could be smoothed and the tendency to ratchet up spending in good years could be alleviated.

(4a) Adopt a private sector model for managing pension costs. New York Law currently requires 100% funding of public employee pensions. Most private companies, in contrast, seek to make a consistent annual contribution while managing a funded status between 80% and 110%. During most of the 2000's, governments in New York contributed nearly nothing to the state retirement funds because a strong stock market was keeping the plans fully funded. As discussed above, other spending opportunities were identified to eat up the savings in annual budgets. Then in late 2008, the market went down and a fairly normal contribution of about 10% of earnings is needed. This is causing talk about the need to raise taxes to finance this "new" cost. We need to just manage within a range. To take it a step further, during the next upturn, rather than decrease the contribution to zero, we should take the opportunity to dump retiree healthcare cost into the pension plan - taking care of that long-term problem as well.

(5) Either pay our legislators a lot more or a lot less. The reason we do not have leadership is because we have structured the jobs of our legislators as full time jobs with middle-management level pay and benefits. Thus we attract people who want a full-time job that pays $70,000 with a good pension after 20 years. We do not attract executive leadership that would command six-figure pay in the private sector, people who want to work for government for less than 20 years, or people who might want to maintain their existing career while being a part-time legislator. If we want full-time leaders, we need to pay a salary that a true leader can command. If we want true leaders to volunteer their time, we should eliminate or drastically reduce the salary so that the unqualified do not seek office.

(6) Create a single county-wide process for building approval. Planning boards, zoning boards, preservation boards, environmental review committees, etc. should all be a single entity with the power to make a judgment on whether or not a proposed project complies with the rules. Put yourself in the shoes of an executive looking to locate a factory. Read the Buffalo News with that viewpoint and look at the myriad of different agencies or boards that get involved in building something. Look at all of the regulations and laws in the "toolkit" of obstructionists that want to sue to stop your project. We have to make it easier for people to invest money here and having a single board with the power to decide if you've complied with the rules goes a long way.

(6a) Adopt a common building code and common zoning laws for Erie County. I don't think anyone at Buffalo City Hall is seriously concerned about buildings in Amherst being deathtraps - so let's not make it confusing for outsiders.

(6b) Create a Small Business Administration-like entity for Erie County. Goal is a one-stop shop to help people starting or relocating a business understand laws, economic incentives, sources of financing and also to connect them with bankers, lawyers, accountants, realtors, etc. Give them a "case manager" that is their personal guide to getting their business started. Goal is to make it easy to start a business in Erie County.

(7) Approach public sector contract negotiation with a view of modernizing benefit packages rather than diminishing them. No one wants to give up their pension. But more than you might expect are willing to trade their pension for a cash balance plan that is portable to another job and can be passed on to an heir after death. No one wants to give up a gold-plated health insurance plan. But given the choice between the gold-plated plan and nothing else or a more typical HMO combined with additional vacation, tuition reimbursement, on-site gym, on-site daycare, a paid cell phone or anything else that isn't growing in cost 10% a year, they may choose the wider benefit package that is less concentrated in high-cost/high growth health.

(8) Engage IT consultants to identify places in government where processes can be streamlined to be performed with fewer government employees. Renew your drivers license at an ATM style kiosk. Self-check out from the library. Order just about any public record online, etc., etc. Deal with the shrinking government workforce by attrition, retraining/reassignment, or paying people not to work for the remaining duration of their government careers. Consider it a short-term investment in the long-term benefit of a smaller government workforce.

I selected these items as I think they would generate relatively little opposition. Reforms (1),(6),(6a) and (6b) should help to spur job growth. Reforms (3),(4),(4a),(7) and (8) should improve our tax climate. Reforms (2),(2a) and (5) are just good government reforms that might benefit both. These won't fix everything, but they will fix a lot - and lay a foundation for future successes.

These are the "low lying fruit." Next post will tackle a few items farther up the tree.

A few bigger items that could really help Buffalo:

(1) The local business community needs to spend to money to play the game in Albany rather than just complain about it. I don't like the game, but the rules can only be changed by insiders, so we need some insiders. Love them or hate them, Paladino and Golisano spending millions of their own money to run for governor and manipulate the State Senate, respectively, have heightened attention in Albany to the needs of Upstate. In addition to financing high profile political campaigns, we need to hire a few lobbyists focused on Upstate priorities. We can stand on principle and complain about unions obstructing Wicks Law reform, or we can just outspend the unions and get it done. UB2020 was doomed because downstate legislators feared higher tuition costs for their constituents. A few steak dinners may change their mind. We have to play the game if we want to win it.

(2) When we get a few lobbyists on retainer for item (1), we need to ask them to also make a call or two to our representatives in the U.S. Senate. A rational border policy with Canada needs to be a top priority. This may not be politically correct, but we all know that there is a big difference between the border with Mexico and the border with Canada. We don't need to stop Canadians from coming into the country - we just want to get to Ikea in less than 2 hours. Forget about a new Peace Bridge, what if there were 3 or 4 bridges and going to Fort Erie wasn't any more inconvenient than going to Grand Island. What needs to happen to make this achievable - Canada to strengthen its borders and immigration policies a bit so that it isn't a back door around US immigration rules, some agreement on customs officers carrying firearms in an international border zone so that customs facilities can be located where they make sense. Requires a little diplomatic effort, but isn't exactly Mid-East Peace. With a former New York senator as Secretary of State, this shouldn't be impossible. Beyond diplomacy, some technology and additional customs officers would also help to speed the process - making things like cross-border train connections possible.

(3) We need to lobby the federal and state government to achieve 100% of Niagara Power Project power remaining in Western New York. Cheap power from Niagara Falls is our chief regional asset. It is the one thing with the greatest potential to lure business here. Letting downstate steal our largest national resource was a tremendous failure of regional leadership. We need to correct that mistake.

(4) Two high speed rail lines - Downtown Buffalo to Downtown Toronto, Downtown Buffalo to Downtown Rochester. Ignore the urge to stop other places along the way (Niagara Falls, Fort Erie, Batavia, etc.). If you must, build other trains for that. Make them true high speed trains (200 MPH bullet trains, not 100 MPH Amtrak trains with an upgrade) running on the quickest route, not a cheaper pre-existing right of way. Toronto in 35 minutes (with customs cleared on the train), Rochester in 20. We could unify the business communities of the three cities, creating opportunities for residents to reasonably commute to jobs in Rochester or Toronto or to cross-sell.

(5) A hub airport - at almost any cost - The Northeast corridor is congested, contributing to national air traffic delays based on what occurs in New York or Philadelphia. One possible solution to the national problem is a new Northeastern hub airport - one that decreases traffic at JFK, LaGuardia, Newark and Philly by relieving them of transfer-only traffic (i.e. people neither originating or ending their flights in Philly or NYC). This new Northeastern hub also can generate significant local traffic as it is 35 minutes by high speed rail (see 4 above) from 6 million people in Toronto. We can sell one of the major carriers on this business case - and sweeten the pot by agreeing to pay up to $1 billion for the airport upgrade costs and new terminal. For the price of an NFL stadium, we could drastically improve the business climate in Buffalo. We often talk about electricity costs, taxes, etc. as key considerations in business location. Those are drivers, but the most important driver is often convenience for the executive making the decision. Can he get a direct flight to visit his parents in Topeka or for his meeting in London. A hub airport gives us that convenience factor.

Less talk, MORE ACTION. Nothing seems to move forward.

I think Delaware is the place for retail but stores like Barnes & Noble, Gap and Old navy are already entrenched here, how about destination retail like Crate & Barrel, it can serve the loft and condo residents as well as draw suburban residents. A redeveloped building on Delaware and Chippewa (bada bing) would be stunning retail space. Support such a store with other domestic retailers like lighting fixtures, art/poster galleries, California Closet and kitchen wares and they all serve one another. This could work but obviously will not happen for many reasons already mentioned by realists/naysayers.

1). Buffalo needs to attract more business downtown, right now there's zero reason to go downtown after 5pm unless you are going to a game.

2). So many people who talk about wanting to see Buffalo turned around need to get active in turning it around.

3). City Hall needs to aggressively market its remaining outer and inner harbor brownfields to rail and steamship companies so they can be utilized in a commercial/light industrial manner. The days of hulking factories are over, but bulk/breakbulk or intermodal cargo could find a home in Buffalo and bring jobs and tax revenue.

4). The Bills need to move into the City. Tear down Ralph Wilson.

Canadians and their money will save Buffalo, as follows:

1. Build a downtown stadium for Buffalo Bills, making it easy for our friends from Canada to attend games;

2. In proxiity to that, build a killler downtown shopping area with a few major anchor stores, like Barnes and Noble and Crate and Barrel, making it convenient and attractive for our friends from Canada to spend money in Buffalo;

3. In proximity to that, develop and entertainment district with some trendy, national chain venues and eateries like "Splitsville", and "Ri Rah Irish Pub" for our friends from Canada to eat and drink at;

4. In proximity to that, build a nice, fancy hotel for our friends from Canada to stay at....

Build it and they will come. Stop "f_ _ _ _ _n" around and get busy before it is too late.

The City - and the Region - needs to break away from its decades-old myopia of low civic self esteem and capitalize on its assets, both natural and man made which differentiates it from everywhere else. Unlike 'everywhere else,' we have many of those assets and fortunately there are those among us realize that are acting to preserve and promote them. It's a gradual process but will occur over time.