If you had $50,000 to invest in the city...

I'd spend it on Valley Forge Elm trees. Most resistant to Dutch Elm Disease.

I'd work with Re-Tree WNY to plant them along Fillmore to finish the Olmsted system.

Actually with $50,000 you could first connect MLK park to Caz Park and Porter to Symphony Circle. I'd say start there because those trees don't really have that many trees.

Then the rest of the money could be put into filling in elm trees in other parts of the park system.

Broken window theory. I know.

$50,000 cash? You could leverage that into a mortgage for at least a $250,000 property (or combined purchase price and rehab loan), I would assume.

I would look for a neighborhood where the investment would make a big difference. That's a bit of a balancing act. Some neighborhoods are so far gone you would be throwing money down a hole. Some thriving neighborhoods don't really need the investment, so you wouldn't be getting as much bang for your buck. But in other neighborhoods, just getting a few houses out of the hands of an out-of-state slumlord could make an enormous difference for that block. Or fixing up a commercial building and getting a good tenant could provide some positive momentum for a whole neighborhood.

good question, for that amount of money I think I would work on sometime similar to Greg's comments. You could get a lot of trees for that kind of money, or maybe strip a bike lane or two. Something near the city's edge to show that work is being done and the city in investing money into itself. Colvin Avenue entering the city is one of the ugliest sights around. But you clean up the street, open up some of the sidewalks to plant trees, add in bike lanes and you could turn around the image of the city for thousands of travelers.

Flip houses in North Buffalo.

One big problem with the housing market in Buffalo is that too many homes have been the victim of botched "improvements" (dropped ceilings, vinyl siding, decorative iron, etc), or they haven't been updated since the 1950s. I've even seen some otherwise gorgeous houses in North Buffalo with the original 1920s kitchens, and they looked rough. Very few houses in Buffalo are in move-in condition, even in the most desirable areas.

Buy a house, update it, flip it, take the profits and buy another, update that, sell it, take the profits and buy another ...

Dan, I would support your notion if by "flip" you mean "remove the dropped ceilings, vinyl siding, decorative iron, etc." If you just mean tear out the old kitchen and put in granite counter tops, I'm less impressed.

I may be kind of unusual in this respect, but I would be a bit intrigued by an intact 1920s kitchen (assuming it had been well-maintained). We looked at a ranch house in the Pan-Am neighborhood that had an intact 1950s kitchen with copper tile splashback, and built-in AM radio and pull-out toaster! We didn't buy it but it certainly made it a memorable house.

jsmith> Dan, I would support your notion if by "flip" you mean "remove the dropped ceilings, vinyl siding, decorative iron, etc." If you just mean tear out the old kitchen and put in granite counter tops, I'm less impressed.

I'm talking about reversing the botched improvements.

A problem with 1920s kitchens is that they lack storage and countertop space. It's possible to give a modern kitchen a 1920s feel with a copper countertop and Arts and Crafts-style cabinetry, lighting and hardware.

Update: Seven friends and I put together $100,000 a piece to set-up a foundation to support grass-roots community projects. We are in the process of submitting the IRS-1023 paperwork and other forms, which is going to cost us about $15,000 in legal fees. We figure the $800,000 in starting funds should allow us to provide a pretty decent allocation for grants and donations each year. Thanks for the suggestions, I really liked the idea of funding the replanting of trees. One of my friends is very active in revitalizing the Scajacuada Creek, so we might start there.

Let me know if you have more suggestions.

@Sho'nuff

That's great what you and your friends are doing. Best of luck!

i would get a tent market started on the waterfront development outer harbor to feature vendors from craft , to fresh produce similar to the Broadway Market. Then, once it started bringing people to the area I would start a Drum circle like they have in Asheville, NC every Friday in the summer When people start to come things start to grow.

I also would model the open market after the one in Ssvannah, Ga on the waterfront. Then i would invite the Broadway Market to the Outer Harbor and call it Broadway market on the Lake. Like Broadway on the Beach in Myrtle Beach, SC.

I'd give it to the guys who run a program called SENSES offering at-risk Buffalo East Side youth a chance to lear useful toks, develop good values, traits and etiquette.

I grew up there myself and if you just get the right chances along the way you can transcend your neighborhood-related challenges / obstacles toward growth and abright future.

Mike Weekes

If I had all that excellent monies I would take all the retarded people out to a movies.
Then I wouldn't pick them up becaud I'd be drinkin all the weally good stuff on Chipeewa!

If I had all that excellent monies I would take all the retarded people out to a movies.
Then I wouldn't pick them up becaud I'd be drinkin all the weally good stuff on Chipeewa!

I'd probably use 20K of it to subsidze start-up costs for a few new vendors in the downtown area so they could open stores up which would attract people after 5pm.

The other 20k would go to the Naval Park to be used for the upcoming drydocking of the USS The Sullivans.

We received our approval and letter of determination from the IRS earlier this week, just a few days after one of us lost her job at HSBC. She is moving to Boston to find a new job, she isn't even going to try to make a go of it in Buffalo anymore.

The remaining five of us are going to lunch today to decide if this is even worth it. We are not sure if we can really make a difference in Buffalo or if it would be better to keep our personal share and move away like our friends. I am really beginning to think that they might be right when they say the grass is greener in other cities. I'll let you know what happens..

I am interested as to what happened, it’s not every day you find a group of people who are willing to use that sort of money. That being said I wish I was here early to suggest the following:
That sort of money could go a long way in reworking some of the old terminal buildings in the central terminal complex, or you could buy one of the grain elevators. I would recommend you put a server farm in a grain elevator.

my vote would be for a small business incubator, i would like to see a few more places like the elmwood collective around the area

Use it to get donors to match the funds, to expand hours and programs at local Boys&Girls clubs. I'm not affiliated right now, but have worked in B&GC in the past, and when I looked at Buffalo's budget for its 6 centers, it was pretty low, especially after a lot of federal funding was eliminated. The yearly budget of just one of these centers is half a million. You could double the amount of service on the West Side easily.

It reallly depends on whether the money is used to be spent or used for investment. If for spending, just find a project you like (such as planting trees) and go and do it. As long as it's a benefit for the public, I see nothing wrong, and lot's of right.

Using this apporach, you could also "invest" in the people -- use the money to train kids on basic landscaping so that they learn something interesting, AND you get neighborhood improvement. Always look to keep your costs a low as possible and leverage the money you have to do two or three things at once.

So -- if it's trees you like, try to get the trees as cheaply as possible, see if you can get volunteers to plant them and care for them after planting, and try to get donations to do more of it. Get kids to help you (free labor) in exchange for the training. Get them to research what are the best species for the area, the best ways to plant them, and so on, and it becomes a project. Soon, you will find that the money lasts a long time, and you start getting some donations, some in cash, some in kind, and the project just keeps growing. Apply for a grant and you have a small business started!

The other way to spend money is to invest it. I'll bet that some of the best success stories in Buffalo started on less than $100,000. How much did Five Point Bakery need to get started? How much to open an organic nursery? In Cheektowaga, there is a British shop named the best in the US, and they sell meat pies. It couldn't have been that much to start it.

Good luck!

nice one

Update: There are only five of us now, with a total investment of $475,000. We are just waiting on the IRS to give us their blessing. Our primary focus, this week, is the waterfront. We'll see how easy it is to work with the city and ECHDC.

If I singularly had $50,000 to spend in Buffalo, I would like to purchase one of the remaining homes on Coe Place and begin renovation of the property.

Oddly enough, this street has fallen off of the radar and I know it still requires more attention; I suspect there may very well be five homes on this street in need of rehab and my five colleagues could help to rejuvenate this unique street.

http://www.youtube.com/embed/JNYue0Os55A?rel=0

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I would start EV stations around town. Not only for electric car charging but for all electronics. Stop and charge have a coffee and sandwich and charge up enough to get home. Using wind turbine power or solar energy CHARGATUNITY. Ok when do I get the $50,000.

http://realestate.yahoo.com/promo/the-sleekest-coolest-parking-garages.html

we need this type of parking garage

I would purchase a series of billboards viewable on expressways heading out to the burbs. I would show a historically significant house in North Buffalo priced around 200K than equally priced homes in the burbs, with the caption: "You could have twice the house, with twice the character in Buffalo, for the same price as a home in the suburbs."

Change the Buffalo home for sale every other week.

This would be especially effective during snow storms and traffic jams.

good

we have a billion dollar incentive package, why cant we get this? 1 billion vs. 12 million?

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Apple Inc. is investing $304 million in a new campus and more than doubling its workforce in the Texas capital, boosted by a $21 million incentive from a state fund designed to attract high-tech companies, Gov. Rick Perry said Friday.

The investment from the Texas Enterprise Fund comes in exchange for a promise that Apple will add more than 3,600 employees at its new facility in Austin over the next decade, including customer support, sales and accounting staff, Perry said.

"Investments like this further Texas' potential to become the nation's next high-tech hub," the governor said in a statement.

Already the world's most valuable company, Apple's market capitalization topped $500 billion this month and remains above that mark — rarefied air that only a few firms, including rival Microsoft and Exxon Mobil Corp, have ever exceeded.

"Our operations in Austin have grown dramatically over the past decade, from less than 1,000 employees in 2004 to more than 3,500 today," said Steve Dowling, a spokesman for the Cupertino, Calif., company.

This week, Apple unveiled its new iPad, featuring a sharper screen and faster processing chip, though the added features mean the tablet computer is slightly thicker and heavier than its predecessor, iPad 2.

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I would hire experts to devise a plan to shrink the city with control. The city had a plan when it grew, it needs a plan while it shrinks. It is going to shrink if we have a plan or not. We need to lay out a plan so shrinking can be a benefit, not blight.