Is the grass truly greener.... (for expats)

Buffalo is a dead end place with few prospects of getting better. It is best to get out and live in a real city instead of joining the death spriral that Buffalo is in.

Your friends who've left are dead on. Ask Steel and others and they'll tell you that it is best to get out and set up roots somewhere else.

The grass is greener in Buffalo and the grass is greener in other cities. It depends on what you are looking for.

It depends on what you are looking for.
Bingo.

For some Buffalo is perfect, a lot of Big City amenities but more elbow space. Sure I'd like to see it grow and be better (JOBS) but when you've been to other places you can appreciate the things we do have that many many other places don't have.

"when you've been to other places you can appreciate the things we do have that many many other places don't have."

Hear, hear.

Many people leave Buffalo without really knowing it as a city, and then call it a horrible place to live to all those they meet. Those people never really lived in Buffalo. Before you leave the city for good, explore get involved in a community project or just talk to some people. Then explore other cities, towns and villages and you will have a benchmark to compare.

my two cents....
i left bflo after graduating from city honors i went to college in nyc and stayed there for 24 years. now i am back in bflo. a very good opportunity came up and i thought it was a great chance to move back. so, here i am again in the place i grew up.

some things have not changed:
the great divide among social classes
walking in the streets as oppposed to walking on sidewalks
east and west sides are still considered "bad"
north and south are still mostly "white"
chicken wings are still awesome everywhere
tops is still tops
inability for people to properly pronounce my name (it is not bobby cruz)
the trees are still awesome

things that have changed:
names of neighborhoods, i.e. elmwood village
bquik is dash's
wegmans is huge
mister donut is gone
the price of wings is too damn high

overall, i think it is a nice city but the economic and social divides are very depressing. being older just magnifies it.

to a certain degree, buffalo still seems very old fashioned and a little bit too archie bunkerish.

As someone who likes Buffalo, and isn't from here originally (thus, not really married to it) all I can say is, what city are you thinking about? Because there are a lot of worse cities than Buffalo. I had a choice of several places before I decided to move to Buffalo. But I have been in cities I liked more. I wouldn't leave here for Pittsburgh or Charlotte or St. Louis or Tampa or Ann Arbor, MI or Washington DC or Hartford or Baltimore, but Providence, RI and Boston have some appeal, Chicago of course, NYC but who could afford to live there unless you got a ratrace job, maybe a town like Madison, WI or Philly too! I don't know much about cities that get rave reviews such as Nashville or Austin, TX. In other words, what city are you thinking about? If you're thinking of moving to Prague, then go!

There are plenty of other cities that offer better jobs or employment opportunities. So if that's most important to you, go ahead and leave. But be careful -- not all other places are doing better than Buffalo.

If you are an entrepreneur, Buffalo is actually pretty good. You can start a small business anywhere, and if you are selling nationally or globally, it doesn't matter where you are located, so long as your costs are cheap. Which they are in Buffalo.

If you are looking for things to do, I can assure you that Buffalo has more than most cities. I've lived or visited in many of the so-called "hot" cities in north America, and very few have better bars, restaurants, night life or culture. Unless you are talking NYC, Chicago or SF, you would be hard pressed to find a city that doesn't have as much as Buffalo.

The worst part of Buffalo is the negative and provincial attitudes. In growing cities, there is a sense of optimism that Buffalo doesn't have. So if that general feeling is important to you, either get a better class of associates (and there are plenty of people who DO things in Buffalo) or move.