Buffalo Rising Online

After a 1 year stint back in the burbs because of a too good to pass up deal on a home from a family member, my wife and I will be renting out our home and moving back into our rental property in North Buffalo. Not because of rising costs, more so because it certainly does feel more like home in the city, than in OP where we grew up. It most certainly has to do with the sense of community and the lifestyle that one can enjoy in the city with a bunch of cultural attractions. In a few years when we decide to start a family and once it becomes time to send the kiddos to school, we will have to deal with that then, but city living is where out heart is now and we cant wait to move back. ETS, steakout, taste of thai, all the great restaurants and drinking establishments, retail shops, waterfront, taking the light rail down to hsbc for a hockey game, walking 50 feet to hertel ave then 2 blocks down to sterling pub for great beer and a burger, riding the bikes to elmwood for a bar tour, taking the dog to the dog park, walking to the zoo, going to thursday in the square every week without having to worry about driving back to the burbs after a few drinks, with all the positives steps this city is currently taking its just something we really want to get back to partaking in and be a part of...god i cant wait!

even if gas went down to $1/gallon I would never want to move out of the city. I am able to walk to work, do my banking, get a haircut, shop at the farmers market, eat at over a dozen different restaurants, enjoy hyot lake, the albright knox and the olmstead parkways.

This is somewhat linked to this story. I will be adding to this series soon.

First, in WNY the city will always be a lifestyle decision, not an economic one. Traffic is never an issue here, no matter where you drive so that's not a reason to move into the city. I understand the cost of gas is an issue, but if you think about who lives in the burbs, it's people who can afford the extra cost of gas. I'm not sure what location has to do with heating costs, as noted in this story. Last I checked, natural gas in Clarence from an provider is the same as in the city. If anything, people pay less in the burbs due to higher energy efficiency in new homes versus the often un- or under-insulated older homes. I would argue that it's likely more people would prefer to build greener and more energy efficient in the burbs than retrofit (always a more cost endeavor) an older home.

It seems that everyone who responded so far has no kids. Kids are the great equalizer on two fronts. The first is obviously schools. Basically, the city schools are a shambles. Second is lots and yards. Families may have lived with little space back 100 years ago before the car was prevalent, but today, no one really wants a 35 x 110 lot with no yard. Home buying is about choice and no one would take a smaller yard over a bigger one with all things being equal. And the housing choices, safety (someone did get robber on Elmwood in the village yesterday) and schools of the burbs are nothing the city can compete with, despite a new restaurant every 3 months that will close in less than a year.

i tend to disagree with this article. suburbs around the metro areas mentioned like DC san francisco may be getting hammered by commutes and housing prices, but WNY is a completely different story. in fact i would bet that a majority of suburbanites work in the suburbs, not downtown as this article assumes. i even know many people who live in downtown buffalo for the culture and the vibe but actually work in the suburbs. Housing prices generally in the WNY suburbs are not declining greatly, or if they are it is on par with downtown buffalo. and gas prices are falling dramatically. Most people who live in the suburbs are happy there, and are not going to move downtown because they have to pay a little extra for their gas. if buffalo wants middle class families to return, they need to clean up the crime and better the education in the public schools.

I guess my 1 star cherry has been popped.

The real key is that the suburban lifestyle in Buffalo is so easy and affordable that most people can just have a large backyard, an easy commute, good schools away from less desirable social classes. Shockingly enough, people in large cities live in apartment buildings, doubles and other forms of housing without such ammenities and still have families, dogs etc...

Buffalo Awakening,

Who is this "they" that you are talking about when you say "they need to clean up crime"? Is there something "they"did in the suburbs that "they" should do in the city?

When I and my bride went to Buffalo recently, she was amazed. She has bragged about the city to all of her friends in Philly, NYC, Boston, Utah, Detroit, SF, Chicago and more.... She had never been there prior to that visit but she was very impressed. She called it the "most house proud" city she had ever visited.

steel- they as in city hall and erie county. they need to pay officers what they deserve and hire more. of course it will be costly but it is a nessessary cost. here is an amazing statistic... 2 out of every 3 crimes in buffalo go unsolved. having a 66% chance of getting away with murder or a robbery is crazy. and crime does not follow poverty all the time. people like to blame crime rates on economics but if you go out to rural areas, where many town populations are near 40% under the poverty line, you will see a much lower if not non exsistant crime rate, even when comparing crime per capita. there is crime in buffalo not because of poverty but because the government alows there to be. and as for education, why would suburban families move from the suburbs where public education is top of the line, to the city where they would be forced to send their kids to costly private and charter schools?

Buffawakening...

Wake up!

Let's keep this in perspective. Some of the shifts towards urban living have been in the works for years, and are partially the result of the ever escalating housing prices in the suburbs in the major metropolitan areas. This does not apply to Buffalo though.

Crime may be universal and know no borders; however there is no question that Amherst is much safer than the City of Buffalo. There is no question that Amherst schools offer a better education than the City of Buffalo schools. There is no question that the quality of life in Amherst is better than the quality of life in the City of Buffalo. Report after report highlights these as facts. I am not saying that City doesn't have charm and appeal, but it has a long way to go before it can compete on par with the suburbs, especially Amherst.

And yes, I knoooow that Quijibo and Blackrocklifer will bring this back to the poverty and unfair distribution of wealth discussion but oh well. I couldn't sit by silently for another day.

^^^ In my opinion (because that is the only one I have) quality of life encompasses elements like nice parks within easy walking distance to home, bike and running paths, good schools, convenient stores that I can walk and bike to, a sense of safety and security that allows me to walk or park my car just about anywhere near home, friendly and neighborly neighbors, government representation that listens to their constituents, responsive government services like snow plowing, debris pick-up, recycling, police, fire, etc. I enjoy living in a place that is a good steward of my tax dollars, and a place where I have a say in how my tax dollars are spent.

Auburner- wake up to what exactly?? listen... i LOVE buffalo and WNY. but im tired of the fact that whenever anyone brings up the suburbs on BRO all hell breaks loose. i completely agree with whynot. people can point all they want to the elmwood village, allentown and north buffalo, but in my opinion (and in the opinion of the thousands that fled the city to the suburbs), the quality of life is no doubt better in suburbs. everything suburbans want they can have. if they want what the cityfolk have, they drive 20 min or less to get it. then they drive back home to the general safty of the suburbs. safty, education, costs, room to breathe, and a truely family friendly enviroment are what matters, and what suburbs offer.

ScottNorwood - So do the majority of people who live there, unfortunately you cannot say the same thing for Buffalo.

They can drive 20 minutes to get that 2 minute walk to the coffeeshop...Sweet.

People in the suburbs live there because they prefer it to city living. What percentage of people who live in the burbs would rather live in the city? I would bet it's pretty small. Suburbanites weighed the positives and the negatives to living outside the city and made their choice. It's not hard to live in the suburbs and go to the city when necessary (which could be on a dialy basis if you're like me).

As has been mentioned in previous comments, people may be moving back into other cities, but those places are obviously very different from Buffalo and the comparison is not valid.

nick... we dont need to drive 20 min for a coffee shop... believe it or not suburbs have these strange urban things you call "coffeeshops". in fact suburbs have most of the things the elmwood village or any other area of buffalo has. theateres and art museums are the few things suburbans need to make that short drive to the city to do.

buff, you said "if they want what the cityfolk have, they drive 20 min or less to get it." Well, many city folk have the ability to walk 2 minutes to go to a coffee shop. I'm just saying you'd still have to drive that 20 minutes to have the ability to walk to a coffee shop 2 minutes from your house. As pointed out, its a lifestyle choice, but I'd rather walk to the local coffee shop than go wait in the Tim Horton's drive-thru for 20 minutes.

while you say quality of life is better in amherst i have to disagree, high taxes, isolated neighborhoods, and countless plazas with everything from applebees to olive garden

again it is a lifestyle choice but for myself the quality of life cannot be matched in the city

So, Buffalo Awakening,

If Buffalo had a better police force its crime level would be comparable to Amherst?

amen aloha!

and yes steel having a bigger and better police force along with better education will lower crime rates. maybe not to ahmerst levels, because culture has alot to do with it too, but it would help tremendously.

Do you think we should extend the Amherst school district to cover Buffalo schools? Would that solve the education problem in Buffalo?

How would you propose that the much bigger police force be paid for? I mean lets be honest. The people who chose to move to the suburbs took their money with them leaving the problems behind.

I personally would overhual the bugets for both the city and the county. right now the county employs more people than it needs. population is shrinking, therefore the workforce employed by the county should too. i would also suspend the annual increase of saleries after a certain point, somthing simmilar to what the teachers union have. according to the 2008 buget, there were some park matenience workers makeing over 80,000 dollars a year. this is outrageous. using this money cut from these areas, i would transphere it to the county police force, and place much of the force in the buffalo metro area, untill buffalo can support itself better. this will hopefully impact crime rates.

As for education, lobbying the state for much needed aid would be benificial. this would alow the city to cut taxes without going into debt. it would also help fund more projects for the buffalo city schools. the cut taxes would hopefully bring in more people and buissnesses, so that in a few years we would be back to the income the city got before cutting taxes without ever raising them.

creating specific public schools for outstanding students will also help the district.

At its current size of the Buffalo Police Dept already arrests many more people than the courts and DA's are willing to imprison, for whatever reasons. Adding more police would have some positive effect in faster reponse time, but not much in crime reduction. To reduce crime, we'd need to be willing to have more repeat offenders locked up. Otherwise it would just be more people moving through the revolving door.

Aloha's points are excellent. Nick's stereotyping of the burbs deliberately overlooks that there's a wide variety and not all suburban residents are as isolated as he wants people to think. EA and OP Main Streets are good examples, and there's others as well is variosu villages if that's what peopel want - Kenmore, Willamsville, Lancaster, etc. Nick also stereotypes the city, but with a positive spin. In reality though, many parts of the city don't have nice restaurants and coffee shops within a short safe walking distance unfortunately.

The most recent estimates say just over 70% of Erie County residents are choosing to live outside of Buffalo. There must be some positives if that high a percent is making that choice, right?

another idea to save money for the city to be used for education is what if the massive olmstead park system was turned into a state park like the knox farm was in east aurora? that would surely save thousands if not millions for the city of buffalo.

atwaterlouse- thank you for pointing out that the DA and courts are not keeping up with arrests, i was not aware of that. aparently we need to elect different judges and judicial representitves. however more officers may help detur and prevent crime. i do not live downtown so i wouldnt know this, but do any officers still "walk the beat?"

Rarely are there foot patrols seen anywhere in Buffalo. Sometimes around Chippewa for example, but not much.

A lot of people say those would be a big help but personally I doubt it. I don't think foot patrols are as efficient a use of police resources as patrol cars in a city like Buffalo. Yes sometimes walking a beat can happen upon a crime in progress or prevent a crime from occuring at a particular moment. But much more often the need for police is getting to the scene of a reported crime as fast as possible to help a victim or locate fleeing suspects, etc. There's just so many streets and corners to cover.

High costs of gas? Oil has crashed to around $70 a barrel. Unemployment is up around 6% and could hit 10% next year (and thats official unemployment which doesnt include people who have stopped looking)

Look there are reasons why city living can succeed and be an option but the biggest reasons why city living is an option is there has been job growth downtown and because developers have new residential developments so that today there are choices: Apartments, Townhomes, Rowhouses, Duplexes, Single Family Residences, New, Old, Fixer Upper, Condos, etc.

Where ever there is diversity, people will be attracted. The eastside and southside and inner ring suburbs are struggling because their not diversifying their housing stock nor are they cleaning up brownfields and constructing new business parks.

Sadly Kenmore, Blasdell, West Seneca, Cheektowaga, Tonawnda and Buffalo all have large swaths of single type housing, former business districts and brownfields/empty industrial parks that they are going to need to upgrade but that requires taxes and the existing tax base would rather put all energy into taxes than into infrastructure/development. See once a community is built....it decays...and decay costs money.

It isn't so much an argument against City vs Burb... but Urban vs Suburban.. The quality of life that many city residents like can be found in some suburban municipalities but in an urban setting. Most of the area's villages are very quaint, dense and urban. You can walk to the library. restaurant bars coffee shops much easier in Kenmore or the Village of Orchard Park than in much of North Buffalo or the Near East Side (which are most suburban than urban)

It all comes down to the design of the place.

Buffawakening you are making a lot of good points.

al-alo, please post evidence that crime follows poverty and lack of opportunity. I am interested in this subject, and from what I have read this is not true. Some rich people commit crimes, and poor people can be very honest. Steven Levitt in the book Freakonomics showed that bad economic conditions were only mildly correlated with crime.

My own opinion is the gas price won't have much of an affect on city living in Buffalo. It isn't clear to me that the price will stay high for an extended period, and this is a minor expense for suburbanites. Plus, people in the burbs are commuting to other burbs as often as they are commuting to Buffalo now.

I love Buffalo and I love Clarence; just for different reasons.

crisa... you are very off base on a coupple of issues. you say that suburban houses are "old and so are the people living in them. Those houses are as much in need of repair as city houses." i dont know when you were in the burbs last, but this couldnt be farther than the truth. in places like lancaster and OP, it seems like every month there is a new development being built. Lancaster high school has had to build 2 additions in the last 5 years to keep up with the growth. when there is new buildings being built in buffalo, it makes headlines and can only survive with government subsides and tax breaks.

and for your conspiricy theory of the suburbs "keeping their crimes out of the media" ...maybe you should watch your local news. when there is a murder in buffalo, or a stabbing or a robbery, it is a sound bite, it is a 10 second story because its nothing new. when there is a major crime in clarence or OP, its a developing story and is followed for days.

and then you say suburban schools are maintaining the satus quo while BPS are rapidly changing. do you know why? because there needs to be change in the BPS... alot of change. and the suburbs are not changing because they dont need to... they are preforming very well... unlike the city.

It is ironic that I am typing this from a coffee shop in Clarence that is a 5 minute walk from my house. I took a 5 minute bike ride to the Clarence Farmer's market via the bike path this weekend, and have a nice choice of restaurants and a convenience store, quaint antique and book store, and a few other places all within a couple blocks from where I am sitting right now. I will hear the crickets and see the stars / moon as I walk home from here in about 20 minutes.

My point is that there is a lot of ignorant and reactionary banter about the suburbs by people who want to believe that the city or urban experience is much greater. I have discussed the inferiority complex that many city residents feel when the conversation shifts to discussions about the suburbs, and these comments highlight that fact. You have a right to feel inferior, as the city has taken a back seat to the suburbs in just about every way. Sure you have lofts and waterfront condos for single 20 somethings and retirees, but these people tend to move when they have children. You have a few small areas of the city that are gentrified and nice, but they are limited to three or four sections that everyone can name while the rest of the city is struggling for survival.

STEEL - you mentioned that the people took their money to the suburbs leaving their problems behind. This is a very myopic and limited view, especially from someone who has taken his money and run to another city. I ask you why is it anyone's obligation to support the poor beyond their current exorbitant tax burden. We are all paying for nearly half of the poor, who are eligible and able to work, to sit on their asses collecting welfare. They aren't even trying anymore, it is too freaking easy to not work in this area. You can blame the metro or use any number of other scapegoats, but in the end the fact is that there are jobs within walking distance to many of the poor and they aren't even trying. Why the hell would anyone willingly live with that apathy and ignorance. We hand students an education on a platter, all they have to do is show up, and they don't even do that. Why would you blame someone for trying to get as far away from that mess as possible?

For the record, I do live in the suburbs, but also spend about 10 hours a week volunteering and working with the poor and under privileged students and families. I see this first hand, and feel bad that there isn't more that can be done for people who aren't willing to help themselves.

The city school issue isnt the level of education, those guidelines are set by the state for all schools to follow, rather its a matter of the absense of parental involvement which tends to go hand in hand with poverty.

I'm a product of the BPS system of the 80s/90s and I'd like to think I turned out intelligent, open-minded, and well-rounded. Luckily I had parents who cared enough to keep me in line.

Prosperity will turn around the schools but prosperity will not return until the schools have been turned around. hmm...

It actually warms my heart to help the families and children, there are two families in particular that I spend 3 - 4 hours a week with and it makes a difference to their lives and mine.

Thanks for being an asshole Reflip! Your true colors are really shining through.

alfit... on behalf of the rest of the buffalo and WNY community i thank you for your service. some people *cough reflip cough* are too stuck on themselves or too bitter to better the world. it is the people who care and volunteer that help buffalo be a better place.

“I’m seeing both working couples and retirees looking for the convenience of city living,” she says. “Many people are moving back to Buffalo because of quality of life issues: jobs and family. They want to be near downtown, where the action is.”

Can someone please explain to me what Lenahan is talking about? What is convenient about living in the city, as opposed to the suburbs? There are not a lot of businesses, clothing stores, even a real grocery store downtown....what is convenient about that?

There are a lot of place to eat and drink...thats about it. But, if you want to buy a nice pair of shoes, or a some clothes...you are at the mall or Transit Rd.

"Quality of life issues. jobs and family" Downtown is a terrible place to raise children. The schools suck and the quality of life is very average.... most of the winter there is NO action, Buffalo is sleepy and hibernating.

I just don't see the benefits of living downtown, yet...in addition to the fact that real estate is grossly over priced.

Buffalo really isnt situated like that gaustad....sorry but I disagree.

Buffalo was once labelled in a diatribe with other great lakes cities as segregated because it still has ethnic communities but that isnt segregation. Its voluntary. Buffalo is a very traditional, parochial and family oriented city for the most part and still has deep routes in its ethnicities, races, religions, sexual orientation ,etc.

There are people that wouldnt give up South Buffalo and its neighborhood pubs, ther are people that wouldnt give up living on the eastside, or the italian restaurants in north buffalo, etc.

There are people that wouldnt give up living next to one of Buffalos Parks.

There are people that wouldnt give up living close to the allentown, kleinhans and theater district

There are some people growing strongly attached to waterfront and city skyline views which would make the Statler, LaFayette, Hyatt and Liberty near guarrantees for residential conversion.

Not everyone chooses the best place to live by shopping and things to do because many could care less about convenient shopping. They have stronger personal interests. Frankly I think it adds diversity rather than being a sign of a lack of it. Id much rather be in Buffalo where there are choices for preferences rather than in a giant megopolis of an urban area that is completely uniform and generic.

This article is about major cities in the US, not Buffalo. It takes 15 minutes to basically get anywhere in Erie County, do you really think gas is even an issue?

thjis place and its people are dinosaurs

Buffalo21stcentury, sorry but I disagree with you. When one refers to the convenience of city living they are referring to completing their day to day tasks...the mandatory activities that we must all go through, ie. grocery shopping, clothing ourselves, banking, dry cleaning, car washing, typical errands that are within walking distance.

although Buffalo possesses some of these qualities, I do not consider living close to Kleinhans or dirty allen town being convenient. Sorry, I would rather be able to drive around the corner and pick up fresh food from Wegmans without some panhandler harassing me for change on the way out than living next door to one of Buffalo's parks or kleinhans.

Buffalo is not an enjoyable and fun place to live.....but it is not convenient for a city. I find myself driving out to the burbs to run errands which is a huge drag.

PrincetonElms - the cold hard truth, but very well put.

I will always love and cherish my hometown, but the challenge to progress lies, first, in the fact that people must understand that Buffalo lacks many important features of a regular city, regardless of its size.

Buffalo does not have the dense population of other cities and, therefore, is not upscale, accesible, or convenient.

I am surprised that anyone would question the poverty/crime relationship. One only has to read the News regularly for all the stories of criminals robbing people on foot for pocket change. Then look at the descriptions of the assailants. As to police walking a beat, would you? Argue their effectiveness if you will, but on foot you might as well put targets on their backs. Just look at all the accidental shootings in this city. People get shot within the confines of their own homes, sitting on porches, standing in a crowd, or just walking down the street. I don't think it is realistic to even debate the issue.

I think I intended to point out that there are a lot of guns in this town especially since that one person from Ohio flooded the black market with hundreds of them a few years back. In this forum, I hear many voices calling for cops to walk beats. If many people get hit by stray bullets randomly, what are the chances of an unprotected officer in a uniform patrolling a street being hit with deliberation? Certainly greater than if in a patrol car. No need to make arrangements for yourself quite yet.