Buffalo Rising Online

This is a great event. You don't have to convince your buds to move back (quite a tall order). Just invite them back for a long weekend to drink beer and go to a concert. If they head off to the career fair and get a job, all the better!

This is a great event. You don't have to convince your buds to move back (quite a tall order). Just invite them back for a long weekend to drink beer and go to a concert. If they head off to the career fair and get a job, all the better!

Sorry for the double post. . . .

BuffaloSoldier is right--change that photo!

^^ Good points, ones I considered when I designed the registration pages. But to me, that picture is beautiful--I shot it from the top of the Rand Building in February last year right after a snowfall. Even in the middle of winter, to this expat Buffalo still looks beautiful. And for those living in Buffalo coming out of a long winter I can see how it does comes off looking 'dreary' -- but the muted colors worked out better with text and graphics on top of it. And when you've been away from home for a long time, Buffalo looks great even in the middle of winter.

This was my first choice for the page layout:

But the text didn't stand out enough against the background. And adjusting the contrast/brightness washed out the graphic so as to make it unappealing.

No matter, the newest version is like the other website pages with no picture background.

Last year I came home for Buffalo Old Home Week, kicked back on the Miss Buffalo with a pitcher of beer, and loved every minute of it. It was 70 degrees on the first of July, while back in Vegas they were cookin' at 115 degrees while stuck in traffic jams. It's been 44 years since I've spent a week in July without sweating!

I'm sorry, that is a terrible, dreary, gray, depressing picture for enticing ex-pats. If I showed that to my wife, she may decide to skip our trip back during Thanksgiving (and I'm being honest... about my wife).

Jaimie, people don't really understand that the climate here holds the city back.

Most people don't know any better because they never lived annywhere else. In a sense, I wish I didn't know any better, it would make the long winers more tolerable.

sp error -winters more tolerable

that picture would make me think twice about moving back, cold and uninviting looking

I have to be honest and say I never invite anyone to visit me here. I'm too embarrassed by the blight and poor conditions throughout the region. Just taking people to the airport on the 198 and 33 is horrible. There are street lights laying all over the place and there's garbage everywhere.

We don't make a good first impression because of all of the dirt and trash, run down buildings, and damaged city properties (see Gates Circle and the knocked in concrete benches for an example).

Re. Marti's comparison to Ireland, my understanding is it was the other way around.

Ireland dramatically turned around their economy (largely with long term commitment to deep pro-business tax cuts, lowest corporate rates in EU, and other pro-business measures), and then after the economy started surging from that was when a big upsurge of ex-pats moved back there. It wasn't the return of ex-pats that triggered the economic turn around, but vice versa.

Ireland did this as part of the Celtic Tiger initiative years ago, and in a single generation went from being the poorest nation in the EU to the most affluent.

"And there are people who are moving back to Buffalo because they miss the weather - even our winters (which I have found extraordiarily mild compared to those of my childhood here and even to those in Montana and Colorado)."

Is there something about Buffalonians that make them so obstinate and rationalize bad decisions?

If you're marketing to folks to entice them back, a gray, snowy day isn't the way to do it. Sure, I bet there are *some* people that miss gray, snowy days. But you don't market to *some* people, you market to *most* people.

I read complaints all the time on this site that politicians don't listen, but I'm wondering if it has more to do with the people of this area.

I apologize for being so blunt, but it's like talking to a wall.

if more people start moving back to Buffalo, where are we all going to park?

I like the winters and so do most people I know. If you don't like the winter learn to skate or ski and you'll find yourself looking forward to them. But, if your idea of exercise is a 12 ounce curl and looking for the remote, then the idea of shoveling your walkway or driveway and learning to ski or skate may be a bit overwhelming. At least you can throw on a hat and a warm coat and still enjoy a walk outside. In Arizona, Florida, and many other places there is nothing you can do to make the summer tolerable enough to go outside. There are few places where the weather is ideal 12 months a year and the constant complaining about our winters has become a self-fulfilled prophecy left over from the Blizzard of '77. People in New Hampshire and Vermont don't constantly complain about the weather. They embrace it and enjoy it. Cold, snowy weather is not the reason most people leave Buffalo. A good portion of the northern section of the country has similar weather yet you don't hear people fleeing Denver or Minneapolis because of it. Let's get over it..

tudor guy...what city does not have garbage? way to be optimistic!