As we see the rest of our city pulling together, there is one part of Buffalo that could take years to see any significant turnaround. Of course there are pockets of the East Side that are percolating – areas around the Medical Campus, Broadway Market, MLK Park, etc. But the East Side is vast, and there is an urgent need to take care of the neighborhoods. There is one group that is attempting to strike up the conversation in order to create a call to action. NYC architect David Lagé has an affinity for Buffalo and has been studying best practice solutions to large scale land vacancies in other cities around the world. From David’s website, dedicated to searching for the answer(s) that will help to give the East Side a boost that it desperately needs:
Many post industrial cities are paralyzed by their large scale land vacancies. Planned around industries that no longer exist, their sizes far exceed the resources available to them today. Coupled with their economically and politically complex climates, the likelihood of conventional redevelopment such as buildings, housing developments and shopping venues changing this downward momentum is small. For post industrial cities, managing their vacant landscapes is the reality.
terrainsvagues.org was established as an independent private initiative; a thinktank escorting vacant urban landscapes during their repositioning. Founded with the belief that cultural concepts can succeed where conventional approaches have not, terrainsvagues incubates vacancy strategies into cultural concepts able to underpin larger scale private investment. Through creative management of vacant land, we inspire new discussion about its future potential – elevating land management from what is a stop gap measure for many cities into the largest opportunity for their reinvention.
Learn about the Model Houses Installation, and how urban galleries could help to transform entire neighborhoods while sparking the imagination of a nation. What could an international urban competition do to boost the morale of the East Side, The City and even the State? These are concepts that are being conducted around the world and could take hold in Buffalo with the right people leading the charge. Learn about case studies and lend your own passion and ideas to Terrains Vagues. Learn about Buffalo Visions of Identity (B-VOID) and get ready to work with a team that is looking for a challenge. Is urban farming part of the key? Land banking? Zoning? Green Codes? Green living? Eco industry? This group is looking to find out, and they want community involvement.