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Can Buffalo ever come back?
Ed Glaeser says no and offers very many reasons why. His conclusion:
The best scenario would be for Buffalo to become a much smaller but more vibrant community—shrinking to greatness, in effect. Far better that outcome than wasting yet more effort and resources on the foolish project of restoring the City of Light’s past glory.
Does studying economics make the people of Buffalo happier?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on October 26, 2007 at 08:21 AM in Economics | Permalink
Comments
Holy Crap! When I die, Tyler, please do not let Ed Glaeser do my eulogy. Brutal!
Posted by: angus at Oct 26, 2007 8:54:45 AM
Holy Crap! When I die, Tyler, please do not let Ed Glaeser do my eulogy. Brutal!
Posted by: angus at Oct 26, 2007 8:54:57 AM
Buffalo should just wait until the south and the west run so low on
water the cities and businesses can no longer function.
If of course, there is anything left by then.
Posted by: save_the_rustbelt at Oct 26, 2007 10:06:30 AM
This week the Bills asked the NFL to let them play some of their home games in Toronto.
Posted by: spencer at Oct 26, 2007 11:24:56 AM
Interesting point raised about the weather. While economists like to study and debate the impact of taxes, regulation, etc. I wonder if there are any good studies out there on the impact of weather on economic growth? I have to think that one reason CA has been able to get away with a lot of its regulation is simply that companies have a higher tolerance for pain there and are willing to put up with more in order to enjoys its sunny climes and the accompanying pool of worker talent that enjoys the lifestyle there.
Posted by: Colin at Oct 26, 2007 11:45:36 AM
Save the Rustbelt has a point on the water. As a common pool resource, groundwater has not been handled well by the powers that be, and that has big, bad implications for the South and West.
Google's next big public policy project should be developing functioning water markets or quasi-markets.
Off the top of my head, I'm thinking that you'd need to start with a big honkin' simulation, incorporate your optimizing agents, and see what prices you need to approximate a competitive market.
I'm thinking hydro-economists are way ahead of me on this.
And I'm still thinking Megan non-McCardle, if she wants to actually do good in this world, needs to get out of government and work for Google or some other non-political agents who wants actual good to be done. And she should bring her friends with her!
Barring that, then go long on Buffalo real estate, baby!
Posted by: Keith at Oct 26, 2007 12:15:45 PM
The weather argument for Buffalo's decline is a lousy one. I sit here 100 miles north in one of the fastest growing economies of the world and the weather in Toronto is pretty much the same as Buffalo. Weather may be a factor but it is a minor one imo.
Posted by: Rebecca C at Oct 26, 2007 12:34:26 PM
The weather argument for Buffalo's decline is a lousy one. I sit here 100 miles north in one of the fastest growing economies of the world and the weather in Toronto is pretty much the same as Buffalo. Weather may be a factor but it is a minor one imo.
Posted by: Rebecca C at Oct 26, 2007 12:35:17 PM
The weather argument for Buffalo's decline is a lousy one. I sit here 100 miles north in one of the fastest growing economies of the world and the weather in Toronto is pretty much the same as Buffalo. Weather may be a factor but it is a minor one imo.
Posted by: Rebecca C at Oct 26, 2007 12:35:35 PM
Keith makes a good follow up on the water issue. Watch Atlanta very
carefully, eventually the metro area will be required to depopulate,
as will southern California. Not a popular idea but it will happen.
The weather actually does play a large role. The weather does not hurt
Toronto (one of my favorites) because it in southern Canada and it is
well, Toronto. If Atlanta were in Canada the results could be different.
Posted by: save_the_rustbelt at Oct 26, 2007 1:01:02 PM
An interesting question is whether Buffalo might benefit more from growth in the "Golden Horseshoe," Canadians' name for the booming region around the Western end of Lake Ontario anchored by Toronto. Is there a big border effect, and if so are there ways to overcome it?
Posted by: DLC at Oct 26, 2007 2:02:10 PM
I'm a native Western NY guy and serious Bills fan. It all hurts.
;-)
Posted by: Chris Meisenzahl at Oct 26, 2007 2:05:14 PM
Some northern metropolii will recover some prominence due to expensive oil, I think, but I find it hard to believe Buffalo is one of them (not enough rail).
Posted by: M1EK at Oct 26, 2007 2:16:47 PM
"An interesting question is whether Buffalo might benefit more from growth in the "Golden Horseshoe," Canadians' name for the booming region around the Western end of Lake Ontario anchored by Toronto. Is there a big border effect, and if so are there ways to overcome it?"
If North America had an economic union, like the European Union, then this would work. I'm all for replicating the European model in North America, because it would help cities like buffalo.
Posted by: anon at Oct 26, 2007 2:23:28 PM
"more vibrant": is that code for something?
Posted by: dearieme at Oct 26, 2007 2:58:05 PM
Glaeser is of course correct that throwing huge amounts of government money to revitalize Buffalo won't help, but removing government impediments to businesses could.
As one who for three years lived, worked, and went to grad school in Buffalo -- granted, in earlier days -- I was nonetheless surprised that Glaeser made no mention of the many positive features of life in Buffalo. The architecture is marvelous -- and includes buildings by such luminaries as Wright and Sullivan, and parks by Olmsted. Lovely arts and crafts homes and 19th century mansions are numerous. The Albright-Knox art museum deserved a mention.
I was also surprised that Glaeser didn't note the immigrant groups that formed a vital part of Buffalo life: Germans, Poles, later Serbs and Croats, as well as Bulgarians and Macedonians; even a small Albanian community. Have their descendants left?
Posted by: Francesca at Oct 26, 2007 3:07:10 PM
IMO Water is so cheap that if you have to double the price of water apart from agriculture the impact will be small and agriculture uses the most water.
Posted by: Floccina at Oct 26, 2007 3:30:03 PM
keith: " As a common pool resource, groundwater has not been handled well by the powers that be, and that has big, bad implications for the South and West."
Who are the "powers that be" you refer to?
Here's what I've observed in Arizona:
- suburban residences have no lawns, using existing desert landscaping;
- drip irrigation is used for agriculture and non-xeriscape landscaping;
- golf courses use gray water for irrigation.
When I lived in Sacramento, landscapers were intelligently using xeriscaping and minimizing lawn sizes to reduce water.
Here in north Texas, we have alternating seasons of flooding and drought. That's been happening for all of my long life. Right now, we have too much water. Lakes were overflowing for most of the summer and lakeside facilities could not be used.
I've been reading these dire predictions about the south and the west for a few decades. But Nevada and Arizona and Texas just seem to keep growing. And getting smarter about how they use water.
Posted by: John Dewey at Oct 26, 2007 4:23:15 PM
50 to 25 years ago much the same article could have been written about Boston.
But Boston has come back and is now a vibrant urban center even though it is not experiencing the population growth of many southern centers.
Much of the reason for Boston rebounding clearly stems from active government intervention, especially in the support of higher education and military R&D spending. Boston may be just getting to the new post industrial economy before others as part of the story behind Boston's revival was just the passage of time reducing the size of the old
uncompetitive industries to the point that they were no longer a major drag on the overall economy. For example in the 1960s and 1970s the old deserted brick mills provided cheap office space for the newly emerging high tech industries.
Posted by: spencer at Oct 26, 2007 4:25:13 PM
Buffalo has to be looked at in context. With the partial exceptions of Albany and Ithaca, all of the cities in Upstate* New York are in greater or lesser decline. Jobs are hard to come by, real estate values are weak, and way too many young people leave as soon as they can. Buffalo is perhaps the worst-off of these troubled Upstate cities, to some extent because it's the largest, but its woes are scarcely unique. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that the problems are on a state level rather than on a municipal level.
* = "Upstate," in this context, means anything north of a line parallelling Interstate 84 about twenty miles to its north ... in other words, at least 75% of New York State by area.
Posted by: Peter at Oct 26, 2007 4:26:55 PM
Rebecca C,
The weather in Toronto is not pretty much the same as Buffalo. Toronto gets a lot less snow in winter than Buffalo (lake effect, you know).
Posted by: at Oct 26, 2007 6:39:30 PM
John, sounds great. If you have solid evidence that these areas price water at something approximating marginal cost (factoring in intertemporal issues), and that's led to the optimal amount of conservation, then I'm all for it.
One interesting point I hadn't considered: The replacement of farmland with suburban development tends to reduce water usage in an area. So you could be right.
Posted by: Keith at Oct 26, 2007 6:39:43 PM
All that snow also takes an economic toll. Apart from cancellations and tardiness/absenteeism due to foul weather, snow removal alone is a major budget line item.
I don't have figures for Buffalo, but for comparison, Montreal spends well in excess of $100 million annually on snow removal.
Granted, Montreal is a larger city, but it also gets far less annual snowfall than Buffalo.
Posted by: at Oct 26, 2007 6:52:47 PM
I have lived through many winters in both Buffalo and Toronto and I say the weather *is* pretty much the same. Lake effect is a one maybe two day event out of the winter. Residents of Buffalo are famous for shoveling out and moving on with their lives and business after after lake effect snowfalls that would cripple other cities. Toronto does not get lake effect but we both get about the same amount of cold, snowy, sometimes beautiful, sometimes dreary weather from November through April. I am confident the lake effect factor is minor.
Western N.Y.'s integration into the Golden Horseshoe will happen despite the efforts of "homeland security" to squash it. Dollar parity is a good step in that direction. http://www.thestar.com/article/269780
Posted by: Rebecca C at Oct 26, 2007 8:49:23 PM
I lived in Toronto for 6 years, and I can state unequivocally that the winters are much more severe in Buffalo.
Regarding other issues: Toronto is a cosmopolitan world city, while Buffalo is..well...Buffalo. When I lived in Toronto, there was a satirical play called "On a clear day you can see Buffalo!"
Posted by: Bill T at Oct 27, 2007 1:38:53 AM
Buffalo, Detroit, New Orleans and other urban sinkholes - let them continue to slide, and don't waste taxpayers' dollars on them any more. In the long run, it won't make any difference anyway.
Posted by: Ned at Oct 27, 2007 10:36:27 AM
... Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York
It wants to have a family business in sheet metal or power tools
And it wants to have a diner where the coffee tastes like diesel fuel
And it wants to find the glory of a town they say has hit the skids
And it wants to have a snow day that will turn its parents into kids
And it's embarrassed, but it's lusting after a SUNY student with mousy-brown hair
Who is taking out the compost, making coffee in long underwear
Southern California says to "save a place, I'll meet you there";
And it tried to pack up its Miata, all it could fit was a prayer
Sometimes the stakes are bogus, sometimes the fast lane hits a fork;
Sometimes southern California wants to be western New York
Posted by: alkali at Oct 27, 2007 2:15:22 PM
Spencer, I visited Boston 25 even 30 years ago (and live there now) I've worked in Buffalo within the last 2 years. There is no comparison. Boston even at it's lowest point (probably around 1970) was still an important university town with an educated population and fairly significant industrial base. Boston's "decline", like so many aspects of Boston, was dramatically exaggerated by its resident intellectuals and elites, who were shocked to wake up and realize one day just how far behind New York City they had fallen. In Buffalo by contrast many locals seem to me to be in denial, even now.
Ironically, anecdotal evidence suggests to me that a lot of Boston's renaissance over the past 25 years has been driven by "economic refugees" from the Buffalo-Rochester area. They're everywhere.
Posted by: vanya at Oct 27, 2007 10:53:02 PM
Here are some real ongoings and current events in Buffalo if you want the real deal. It sure isn't all doom and gloom! Best regards from Western New York
www.monacos.us
Posted by: Orlando C. Monaco at Oct 28, 2007 1:26:49 PM
Buffalo is dead. The blacks overwhelmed it and ran it into the ground. Crime is out of control. No one in their right mind would move there to live, everyone is moving to the sunbelt. Cold weather, high taxes, and NO JOBS, is reason enough for an old city to collapse like a black hole...no pun intended.
Posted by: Mr. Las Vegas at Oct 28, 2007 4:01:48 PM
Your comments are not objective and thus meaningless, the crime rate in Buffalo is not as you state. Also your comments are basically racist which should not even be tolerated on the forum. Now for some facts if you indeed live in Vegas you should be aware of the impending water shortages that are occuring; Lake Meade is at all time low. Dimishing snow pack in the Colorado Plateau area that feeds the Colorado can not feed Las Vegas insatiable thrist. I was just out to the South West for a week; Vegas, North Rim, Kaibab Forest, East Rim, Zion National Park, and Sedona Arizona beautiful country; drove about 1000 miles around the entire Grand Canyon. After our extensive travels in Arizon, Utah, and Nevada both my wife and I came the conclusion that Neveda is nothing but a waist land and honestly other then casinos has no worth. Can't imagine why anyone would want to live out there:) Sorry right back at ya...
Posted by: Orlando C. Monaco at Oct 28, 2007 6:15:20 PM
In response to Vanya comment specifically "In Buffalo by contrast many locals seem to me to be in denial, even now". In Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse, Hornel, Corning, no one is in denial about the New York's anti-business climate. 700+ Public Authorities working to "Serve the Public" more like serve their pensions and pocket books, Workers Compensation Laws that make companies pay exorborant insurance premiums, High property, gas, and sales taxes, and high business regulation, but even with all this against NY we still have progress and will recognize it as such regardless of what outside "experts" say. Residents within the city of Buffalo are poor and that is why the University of Buffalo is building the new UB Educational Opportunity Center in downtown Buffalo adjoing the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. If you live in this area you would know that the amount of residential building going on in downtown Buffalo in the form of condos, apartments, and lofts as well and people moving downtown has dramtically increased, that started about 5 years ago. That is not denying the facts of current resident poverty but is just simply stating current events and tangible projects that are in progress or completed. Like Boston in the 70s and 80s Buffalo is reinventing itself, currently downtown Buffalo has one of the largest Bio Informatics Cetners for the study of DNA and exapanding Bio Medical corridor one of the largest in New York State; life sciences is huge upcoming industry. Can people in downtown Buffalo formely with manufactruing jobs and no college education tap into that, more then likely not. There lies the problem; transforming job market from manufacturing to high tech and that problem must now be dealt with and Buffalo being the resilient town has been even before any studies ever came out on it's poverty levels. It is a huge uphill battle no doubt but it is being faught all across New York in other Western and Central New York Cities. Every former manufacturing city in this country is facing this dilema, Detroit, Rochester, Cleveland, Pittsburg etc... Just becuase Boston made their transformation in the 80s doesn't mean that these cities are in denial currently because they are making their transitions at the beginning of the 21st century. Also change in Buffalo can not occur without change in New York state government and their policies which cause the outflow of business rather then an influx.
Posted by: Orlando C. Monaco at Oct 28, 2007 7:54:16 PM
I'd like to know more about the 10% of the population that moved to Buffalo from 1995 to 2000 that Glasser mentions.
He infers that Buffalo is attracting poor people. Where are they coming from?
Could it be that poor minorities who are forced out of NYC move to Buffalo? That way they stay in a welfare system that they know?
Posted by: Buzzcut at Oct 29, 2007 10:21:21 AM
Good question Buzzcut, I have no answers on population migrations as far as the poor; only what I observe in the suburbs of East Aurora, half hour south of Buffalo. My new next door neighbor as of last year both he and his wife moved back to Buffalo from Oklahoma, he is a contractor/carpenter and the housing and development boom in the area is keeping him plenty busy. My other neighbor across the steet is an IT Network/Internet Security expert who works at one the largest IT contracting companies in downtown Buffalo, both he and his wife moved from Colorado; according to both of my neighbors they love being back in Buffalo. Like myself they even enjoy the winters because of the great sking and snowboarding in the Southern Tier, only 45 minutes away. Downtown Buffalo has a dilimena to solve no doubt there, and I beleive you may be onto something as far as migration of populations staying in close proximity to where the free handouts and social welfare programs are easiliy attained. Let us not forget that all of Western and Central New York are in the same boat but the city demographics are slightly different. Also NYC has it's fair share of poverty in case you haven't been there lately, NY may need to modify it's welfare structure as well but I honestly don't know much about that topic.
Posted by: Orlando C. Monaco at Oct 29, 2007 11:03:13 AM
Unfortunately, Buffalo isn't the only city in New York outside the NYC metopolitan area
to be faring poorly. Rochester, for example, has some of the best institutions of higher learning in the country (U of R and RIT), many Fortune 1000 HQs, and a history of corporate innovation, but it too is losing population. Are there any other factors can explain the malaise affecting cities across the region, whether similar to or different from Buffalo?
Can the upstate population really be maintained (or increased) simply by reworking of the tax law, a decline in worker's comp rates, and a little global warming? If you were an advisor to the Governor, what would you suggest?
Posted by: Michael at Oct 29, 2007 2:06:31 PM
Orlando, I'm an economic refugee from New York. Born and raised on Long Island. I'm a UB grad. I started work with a firm in Tonawanda, but thankfully was transferred to the corporate headquarters in Chicago.
When I moved to Illinois, my house cost twice as much as the one I owned in Batavia, but my property taxes were half as much. The sales tax in Illinois is only 6-1/4%, and the income tax is a flat 3%. I saved a ton of money on taxes, thousands of dollars, literally.
The reason that all of upstate is in the economic crapper is taxes, plain and simple. You have a midwest economy with east coast taxes. That just doesn't work.
Some people don't like snow. Some people do. I myself was a skier and a snowmobiler. I could live with snow. I had a snowblower. I had snow tires on my Acura. Snow didn't stop me.
Weather is not the answer. Taxes are the answer. I felt that the people in charge politically, all being Democrats and Rockefeller Republicans, weren't going to fix the taxes, so I was very happy to leave.
Ironically, I don't think that Illinois is all that different from New York in terms of the politicians. It is controlled by Democrats. But for whatever reason, the taxes aren't bad at all. In fact, I think that they're quite low. That must be why Chicago is vibrant, and Buffalo is dead.
Posted by: Buzzcut at Oct 29, 2007 2:26:24 PM
Can the upstate population really be maintained (or increased) simply by reworking of the tax law, a decline in worker's comp rates, and a little global warming?
Yes.
Posted by: Buzzcut at Oct 29, 2007 2:28:47 PM
Michael you bring up a good point, this issue although very serious in Buffalo is prevalent throughout much of NY. I can only hope that if taxes are reduced, business regulations are loosened, Worker Comp Laws modified, and NY Public Authroities held fiscally accountable to NY and the NY taxpayer that NY will once again closely resemble it's former self.
I base my observations on travels in NY as well, I have been to various areas such as the Finger Lakes Region, Adirondacks, Catskills, NYC, and NYC metro. Other then NYC and NYC metro much of NY is an ecomomic slump compared to other regions of the North East. One interesting observation while I was out in the South West as I stated in one of my previous posts is that many of the East Coast transplants I met in the Sedona Arizona and Flagstaff area were from NYC as well; proof this problem is a NY problem and I can only speculate that the items I covered above will help the situation. Spitzer is currently playing hardball with the NY Assembly and Senate on Workers Comp Laws, and he has also moved a branch of the Empire State Development office to Buffalo so I think he understands what needs to be done; but wether it will or not is yet to be seen.
Buzzcut I hope you enjoy your new home in Chicago, I haven't been there other then connecting flights at Chicago O'Hare but I heard it's a great city, from neighbors in East Aurora, they visit there quite often for business and vacation. From your post I see that both of us have reached a consensus on the tax burden and politics that stiffles business prospects in NY. I accept your opinion that Buffalo is not the metropolis that Chicago is but I also do not agree with your opinion that Buffalo is "dead". Buffalo and Western New York has much to offer; Fisher Price Toys (Founded In East Aurora NY), Moog Inc. (Elma NY) which employees thousands builds actuators and other aerospace hardware for the NASA space shuttle, and robotic interplanetary mission spacecraft not to mention motion controls for robotic hardware. Wilson Greatbatch (Amherst NY) is another great local company in the health sciences field which advanced technology in the area of implantable cardiac pacemakers, also in the same realm Smart Pill (Buffalo NY) designed the first digestable pill which can take video and gather metrics as it passes through a patient's gastrointestinal track. Maybe in the news you have heard of the largest land based Wind Turbine farm on the Great Lakes and for that matter currently the world; the Steel Winds project which is expanding from 8 to 20 turbines this is right outside of metro Buffalo. Although WNY and Buffalo are not a metropolis by any stretch of the imagination and certaintly not an ecomomic power house this regions still has plenty to offer; now only if we could only make NY friendly to business! Also remember you came to Buffalo NY to get your degrees which I am guessing maybe in engineering; UB is a power house here in WNY and the Health and Life Sciences departments are now currently expanding to the Bio Medical Corridor in downtown Buffalo. This adjoins the well known Roswell Park Cancer Institute which by the way was the first cancer institute in the entire United States. I agree NY has to change it's ways, hopefully someday you may want to move back to your home in Long Island but until then enjoy Chicago.
Posted by: Orlando C. Monaco at Oct 29, 2007 11:03:40 PM
Canadian shopping may bring about a resurgence in Buffalo.
Now that the Canadian dollar is higher than the American, smart Canadians in driving range should drive over to shop there, defeating the 15% combined provincial/federal sales tax, especially as relative cost differences haven't changed even with the dollar value change (ie gas and many other goods are much more expensive in Ontario, which is especially apparnet with the dollars at near or above par value.
Posted by: ak47pundit at Oct 30, 2007 10:29:57 AM
Orlando, just because there are some companies left doesn't mean that Buffalo isn't dead. I mean, tehcnically speaking, how many of those companies are in the City limits?
Dude, I'm never going back to LI. I went to UB because it was as far away from LI as possible, but with in state tuition!
You're very perceptive. I am an engineer. So is my wife. Combined, the good taxpayers of New York State must have "invested" something like a quarter of a million dollars towards our many, many years of public education. My wife even went to grad school at UB.
How's that return on investment towards education working for New York?
I liked Buffalo because it had a midwestern culture. Even the accent is midwestern. Everyone is nice, friendly, and normal. There's no intense "keeping up with the Joneses" like there is on the east coast.
What do I miss about Buffalo? Driving. With an infrastucture for half a million people, there's no traffic whatsoever. Chicago traffic is brutal. I used to live in Batavia and work in far west Tonawanda, and it was only a 45 minute drive. That would be 3 hours or more in Chicago, literally.
I actually live in Northwest Indiana now, right on the southeast border of Chicago. I'd say that it is exactly the same as the southern suburbs of Buffalo. We even get *a little* lake effect snow.
Indiana taxes are even lower than Illinois. That's why Cummins, Toyota and Honda are building engine plants in Southern Indiana. That's why I live here. It's real cheap. Housing isn't much more expensive than WNY, really.
Good luck with Spitzer. He's as dependent on the public employee unions as anyone else. As a Democrat, he simply can't be a reformer. The public employees OWN the Democrats.
You need sombody like the Indiana governor, Mitch Daniels. He signed an executive order throwing the public employee unions out of the state. State employees are no longer unionized. Now THAT'S what New York needs!
I had a lot of hope for Pataki back in '94 and '95, but he totally disappointed me. He sold out to the public employees and "service" unions.
Posted by: Buzzcut at Oct 30, 2007 11:21:14 AM
Sorry, to be more correct, Daniels rescinded the public employees collective bargaining rights.
Posted by: Buzzcut at Oct 30, 2007 11:26:08 AM
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Posted by: xicao at Nov 15, 2007 2:30:05 AM
An interesting footnote: Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway owns the Buffalo News newspaper. More out of a sense of noblesse oblige rather than economics, it would seem.
Interestingly enough, it seems that Buffett never gives up on an investment. For an amusing example, click on the link and read the section about Blue Star trading stamps.
Posted by: Anonymous at Dec 16, 2007 9:54:56 PM
Oops, I meant "Blue Chip" trading stamps. The money quote:
Last year, in Berkshire’s $98 billion of revenues, all of $25,920 (no zeros omitted) came from Blue Chip. Ever hopeful, Charlie and I soldier on.
Posted by: Anonymous at Dec 16, 2007 10:01:49 PM
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At one time, Buffalo had more millionaires per capita than any other city in the US. Sic transit gloria urbi...
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Posted by: Bob at Mar 14, 2008 1:09:44 AM
"All that snow also takes an economic toll. Apart from cancellations and tardiness/absenteeism due to foul weather, snow removal alone is a major budget line item.
I don't have figures for Buffalo, but for comparison, Montreal spends well in excess of $100 million annually on snow removal.
Granted, Montreal is a larger city, but it also gets far less annual snowfall than Buffalo."
Actually Montreal averages 80 inches of snow a year compared to Buffalo's 90 inches. So that difference is negligible. And Montreal is far, far colder. In the end if there's jobs, the weather hardly matters.
Posted by: Beefalo at Apr 11, 2008 1:45:16 AM
