[quote=Sulley] He could be you since both of you confuse fiction with fact.

I said I was done talking about the economy

By the way it's great to see steel framing around downtown--there's a lot more coming in the near future. Nice updates WIGS.

[QUOTE=steel]You know Steel, Sulley just happens to be your favorite jousting partner on SSC. If SSC ever comes back up, check out the Non-development page and look back a few pages to a couple weeks ago when we were discussing vehicles for the winter. It was all started by someone who happened to buy a vehicle on Ebay who happened to have sulley in their Ebay name... ;)

What do I confuse? Show me examples.

Come on... showwww. I think I have a much more realistic view of Buffalo than some of the overzealous boosters on here. Methinks BushCo. shared some of their KoolAid with certain Buffalonians ;)

Okay, fine... go on thinking that the cit of Buffalo is increasing in population. While it would be fantastic if that were the case, it's just not happening.

He knows... oh, he knows. I just don't mess around at SSP as much. SSC is just too fun though.

:whip:

Sulley - while I don't believe that everyone here thinks that Buffalo is a boom town at the moment, I certainly don't find it fair that you must cut people up for posting positive changes and developments occuring in the city. There is so much going on right now that is positive, many people are very happy at the turnaround occuring for the area.

I am sure there are some forums out there that bash Buffalo - maybe you should join one of those boards where people would be interested in hearing what a 3rd rate city you think Buffalo is. - Also, I had asked you this before......"WHY DO YOU EVEN LIVE THERE?"....:shrug:

Show me where I have cut people down for posting positive developments in the city/metro. I just questioned him on whether he actually believes that Buffalo is gaining population.

Again, show me... and I'll retract what I've said.

I don't believe I ever once said that Buffalo or WNY in general was booming. Nope I don't think the word boom ever was typed by my fingers. What I did say is that I think Buffalo has turned an important corner--a corner which has nothing to do with most of the politacal maneuvering happing locally or in NYS. It is this--Buffalo is becoming interestering to developers--both local, national and international. People see real opportunities here--that's big, because it provides downtown with the private investment it needs to reinvent itself as the region's hub.

By the way--the Buffalo news mentioned during the last census that Buffalo turned down an offer from a private firm to find more people in the city. Rochester however did use the firm's services and added many people to their final count. In fact census 2000 found that metro Rochester grew from 1990-2000. What if Erie county and Buffalo had more vision at the time to hire this firm. What would population estimates look like? As far as metro Buffalo's population losses--it includes industrial graveyards like Niagara Falls (my hometown), Lackawanna, and others, which cancel growing suburbs like Clarence, OP, and Amherst. When these cities right their ships it will have a huge impact on the Metro's population.

I like this conversation though--it's fun. I'm frustrated by our area's gloomy view of itself and I choose change. Why would I stay here if I hated it?

:previous: Sulley--you made me break my promise! :P

are we getting our sully's mistaken here, i believe you were asking me "Why do i even live here" chevy.

and i happen to agree with a lot of the things downtown is saying, i moved here about five years ago and it seems in there has been more good news in that time span, particularly in the past 2 years than this area has had in a long time. Further more it is time for people to start changing their minds about the city and the region.

I am confused on the Sulley's......:haha:

This is great post! I for one am sick of all the negative bashing of the city. It IS time to turn a new corner and present a more positive image of the area!

Boli,

Those towns are not growing...they are canibalizing the other municipalities. There is a big difference between real growth and people just moving around within the region. As Amherst et al keep sprawling outward with no controll they also add more and more infrastructure to the area. That infrastructure is payed for by fewer and fewer people and the people in the so calle industrial graveyards are footing the bill.

I agree. It's good to have things happening downtown, but IMO, these developers are playing catch-up -- building things that downtown Buffalo has lacked (compared to other cities) for years. I hope the trend continues and we see larger and more prominent developments in the near future.

In all honesty, areas like Clarence and Amherst are growing, but is their growth benefiting the area? What I mean is this -- most of the new residents in these suburbs have relocated from other cities/towns in WNY and there is very little new in-migration. It's like Cheektowaga in the 70s -- while the city was bleeding population, the Cheek was booming. Now people are leaving the older suburbs and thus repeating the cycle. We need people moving in from other areas for real growth.

Wow, steel and I agree! Well said, jerk.

;)

BTW, I am the real Sulley.

:D

I disagree somewhat with the idea that our outer-ring suburbs cannibalize the older cities in our region. I'm going to use the example of my parents church congregation in Clarence. There are many there from among the upper middle class who are originally from other areas of the country and are part of the shifting middle management corporate chain. Yes there are others who were originally from the city of Buffalo or whose parents lived in Buffalo. Buffalo's suburbs act as suburbs do in other areas of the country--none of this should be a surprise. What is finally happening is that the city is beginning to understand the need to re-invent itself. My sister, an artist, is moving from Clarence to Allentown--opportunies for her are good there. Sully mentioned this earlier--cities and suburbs can grow together--one need not suffer at the expense of the other. Buffalo needs to accentuate its urban flavor and cultural opportunities. The surburbs will continue to provide a place for large companies to locate back-office operations on sprawling campuses. If companies like both, we need to provide both. I think Geico and possibly Citi benefit the area a great deal.

Secondly, I think people are down on the region because we have fallen from such a high place. Check out those Gilded Age mansions featured on BR. Impressive! Buffalo will probably not recover the status it once had 100 years ago, but it can and should be and will be a great city and a great place to live and locate or start a business. We should preserve the past, but we need to learn from it and to a certain exent let it go. We haunt ourselves by looking at pictures from the past, from "the way things used to be," and saying, "what a shame--we used to great." We ought to be asking where the opportunity is and seek to bring history to life, even while reinventing ourselves for the future.

I'm definitely interested in hearing more thoughts...this is a great conversation to have.

Except for a very few cities in the USA our urban downtowns are all crap holes not much better than Buffalo if at all. Even your beloved B’ham has a crap hole of a downtown and that is the truth. American cities are an embarrassment in the urbanism department.

You people are funny !
How can you say things are getting better ?
Are you forgeting, HELLO !
Erie County Control Board
City of Buffalo Control Board
Highest taxes in the Country (46 times higher then the nation average)
and theirs already multi million dolllars deficits for 2008 & 2009
population loses speeding Up ! you can see it everwhere
Hospital Closings , Fire Station Closings , Police Station Closings , Church closings & School Closings , on top of
all at the empty buildings from all the business's that went out of business, factorys, retail stores, restaurants, grocery stores. new car dealerships, and even whole strip plazas etc., most of them were in business 2 or 3 years ago.

So here we realize why SSP was >> than SSC. But I must break my silence.

Bpt youir funiere!

So the CPR (Sertified Pubic Retard) lives
Hear as well!
Yea I Enjpy paying 13x my Selery in texas (46 x 30%)

Get a life, deusche. Don't try dragging us all into your misery, it isn't, and won't ever work.:Titanic:

AND LEARN GRAMMAR!!!!!!

So to recap -

Explain how a control board is bad for the county, and how it's done the city so much damage?

Please elaborate on the Police, Fire, and School closings. I haven't heard of any reductions in staff in either. Actually, they remain overbloated, and that is part of the problem. So even in your blind idiocy of a stab-in-the-dark-out-of-envy rant, you accidentally stumble upon a solution. The irony is amazing.

Church closings - How about other cities? I know of some smaller ones going from 6 to 1. 1, that's right. Explain how that's a better situation, using examples from this room.

As for the abandoned grocery stores, where are they? I know of a few, but it's because they were replaced by larger stores. And actually only one is full-time abandoned. If there is one thing that WNY is in no threat of, it's a shortage of grocery stores. Another grossly misinformed and idiotic comment. Same thing with the strip malls. The few dead ones I know of have been dead for a loooooooonnnnnnng time. Sometimes 20-30 years (South Shore in Hamburg, anyone?). But I thought Hamburg, especially southern Hamburg was - growing?!?! There's a noodle-scratcher for ya.

And abandoned car dealers? WHERE?!?!? I WANT TO LIVE THERE!!! Where I live, there are too many opening!!!! Die, Billy Fucillo, Die!

I'll agree, the population is falling. Some might argue it's addition by subtraction (a mathematical phenomenon above your feeble grasp). In fact, maybe the only thing falling faster is your IQ and that of everyone who comes within 3 AU (astronomical units) of you on a daily basis. Make sure you watch your step and don't fall through the hole it just created in the floor in front of you.

Seeing the signs of decline speeding up? Maybe where you live. I see it accelerating too, but in the other direction.

I think you're forgetting that there are just as many positives as negatives to be found. Perhaps nothing more evident than your chronic posting of the same 5 or so tired topics, whereas there has been a relative revolving door of positives in the last 2-3 years. But of course you'd forget, you never knew in the first place as the Good Lord never endowed you with functioning grey matter.

Face it, Buffalo is too real for you, and you just don't want to own up to it. You just weren't smart enough to make it work. Bad for you, good for us. Now to leave you in the dust...goodbye!!! :hi:

Ouch, you got passed by Buffalo. Our first victim.

Sorry, I'll go back to lurking.:lurk:


Aaaaannnyways...

While I was wasting away my afternoon/evening waiting for my oil change, Channel 7 had a good spot on the official ribbon cutting for the Granite Works project. Looks to me to be a massive improvement over even the pre-fire condition.

Ellicott Commons looks good too, work seems to have picked up quite a bit in just the past few weeks. At least noticable exterior work. Ditto New Era and 285 Delaware.

What do Buffalonians (here, and in real life) mean by the city "being too real?"

I don't really know. Maybe because it just doesn't have a "pretty face". It's tough to quantify. Same with the "City of No Illusions" moniker. "We have problems, and we're not about to hide it; deal with it".

Actually the last time I've heard it was in relation to the NY Times article (or it may have been in it). Most times I've heard it, it's actually been out-of-town writers. Maybe they're just using what works, maybe not. I don't know.

I never heard the phrase before