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  #21  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2014, 4:34 AM
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Originally Posted by alchemist redux View Post
Even though Buffalo was the 8th largest city in the US in 1900, I don't think it was 8th in importance or stature. I think most people would have assigned more importance to Pittsburgh, Detroit or San Francisco, even though they would have been statistically smaller at the time.
I agree that Pittsburgh was more important than Buffalo in 1900 despite a smaller city population... which is partially explained by Pittsburgh having its own "Brooklyn" twin, the independent city of Allegheny, (today's North Side) which would not be annexed until 1909. (Detroit's another story... as it was a late bloomer compared to other regional cities... I could definitely see Buffalo being more important than Detroit in 1900... interestingly, Detroit is another city that really failed to develop world-class institutions... particularly a university.)

Just as we look at city population rankings today... and realize that Oklahoma City is not truly bigger than St. Louis... that there are many variances in city areas, annexation laws, municipal regimes, suburban histories that result in city units that are almost meaningless to compare... even in the year 1900 city populations did not completely reflect the true relative importance of cities.
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  #22  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2014, 5:03 AM
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The largest metro areas in 1900 (page 56):

1. New York......4,607,804
2. Chicago........1,837,987
3. Philadelphia...1,623,149
4. Boston.........1,249,504
5. Pittsburgh.......792,968
6. St. Louis.........649,711
7. Baltimore.........577,670
8. Cincinnati........495,979
9. SF/Oakland......473,073
10. Cleveland.......420,020
11. Buffalo...........394,031

By 1910, both Minneapolis-St. Paul and Detroit would pass Metro Buffalo to leave it in 13th. The next largest metro area after Buffalo in 1910 had tripled over the previous decade: Los Angeles.
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  #23  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2014, 4:47 PM
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Originally Posted by chris08876 View Post
Don't forget to visit the national parks and mountains Upstate. Cities are nice, but lets not forget the natural beauty that is upstate. A lot of good trails for mountain biking or even hiking can be found. The state is blessed in sense. A world class city, and some jaw dropping natural scenes. Especially in the fall with all of the foliage.
I did get to go to the Adirondacks years ago and those are some of the best mountains in the East!!
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  #24  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2014, 5:57 PM
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I think most people nailed the blue-collar versus white-collar difference that existed for most of the last century between Buffalo and Rochester. For several decades Rochester had a significant corporate headquarter presence with Kodak, Xerox and Bausch & Lomb. It was a lead technology center for photographic and optical science. The city benefited from the largess of this companies, when they were doing well. As Kodak and Xerox were out-innovated, Rochester began to loose some luster. Nevertheless, because of it white-collar make-up, Rochester suffered a slower decline than the more manufacturing dependent Buffalo area, which suffered greatly from the decline in steel and to a lesser extent automotive manufacturing. Today as Buffalo and Rochester both become more diverse economically the differences not only in metro population, but in the cities themselves is shrinking.
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  #25  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2014, 6:55 PM
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Re: the distance thing with Toronto and Canada, yes there is an obvious impact on Buffalo due to this. Niagara Falls on the Canadian side is a metro area of 400,000 people with a skyline of its own. You can see the Niagara Falls skyline from any place of height in downtown Buffalo. This duality to the region makes it much larger. Buffalo USA and Niagara Falls US/Canada are a unit, and it has 1.5 million people. It can't claim as such since the border is there, but its significantly larger. And this region of 1.5 million is only an hour to an hour and a half from the greater Toronto-Hamilton area, with some 6-7 million people.

The relation to Toronto also makes Buffalo have the connection that helps. But, it still doesn't provide Buffalo with a higher metro GDP. Rochester independently is factually and observably a richer city, and we'll see how that continues. The state government is investing into Buffalo heavily, so I wouldn't be surprised if the city overtakes Rochester's GDP going forward. There are thousands of high paying, white collar jobs headed to Buffalo in the near future.

http://wivb.com/2014/06/04/cuomo-to-...-roswell-park/

Quite literally, there was an announcement that IBM is bringing 500 high paying research and development jobs to downtown Buffalo. With this much growth every so often (this isn't the only recent addition), there is an uptick in the Buffalo economy. Buffalo also feels like its turning a corner, just in the 5 years I've been here I've seen massive change to the downtown core with new cranes and new energy that didn't exist before. And I remember passing through the city 10 years ago, and its far better with each passing year.

Buffalo does have its challenges. I've mentioned it before, but this region outside the city proper of Buffalo does have crushing local property and education taxes. When I say crushing, I mean literally people around here cannot own a home unless they have two average incomes combined or a very high, above average single income earner. Property values are higher in Ontario, but the tax/mill rate in Buffalo is absurd. Homes that cost $250,000 in Niagara region Ontario are probably paying $3-4,000 in property tax (I know this based on personal examples and friends I've met, or browsing public records). In Buffalo, a $250,000 newer home in Wheatfield or Clarence or Hamburg will easily have taxes approaching $6-8,000 a year. The tax rate on the US side of the border is double Ontario's average.

Buffalo needs lower taxes to help its economy, it'll be suffocated forever more until the local governments get it together.

EDIT: I wanted to add a sample. I lived in Hamburg for several years, and I'd see homes like this that are nice, simple modern homes:

http://www.zillow.com/homedetails/32...54463719_zpid/

The property tax is over $6,000 for a home valued at $230,000, this home is around the corner from where I used to live. This mill rate is by far above the national average and is crushing for many people. The Buffalo region doesn't have the disposable income of Toronto or larger cities here like San Francisco or NYC.

If this home were in Niagara Falls, ON it would probably be valued at 350,000 CAD, and if it had Buffalo taxes it'd be probably closer to $9,000 in taxes. Its crushing by any standard. Niagara region, Ontario wouldn't be taxing it nearly as much.

Last edited by Dr Nevergold; Jun 4, 2014 at 7:12 PM.
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  #26  
Old Posted Jun 4, 2014, 7:11 PM
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One advantage that Rochester has over Buffalo is better research universities, particularly in Sci-Tech. The University of Rochester and RIT are generally stronger than UB. This could potentially be a big source of strength for Rochester going forward. Although, Buffalo is probably stronger in medical research.

From a regional economic development standpoint, it is really too bad Cornell isn't located in of the big Upstate cities. Ithaca is really to small to capitalize on the potential knowledge spill over in any big way.
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  #27  
Old Posted Jun 5, 2014, 11:05 AM
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From a regional economic development standpoint, it is really too bad Cornell isn't located in of the big Upstate cities. Ithaca is really to small to capitalize on the potential knowledge spill over in any big way.
Much of Cornell's research and spin-off infrastructure isn't even in Ithaca, it's in NYC. Three of Cornell's colleges are based in NYC, including the tech campus, the medical school, and biological/biomedical sciences, plus the ILR school is about split 50/50. There has also been serious consideration given to moving law and MBA programs to NYC (and in fact you can get a Cornell MBA in NYC, though the main campus is still in Ithaca).

Ithaca is a fantastic college town, and big enough for undergraduates and some graduate disciplines, but you aren't going to have Stanford-style major spin-off or all types of research activity in a town that doesn't even have an interstate, and is many hours from the nearest big city. That's why the tech campus is in NYC.

Upstate does have some other major research universities, though, and cities can leverage these schools. Rochester, RIT, UB, Syracuse, RPI and Albany are all major research universities. Binghamton has traditionally been undergraduate-focused but is becoming more of a research university.
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  #28  
Old Posted Jun 6, 2014, 4:03 AM
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I never realized how big Buffalo was. Google Earth has the whole city in 3D. Was checking it out and even with the low rise nature of it, its very large and dense. Many midrises too. Nice collection of prewars. Maybe another a difference between the two is that Buffalo has more prewars!

In fact, I was checking out other cities and am really surprised with the density in upstate NY. 2D aerials can be deceiving, but 3D allows for the city to really come alive, aside from actually being there.
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  #29  
Old Posted Jun 8, 2014, 2:23 PM
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Apparently even though Kodak shed something like 60,000 jobs in the area. Job growth in the tune of over 90,000 in high tech kind of fields offset the loses to some degree and still caused a growth in jobs.

One thing though. A big region of over one million needs more than buses running every 75 minutes in the evenings (that will be the new service frequency in Rochester, come November).
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  #30  
Old Posted Jun 8, 2014, 3:13 PM
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About seven years ago, we planned a trip to Philadelphia but it got Kaboshed due to the interstate in Pennsylvania getting washed out. (remember that?).

Anyways, at the last minute we switched it to a Fingers Lake, Western NY road trip instead...

Upstate NY is really nice country btw.


We literally visited both Rochester and Buffalo a day apart.

At the time you can tell that both cities were going through a hard time by a lot of boarded up buildings..The Rochester zoo was eerily quiet, but it could of been because it was a duel long weekend for both countries (October).

Driving through Buffalo's dt was really kewl..It was like you were driving through a museum of pre war high rises and infrastructure that we just don't see up here.You can really tell that Buffalo became a city well before the 50's.

I really couldn't tell what the differences in cities were exactly to be honest, but it was evident that Buffalo was the larger of the two and re-counting now Buffalo seemed more blue collar and more important for sure (just an impression).. As someone else pointed out, Buffalo really is part of a greater region when you take into account the ease of access to the Canadian side, being the GTA...Much like Windsor here is to Detroit's metro.

I would be great to see both cities come back from the rough times they were obviously going through when we last visited.
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  #31  
Old Posted Jun 8, 2014, 6:03 PM
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Originally Posted by ChiSoxRox View Post
The largest metro areas in 1900 (page 56):

1. New York......4,607,804
2. Chicago........1,837,987
3. Philadelphia...1,623,149
4. Boston.........1,249,504
5. Pittsburgh.......792,968
6. St. Louis.........649,711
7. Baltimore.........577,670
8. Cincinnati........495,979
9. SF/Oakland......473,073
10. Cleveland.......420,020
11. Buffalo...........394,031

By 1910, both Minneapolis-St. Paul and Detroit would pass Metro Buffalo to leave it in 13th. The next largest metro area after Buffalo in 1910 had tripled over the previous decade: Los Angeles.

Thanks for posting the link. It is very informative with historical context.
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  #32  
Old Posted Jun 8, 2014, 6:38 PM
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Apparently Rochester is the second largest economy and second wealthiest region in the state, after NYC.
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  #33  
Old Posted Jun 8, 2014, 7:13 PM
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Downtown Buffalo seemed less active than dt Syracuse. but the adjacent neighborhoods north of town are certainly beautiful and full of vitality. East of Main things are still a disaster area i guess? Granted I was there in the dead of a very cold winter, even Toronto seemed a bit slow on the same visit.

Never been to Rochester, unfortunately.
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  #34  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2014, 12:44 AM
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Originally Posted by miketoronto View Post
Apparently Rochester is the second largest economy and second wealthiest region in the state, after NYC.
Albany is wealthier than Rochester, and has a much better economy.

Rochester is bigger, though.
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  #35  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2014, 5:14 AM
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Rochester always seems more clean and less run down than Buffalo. That being said, I hear they have some pretty bad sections to.

But the feel I always got in Rochester, was that it was much more of a high-tech white collar city, and economically better off than Greater Buffalo.
I don't think Greater Rochester ever fully stagnated or had region wide population decline like Buffalo (I cold be wrong on that).

The downtown is a tad quiet, but overall, just seems more well kept than Buffalo.
Rochester also has one of the top music schools in the nation.
Mike Toronto again gets it wrong. Yes Buffalo has a bit more blight than Rochester. But in virtually every other facet Buffalo is far superior city. Buffalo has less crime, better schools, less poverty, better history, better culture/museums, better waterfront, better architecture, better neighborhoods, better downtown, better Summers, more energy, more real, and way better people. Before anyone says anything, I'm a born and raised Rochesterian.

The only advantage ROC has is the George Eastman house.

When I say "better people" I mean the attitude. People in Rochester look down at Buffalo because they had "white collar" jobs. Which is funny because a lot of these jobs were filled by high school drop-outs and undereducated immigrants.

People in Rochester have this bizarre Jekyl/Hyde complex where they think it is this great place that is rich but everyone hates it and thinks its poor deep inside.

Also Rochester has become very bombed out. The western part of the city has many parts that look no different than east Buffalo.
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  #36  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2014, 5:19 AM
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Buffalo does have a high crime rate though; its a lot higher than Rochester.
No, its not. ROC has the highest murder rate in NY state.

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Are we going to ignore scale here? Buffalo's bones are much, much bigger than Rochester. It's peak population was around 600000, while Rochester's was only around 300000.

Rochester's downtown feels sleepy and somewhat bombed out, but it also feels pretty small. They may have a leg up on Buffalo economically, with certain high-tech employers, better universities, and less population loss over time... but Rochester "feels" like a small city, while Buffalo "feels" like a large city.
I wouldn't even agree that Rochester has better employment or better universities. RIT moved out of the city of ROC in the 70's due to crime. It is well in the burbs. UofR is the only large school in the city and it is closer to the burbs than downtown. I would also say UB is a better school than UofR.

Buffalo might seem more economically off but that is only because it was far bigger and wealthier than ROC. So de-industrialization affected it harder.
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  #37  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2014, 5:35 AM
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I guess my point was to show that Buffalo, despite its size, was never as major a city as we tend to reminisce. It lacks the kinds of institutions that I associate with important cities, whether that's major research universities of global renown or major league ball teams. Even though Buffalo was the 8th largest city in the US in 1900, I don't think it was 8th in importance or stature. I think most people would have assigned more importance to Pittsburgh, Detroit or San Francisco, even though they would have been statistically smaller at the time.

I guess my question is why Buffalo's city fathers never bothered to invest in building the kinds of institutions that would give the city some prestige. Did they deny their city's size? Is New York state's political and economic deck always stacked in NYC's favor?
In the early 1900's Buffalo had more millionaires than any other city in North America. Even up till the 1960's, people in Toronto would shop in Buffalo.

Also the discussion of Rochester being "wealthier" is very disingenuous as the city has a higher rate of poverty. All of the metro wealth is in the southeast suburbs. In every other direction outside of the city of Rochester is made up of declining inner-ring working class suburbs like Greece, Irondequoit, & Gates.
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  #38  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2014, 6:58 AM
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I am a big fan of Rochester. Fell in love with the city while in college (1989-1993). The Bug Jar on Monroe Avenue had great live bands. The Village Green was a cool shop. Carpe Diem had great gay nights on Thursday downtown. My first boyfriend lived in a converted old mansion on University Blvd. He had tons of friends at UofR and RIT and everyone was so darn friendly (unlike the buttheads at Syracuse).

You could tell Rochester was of money even if it had seen better days.

I didn't spend as much time in Buffalo but had plenty of friends from Hobart and William Smith Colleges that lived in the burbs (Amherst mainly). Those folks rarely went into the city but I found it fascinating to explore. Buffalo back then felt way more bombed out and distressed than Rochester.

I've heard some positive stories about Buffalo lately but haven't been there in 15 years. I was in Rochester last summer. It felt a bit more down and out but Kodak and Xerox were still humming when I was in school so that's to be expected.

I love that part of the country.
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  #39  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2014, 7:07 AM
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No, its not. ROC has the highest murder rate in NY state.



I wouldn't even agree that Rochester has better employment or better universities. RIT moved out of the city of ROC in the 70's due to crime. It is well in the burbs. UofR is the only large school in the city and it is closer to the burbs than downtown. I would also say UB is a better school than UofR.

Buffalo might seem more economically off but that is only because it was far bigger and wealthier than ROC. So de-industrialization affected it harder.
Wait, are you seriously going to argue that Buffalo is a better university than Rochester? UB is a solid school, but it can't hold a candle to UofR.

Also, last time I checked, the largest campus of UB was in Amherst (North Campus). It was built in the 1970s. Why point out RIT's move out of the city when UB did the exact same thing but on an even larger scale?
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  #40  
Old Posted Jun 9, 2014, 8:06 PM
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Originally Posted by relnahe View Post
I wouldn't even agree that Rochester has better employment or better universities. RIT moved out of the city of ROC in the 70's due to crime. It is well in the burbs. UofR is the only large school in the city and it is closer to the burbs than downtown. I would also say UB is a better school than UofR.
USNWR ranks the University of Rochester at #32 among "National Universities," its highest tier, which covers research universities. The University at Buffalo ranks #126. Rochester Institute of Technology ranks #7 among Regional Universities in its region (North). SUNY Buffalo ranks #101.

Rochester has better universities than Buffalo.
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