[rdaner]

FYI: I just read that there are 8,000 abandoned buildings just in the City of Buffalo!

 

[RGB_11]

FYI: I just read that there are 8,000 abandoned buildings just in the City of Buffalo!

Buffalo NY has also lost a lot of industry etc. The income levels of those who choose to live there these days are not as great as they once were.
It's too bad.

 

[RGB_11]

It isn't. I went there to pick up a delivery last week.

GEEZ! If it's still not an abandoned building, what's with the abandoned laneway @ 1191 Bathurst? Monster sized pot holes and all! They're really not taking care of the property. It needs a repaving badly.
Same with the parking area. $3/hr to park on that pile of slop?? What? So it would be $4/hr if they ever repave properly? Is that the message here?? Sorry for the rant, lol just some observations.
Wish they would take better care of their property.

 

[Northern Light]

FYI: I just read that there are 8,000 abandoned buildings just in the City of Buffalo!

That's likely in the ballpark; I believe the 2020 US Census came up w/that number for long-term vacant properties, assessing them to contain just over 14,000units, of housing.

From Wikipedia, this is the historic population of the City of Buffalo (proper, not metro area)

Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo,_New_York

You'll notice the City has actually started growing again, for the first time since 1950. But it will have to grow some more to absorb some of that vacancy.

 

[RGB_11]

You'll notice the City has actually started growing again, for the first time since 1950. But it will have to grow some more to absorb some of that vacancy.

Buffalo needs something BIG, and not just a furniture store to replace the late great FWS either. Something bigger and better. The return of a factory of some sort making something useful to Americans. (and Canadians, but obviously Americans first)

 

[rdaner]

Buffalo needs something BIG, and not just a furniture store to replace the late great FWS either. Something bigger and better. The return of a factory of some sort making something useful to Americans. (and Canadians, but obviously Americans first)

I think what is required entails a lot more than something big. Abandoned buildings are a symptom of structural problems in how US metros are organized and unless demographics suddenly change in a massive way I don’t see that reality changing. Btw Buffalo’s numbers pale in comparison to other cities such as Cleveland!

This demographic difference between US (and maybe SA) and basically the rest of the world explains it all. Be thankful we don’t have that to deal with!

 

[ShonTron]

Buffalo needs something BIG, and not just a furniture store to replace the late great FWS either. Something bigger and better. The return of a factory of some sort making something useful to Americans. (and Canadians, but obviously Americans first)

FWS?

Buffalo was never dependent on a single industry like Detroit, but it had the huge Lackawanna steel mill just south of the city limits (steel companies liked to set up their own towns), the elevators (largely made redundant by the completion of St. Lawrence Seaway), Larkin Soap, Curtiss-Wright, and Pierce-Arrow. They’re all gone.

 

[junctionist]

FWS?

Buffalo was never dependent on a single industry like Detroit, but it had the huge Lackawanna steel mill just south of the city limits (steel companies liked to set up their own towns), the elevators (largely made redundant by the completion of St. Lawrence Seaway), Larkin Soap, Curtiss-Wright, and Pierce-Arrow. They’re all gone.

The metro area also had (and still has) the massive Hooker Chemical plant, now OxyChem, whose chemical waste dumping sites included Love Canal and other EPA Superfund sites in the area. While Love Canal got all the notoriety, it's also disturbing that one of the waste sites, the 102nd Street landfill, was located directly adjacent to the Niagara River.

Unsurprisingly, the highly toxic waste that was buried there started to seep into the river, spurring the construction of a concrete bulkhead. I wouldn't be surprised if the company had wanted the chemicals to wash away into the river over time without anyone noticing, so that they wouldn't be on the hook for cleaning up the contaminated land.

What is surprising is that despite the environmental disaster that resulted at Love Canal, the shock and public outcry, and all the litigation, the area is still contaminated. It was never fully remediated and redeveloped, unlike most contaminated sites in the GTA. It's just capped and monitored now as a large expanse of empty land.

 

[ShonTron]

The metro area also had (and still has) Hooker Chemical, whose chemical waste dumping sites included Love Canal and other EPA Superfund sites in the area. While Love Canal got all the notoriety, it's also disturbing that one of the waste sites, the 102nd Street landfill, was located directly adjacent to the Niagara River.

Unsurprisingly, the highly toxic waste that was buried there started to seep into the river, spurring the construction of a concrete bulkhead. I wouldn't be surprised if the company had wanted the chemicals to wash away into the river over time without anyone noticing, so that they wouldn't be on the hook for cleaning up the contaminated land.

What is surprising is that despite the environmental disaster that resulted at Love Canal, the shock and public outcry, and all the litigation, the area is still contaminated. It was never fully remediated and redeveloped, unlike most contaminated sites in the GTA. It's just capped and monitored now--a large expanse of empty land surrounded by chainlink fences.

I know all about the Love Canal. The construction of the LaSalle Expressway (part of a never-completed outer ring road) and the Blizzard of ‘77 only made the catastrophe occur as bad as it did, when it did.

 

[AlbertC]

It's been 6 to 7 years since I've spent time in Buffalo. There's several cases of urban renewal such as the Richardson Olmsted Campus which was a former mental health asylum that was converted to a hotel. And there's pockets of decent urban congruency like Elmwood Village and Allentown, along with a handful of craft breweries. But I can't help but notice the air of emptiness throughout most other areas, especially their "downtown core" during a weekend. I felt that majority of the areas I went through were safe, but were quite dead. The city had a vibe of a place that's treading water, and gradually further declining. As an urban and architecture history enthusiast, it's an interesting place to check out. But niche tourism like this doesn't draw enough wider general public appeal. Also for a city that has several colleges and universities, it didn't really have the energy of a college/university town that even some places in Ontario have.