Buffalo NY (Thoughts on Neighborhoods)

My trip wasn't a complete write-off: I landed at Buffalo airport at about 5 PM, so I decided to have a little wander around the city and grab dinner. I have driven through this town several times, but never actually stopped--even to get gas. I had the foresight to make a copy of the New York Times article "JOURNEYS: 36 Hours | Buffalo" to my laptop for this eventuality, so armed with that and my United States map on my hard drive, I took a wander around town.

The section driving in from the Interstate was pretty sketchy and depressing--but remember, after all, that the highways were built through the neighborhoods that didn't have the political clout to prevent it, so it makes sense that they're in pretty rough shape. If you ever want to see the opposite case, look at a map of the Northern State Parkway on Long Island, where it takes a sharp turn around Old Westbury.

The Times article recommends The Anchor Bar, which claims to have invented Buffalo Wings; I found the place and drove by it, but from the outside, it didn't really draw me in. The article also talked about the Elmwood Avenue section: Browse through luminous bracelets and flutes handmade in Cameroon at Plum Pudding, or pick up pottery or an Albert Einstein action figure at Positively Main Street. Talking Leaves is a well-stocked independent bookstore adjoining a shop with good coffee and pastries. Browsing was prevented by my timing (late on Sunday), but I had a lovely dinner of appetizers (pesto, chicken curry soup, and crabcakes) at Le Metro Bistro and Bakery. I have to say that I really lucked out to find it, and it more than made up for my Cheetos and baby carrot dinner on the previous night.

I parked my car on a side street, which was a lovely neighborhood to be in--well-kept small jewel-box old Victorians, packed in tightly enough that you could walk to somewhere useful (i.e., the main commercial street), but it was still quiet and tree-lined.



That experience piqued my interest enough to do some web research. First, the Wikipedia article on Buffalo was pretty illuminating: it is the second-largest city in New York, it gained economic prominence because it was one end of the Erie Canal, but then fell after 1957 with the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway. Also, it seems like it had the classic 1960's white flight/suburban migration/rust belt city story: The city also has the dubious distinction along with St. Louis of being one of the few American cities to have had fewer people in the year 2000 than in 1900.

Second, it seems like the Elmwood Strip is a pocket of artsy hipness (perhaps overhipness) in a somewhat depressed city; definitely quite pleasant to walk about, with a great residential neighborhood right behind it--my kind of area. I found the Project for Public Spaces website's section on Elmwood.

This got me thinking that the older cities of the Northeast and Midwest are full of areas which have the potential (in their infrastructure) to become places like this: they already have the classic New Urbanism/Traditional Neighborhood Development hallmarks (mixed-use commercial and residential, walkability, public transit accessibility). Instead, those areas are still losing population to the South and the Sunbelt--completely rational, given the fact that the jobs are moving there. Those growing areas are being built out in classic sprawl style: the Chicago-area exurb I was working in would definitely require getting in a car just to get to the Seven-11 near the main entrance; each house had its huge moat-like lawn, carefully isolating it from the street and neighbors. For many people, that's the ideal that they're looking for, and I don't know if any amount of education or rising fuel prices (a la End of Suburbia) will make this change.

I guess that although the infrastructure is there in older Northeastern/Midwestern cities, it seems like a critical mass of young, well-to-do, college-educated people is a requirement for it to happen. I really do need to Richard Florida's Rise of the Creative Class sometime.