Blaming the Past vs. Creating a Future
Buffalo lost its downtown retail.
Sure, there’s the food court at the Main Place Mall - which is a great way for kids to see what the early 80s were like, and there are - um - copy shops and an EZ Pass Center and stuff. But there’s no big draw to bring you downtown to shop, and hasn’t been for over a generation.
Buffalo Rising has this post which goes into some detail about the collapse of certain department stores in the 70s and 80s. It’s interesting from an academic standpoint: the pedestrian mall and Metro Rail have been blamed for the death of retail on Main, but the hastening of Main Street’s demise was due to a bunch of stores that quickly became anachronisms in last few decades of the 20th Century. Commenters then go off on predictable tangents about their opinions as to why Buffalo’s downtown shopping district died.
Who cares?
I have never lived in a community that was so obsessed with its past. We have lots of problems in the present. If we can think of ways to address them now, we can perhaps clear the way for a more improved future.
Here’s how one commenter characterized another’s “top ten” reasons why downtown retail died:
1) Blame the suburbs 2) Blame the whites 3) Blame UB 4) Blame big business 5) Blame the cars 6) Blame the politicians 7) Blame the state 8 ) Blame the suburbs again 9) Blame the whites some more… In other words, it is all a big conspiracy and always someone else’s fault. We don’t have retail downtown because we don’t have people downtown. We don’t even have a decent grocery store downtown (refer to the NEO post).
I am not saying that these things didn’t happen, but you fail to really evaluate the root cause of the issues. People left the city in part because of the cars, take a look at the reasons that people left the city, it wasn’t just to ‘escape the blacks’, it was to move to a nicer, planned community. They had control over their community, they were part of the community and didn’t feel as helpless as they did in the city.
I’m pretty sure that antagonizing suburbanites is not the best plan for bringing back downtown Buffalo.
Attracting people back downtown isn’t brain surgery, and it’s high time we looked towards the future and for God’s sake let the past rest in peace.
OTOH, we can file lawsuits to block new luxury condominiums on Delaware Avenue. That’s just like a welcome mat. Only uglier with more petty nonsense.
iNdAbUFF Says:October 28th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Tis’ amazing to me how people will endlessly debate such issues or how they will focus on issues that do little to solve the critical problems of the city and region.
http://www.buffalonews.com/home/story/193858.html
I wish people would discuss things highlighted in the above article with the same passion…
jean claude Says:October 28th, 2007 at 9:47 am
I worked in the Main Place tower part time at an asshole law office (Duke Holzman Yeager) and found the Mall there a depressing place. In the few years I was in Buffalo at least three tenants vacated the place: a liquor store, a chocolate shop and something else. I bought some over priced, rancid candy at the chocolate shop before it went under. The only stores that did brisk business was a Hindu owned dollar store and the pizza joint. Rent a cops walk around looking menacing. One place had discount baby clothing. Ghetto fantastic! Suburban pukes would read magazines for free at the bookstore (no doubt preferring to buy them online or back home in Amherst). At Christmas time there was no Santa Claus in the mall. Just plain sad. I almost got hit more than once by BPD or snow plows racing up and down the Metro Rail track. On the weekends the place is a ghost town and during the week the whole thing comes to a halt at 6pm.
Size Nine Says:October 28th, 2007 at 11:12 am
The reason people obsessively debate past causes of present problems is that they want to avoid spending scarce dollars on wrong solutions. If your MD did not do this same thing, you’d have grounds for a malpractice suit. Cities with multiple ailments deserve the same attention to proper diagnosis.
Denizen Says:October 28th, 2007 at 11:18 am
Chris, urban poverty is a national problem. It occurs in just about every older industrial city. It’s by no means unique to Buffalo. There is very little local policies and action can do change this.
Poverty in Buffalo is indeed a tragedy, thought it must be first tackled at the national level. This is a daunting task, especially in this sad joke of nation where like 90% of our everyday goods are now manufactured in China.
Buffalopundit Says:October 28th, 2007 at 11:22 am
The doctor analogy is faulty, because doctors draw from all sorts of knowledge and experience to diagnose and treat ailments. They don’t just look at you.
In Buffalo, people constantly hash and re-hash Buffalo’s own past. Maybe we could properly use your doctor analogy and draw lessons from other cities that have been in the shitter but pulled themselves out of it.
Maybe the solution lies east, west, north, or south of here. We just keep gazing at our own history with misty eyes.
Becky Says:October 28th, 2007 at 11:42 am
There is focus on Main Place Mall because the group that is largely responsible for grinding it up and spitting it out still owns it. My understanding is that it operates as a write-off for some NYC business. Now, I don’t understand wanting loss write-offs, but I do understand that it offers no reward for actually improving the place. Sort of like out of state/country buyers of property in Buffalo.
Cars and improved roadways - now there is a main reason that people were able to move. Still, the mass exodus couldn’t gain full steam until the ‘burbs ceased being entirely rural and got “city water” (don’t laugh, it’s true). Natural gas lines reaching further out helped a bunch too.
Then, of course, the stores themselves opened in multiple locations in the suburbs, in effect cutting their own throats.
Denizen Says:October 28th, 2007 at 11:52 am
Alan you are right that over-analyzing the collapse of downtown retail won’t bring these antiquated stores back any time soon.
People often forget that metro Buffalo is already over-retailed to the hilt. Unfortunately most of the existing retail is in non city-friendly locations. Besides a dead downtown, there are countless old strip plazas in the inner suburbs that now sit half-vacant or completely abandoned. The changing face of retail has claimed many victims.
We must remember that retail itself is a purely consumptive activity. It merely feeds off the productive and services economy (or in WNY/Buffalo’s case, lots o’ public sector employment) that already exists. Retail doesn’t generate wealth for any locality, except the far off city where the corporate HQ happens to be located. Local owned stores do keep the profits in the community but still relies heavily on local wealth generated by productive means.
With that said, the return of retail downtown will be a slow, grassroots, incremental process involving mostly locally-owned businesses that manage to carve out a viable niche. If and when more residential wealth shifts nearer or in the city core, new retail will move in to capitalize on this trend.
iNdAbUFF Says:October 28th, 2007 at 11:55 am
What I was getting at is that it is easier to talk about Downtown Disney (Canal Side) or an f’n condo on Gates Circle than it is to discuss things of greater importance like human lives and how poverty here is awful…and…OMG…other older industrial cities have poverty…who would have thought…wouldn’t it be grand though if as much energy was put into discussing poverty or the Buffalo Public School system as we do debating the merits of having a dog park…
Becky Says:October 28th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Because it’s easier to endlessly discuss things that even remotely look like that have a conclusion.
Discussing real live human beings is perpetual, constantly changing, and the rewards not as evident. It’s a lot harder too when the casualties are lives, not bottom lines.
Denizen Says:October 28th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Well, I would wager that on a website focusing on city real estate and urban amenities that posters and commenters would stick to those topics, no matter how much inane blathering the conversation typically devolves into.
Mark Says:October 28th, 2007 at 12:57 pm
i didnt even read that BRO comment section because I knew that the comments were going to go in obvious directions…retail will come back when there is a significant pulse there. people dont need to go downtown…so they don’t. no evil conspiracies. its about convenience. kthxbai.
buffalo is indeed obsessed with its past. even in architecture…we’re building three things from an architect who DIED 35 YEARS AGO. and desgined those things 100 YEARS AGO.
our canal side is a fake recreation of something from 150 YEARS AGO. lets not let anyone think we embrace the concept of the 21st century.
because the past was good and the present sucks so therefore we should go back. wtf is the future?!?!
people still think manufacturing is coming back here too. its amazing.
lets not forget the obseesion with yearning for freddies donuts to come back.
Mark Says:October 28th, 2007 at 1:02 pm
oh and one more thing.
in the past, when buffalo was a great city…we were one of the most progressive cities in the world. fully embracing new innovation and technologies that no one else was up to par with.
1st fully illuminated city? city where the electric chair, windshield wiper, pacemaker, and air conditioning were invented? few cities in the world would have really wanted the larkin building. that thing is just way to wierd…it’ll never be liked.
buffalo was PROGRESSIVE. FORWARD THINKING. thats WHY it became so good. not from yearning for the old days.
iNdAbUFF Says:October 28th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
Mark…awesome…
Becky Says:October 28th, 2007 at 3:02 pm
There’s money to be made from the architecture, whether it be refurbished for other use or just viewed. There are a lot of people into that, and it brings in tourism dollars, whether you see it or not.
Other than that, on the 2nd post about Buffalo being progressive once upon a time…right on.
Terry Says:October 28th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
It’s funny…Baghdad was once a great city too…..I am in no hurry to move there either….
Size Nine Says:October 28th, 2007 at 10:23 pm
Whether the MD analogy is apt or not, you can at least acknowledge that many of the people who study our past in order to diagnose and treat our illnesses correctly are well qualified to do just that. They’re city planners and historians. You’re an insurance lawyer. I don’t see any Buffalo historians or city planners blogging about insurance law and you’d be scornful if they did.
Everyone who is tired of shallow opinionating on blogs, mine included, should log off and read this year’s two best Buffalo books, “Power Failure” and “City on the Edge.”
starbuck Says:October 28th, 2007 at 11:47 pm
I’ll barge in and refuse to acknowledge that. Historians and city planners all too often look at things through very subjective ideological lenses. That can be useful and interesting, but it’s hardly definitive and their suggestions for the present and future are in no way automatically better than anyone else’s. Some of the weirdest suggestions and “facts” I’ve seen in the local blogosphere recently have been from a city planner writing on Buffalo Rising.
In my shallow opinion, both of those had a lot of interesting stuff about our past (which in fairness was their main focus), but what they said about the present and future wasn’t very insightful. Somewhat lacking in practical current day economic and business perspectives, IMSO.
Why can't Buffalo have an "old time" future? Says:October 29th, 2007 at 12:01 am
[…] read this post on Buffalo Pundit’s blog a few times today, and I kept thinking back to last month when we visited Canandaigua. I wrote a […]
Buffalopundit Says:October 29th, 2007 at 7:57 am
No one would care to blog about insurance law, and I don’t begrudge anyone an opinion, no matter how “shallow” some anonymous commenter thinks they are.
Furthermore, if those city planners and historians whom Buffalo’s intelligentsia are so quick to defend concentrated even 1/5th as much on people as they do about buildings and curb-cuts, we’d all probably be better off.
My point is that we should look at other cities and what they do right rather than examining and re-examing our past mistakes, ad nauseum. Past’s over. Let’s focus on the future.
iNdAbUFF Says:October 29th, 2007 at 8:35 am
BP is right….
It is great to celebrate our past and preserve what we can from it but Buffalo ain’t what it used to be. We need to plan in the now and for the future based on the city and region we have become.
hank Says:October 29th, 2007 at 1:11 pm
Great Post Alan.
I was watching a TV show yesterday AM that showcases new housing in Charlotte, and the entire hour was devoted “URBAN LIVING”.
Featured was 2 new high-rise condominiums being built in Downtown Charlotte. There have been several large developments (3-4 stories) in an old warehouse district that were finished about 4 years ago, but these are 30+ stories high.
I couldn’t believe all these people wanted to live downtown, but the units are selling as fast as the structures are being built. Then came the figure:
The number of people living in the Downtown Charlotte area has increased from 6500 to over 11,000 since 2000, and more want to, they just can’t find a place. Hence the new high-rises. One of them is going to be the 2nd tallest building in Charlotte.
The question perplexed me. WHO THE HELL ARE THESE PEOPLE? Then I remembered the difference between Charlotte and Buffalo.
It’s a big banking Center, flagshipped by Wachovia and Bank of America having their HQ’s here. Many other banks and brokerage houses have S.E. offices here as well. Same Same for the Insurance industry.
In Buffalo, the biggest employer is GOVERNMENT, not private enterprise. Wasn’t always that way: GM, Ford, Republic Steel and Bethlehem Steel, Dunlop, Western Electric, Westinghouse, Bell Aircraft, DuPont, General Mills, the list WAS Almost endless. Now it’s quite finite and small.
I guess there will be not much need for downtown housing until you can convince all the city employees using grandma’s, mom’s or siblings addresses to establish city resdience to actually MOVE BACK INTO THE CITY. Good Luck.
Size Nine Says:October 29th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
starbuck wrote, “Historians and city planners all too often look at things through very subjective ideological lenses.”
And you, of course, look at things through a very objective ideological lens? Or an ideology-free lens?
Oh, that’s right, I forgot. Ideology is a burden possessed only by one’s opponents.
starbuck Says:October 29th, 2007 at 6:48 pm
Size Nine, we agree that everyone is biased and has their own ideology. That’s why I didn’t say we should shut up and ask some historians or city planners of my choosing to diagnose our problems.
What I said was those social “science” credentials don’t make their diagnoses regarding what Buffalo should do in the present or future any more inherently qualified than those of an insurance lawyer or a shallow blog commenter, as you said they were and even compared them to medical doctors:
jen Says:October 29th, 2007 at 11:42 pm
I wonder how many historians and/or city planners WERE involved in all the “major blunders” Buffalo has today (Main Place Mall, MetroRail, etc.)?
Probably seemed like a good idea back then and many other cities were “doing it.”
Ms. Curious Says:October 30th, 2007 at 3:52 pm
Buffalo sits by the water’s edge
And dreams of a time that is no more
Streets laden with midday shoppers
Flitting in and out of a hundred stores
Ships crowding her harbors like dandruff
Many spots of white on a blackened sea
Filled with cargos of men and flour
That enriched the coffers of the Queen City
Soldiers and sailors who came to the city for fun
Or for the gals who partied on Canal Street
Rough and tough men who filled Lake Erie
With the bodies of gamblers who dared to cheat
The factories soon closed and the city was left
With people on a payroll that she couldn’t pay.
So she tightened her belt and begged the Feds
For money to help the city regain its way.
People had to work so they followed the jobs
Shopkeepers went broke and closed their doors
Buffalo sits by the water’s edge and dreams
Of a city filled with people, jobs, and stores.
Ms. Curious
WNYMedia.net :: The Urban Denizen Says:October 31st, 2007 at 1:37 am
[…] stores will not be coming back any time soon. Recently, it’s been written about and discussed here, and here. This topic seems to bring out a lot of emotion, especially from old timers who remember […]