Razing Buffalo: Why is This Happening?
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 09.14.07
When I was in high school, we used to race to Buffalo on double lunches. It had everything: great art deco buildings, great shopping and terrific wings. It also has a great location on the biggest source of fresh water in the world, Niagara Falls for cheap green power, and a canal straight to New York City. It has the infrastructure we need to support the people who will no longer live in Phoenix because of the heat and the cost of fuel. As John asks, How Long Until The Rust Belt Becomes The Life Belt?
Yet so much has changed. The New York Times says that "today, in this city beaten down by decades of factory closings and residential exodus, the razing of thousands of vacant houses is being touted as a sign of progress.
Gangs, squatters and teenagers have been burning down hundreds of houses a year, straining the meager resources of the Police and Fire Departments. Some of the properties have been turned into crack dens and places to stash guns and drugs. A few have been booby-trapped or had their floors ripped out by scavengers looking for pipes they can sell to metal dealers.
The burned-out and boarded-up buildings, which are visible on nearly every street in east Buffalo, have deterred even the most pioneering investors from moving in.
So Mayor Byron W. Brown recently unveiled a $100 million five-year plan to rip down 5,000 houses, about half of all the vacant houses in the city, which ranks second only to St. Louis in the percentage of vacant properties per capita nationwide.
The best way to save Buffalo, he reasons, is to mow down the buildings on these properties — starting with the ones deemed the worst fire hazards or those near schools — and encourage church groups, entrepreneurs and neighbors to build homes in their place.
“We have a real sense of urgency,” said the mayor, who was elected in November 2005 but has grappled with vacant houses as a city councilman and a state senator. “If we do not address the decline in these neighborhoods, we will see more people losing hope and faith in the city’s ability to fix the problem, and more people leaving.”
Two hours north in Toronto, a house like that in the picture would fetch half a million bucks, the lot alone half that. Construction cranes are everywhere as condos get built on every corner. What makes two cities, blessed with the same enviromental conditions, both having lost much of their industry and manufacturing, so different? Why isn't anyone looking at these houses as an asset instead of tearing them down?
I understand how much of America does not yet grasp the impact of global warming and peak oil. I do not understand how such swathes of infrastructure in such great locations can be allowed to deteriorate like this. ::New York Times
Too bad there isn't a good deconstruction alternative. Seems like lot of waste and CO2.
Just like Detroit.... sucks.
Frankly, I sometimes blame the hollywood controlled media. When you are told every day that life is better in Southern California, when your area of the country is derisively called a "fly over state", when even mentioning Buffalo is met with scorn and mockery... what do you expect?
It's not "allowed" it's a matter of not having another choice. People don't give up everything comfortable and familiar and move away from family and friends because they can and they're bored. They do it because there's no prospect of a means of support and they've been broke so long they've been or are extremely close to being evicted which has a slew of negative consequences. Choosing between a home or homeless isn't a choice. And the minute a multi-million dollar man/company comes in and starts something new people complain?? What is this? Think outside the cushion. New jobs are most likely coming because of this new step and Buffalo is going to improve.
I live half way between Buffalo and Toronto. I've spent a lot of time in Buffalo and I have to say I agree with the Mayors plan. These houses were poorly built in the first place and are basically unrepairable. Tear them down, recycle the materials and built new green houses. If you look across the Niagara river at Buffalo from Canada, all you can see is broken down factories and warehouses that have sat empty for years. On the water front no less. Tear them down and make park land. The people will come back.
This needs to become economically viable infrastructure to ever recover, and that is the part you need to understand. Maybe in 50 years it'll be a great city again, but for now the cost of living there (on serveral fronts, not just money) is too high for people to care about it. There has to be a reason to move there, and it has to be affrodable.
Sure, Buffalo has some interesting features, but what good are they? Niagra Falls, pretty, but are we going to build a hydroelectric dam on it? No. Even if you were able to raise enough money for it the environmentalists would shoot you down for 'endangering nature'.
It is a dying city, it has been dying for 50 years, and the sad fact is that some cities do outlive their usefullness. Levelling it now might be the best option for some sort of hope in the future. Leaving it as it is is just inviting more problems.
-Lego
That article is dangerously ignorant and obviously written by someone who does not live in, nor understand the realities of this area. There is a glut of abandoned homes here, the vast majority in the east side. We are talking about a nieghborhhod where Habibtat for Humanity volunteers get robbed in broad daylight while working on homes. I would not walk down some of these streets in the middle of the day in a large group of people, and I'm a pro-city honk. This is not, nor will in my generation, be a place where anyone would invest private monies into rehabbing these abandoned homes. To suggest that there is or will ever be people lining up to invest in these nieghborhoods is comically ludicris.
Most of these homes were bought by speculators on E-bay and flipped over and over again w/o ever even being visited by the owner. There has been a documentary made about the practice and anti-flipping legislation is currently being written into law. The product of this was a glut of homes that have been empty for up to a decade or more. These homes are beyond repair, and as the article points out have become targets of squatters, gangs, and thieves (stealing the copper pipes). A few months ago a Buffalo firefighter nearly lost his life, and did lose his legs, falling through a hole in the floor created by thieves as he fought to put out an arson fire. This has prompted the city to look to demolish the worst of these buildings in hopes of luring investment with shovel-ready sites. These are neighborhoods that are starving for any type of investment, not trendy yuppie gentrification. The only hopes are large-scale urban renewal projects and faith-based initiatives. Both of which, while not the most alltruistic option, have had at least limited success in helping to stabilize nieghborhoods. We are literally talking the worst of the worst of urban America.
The most environmentally sound move? Probably not, but the smartest move in terms of safety, development, crime, and hopefully growth. These homes, while the numbers seem staggering, represent the bottom 1 or 2 percent of housing in a city that is blessed w/ a good, affordable, historic housing stock.
"Two hours north in Toronto, a house like that in the picture would fetch half a million bucks, the lot alone half that. Construction cranes are everywhere as condos get built on every corner. What makes two cities, blessed with the same enviromental conditions, both having lost much of their industry and manufacturing, so different? Why isn't anyone looking at these houses as an asset instead of tearing them down?"
Seriously? One of this continent's largest most metropolitan cities vs. a mid-sized Rust-Belt city?...seriously? I don't feel the need to explain what makes Toronto different from the biggest ghetto in one of the poorest cities in the US. You can barely paint your house in Buffalo, nevermind tear-down a sound building without the preservation nazi's on your ass. No one recognizes the value of the historic stock of buildings here more than the locals. Sometimes you have to wiegh everything, not just carbon footprints, when making decisions like this. None of these homes have any value in any way. I would argue that the economic, as well as environmental cost to restore these homes to a point where they could be habitable and pass current building codes would be astronomical. I'm sure Buffalo ReUse will strip any reusable and valuable parts, and then down they go. If there was a better option than what the Mayor is proposing, the loudest voices would be coming from here. And they're not for good reason.
Niagra Falls, pretty, but are we going to build a hydroelectric dam on it? No. Even if you were able to raise enough money for it the environmentalists would shoot you down for 'endangering nature'.
In 1883, the Niagara Falls Power Company, a descendant of Schoellkopf's firm, hired George Westinghouse to design a system to generate alternating current. By 1896, with financing from moguls like J.P. Morgan, John Jacob Astor IV, and the Vanderbilts, they had constructed giant underground conduits leading to turbines generating upwards of 100,000 horsepower (75 MW), and were sending power as far as Buffalo, twenty miles (32 km) away. Private companies on the Canadian side also began to harness the energy of the Falls. The Government of the province of Ontario, Canada eventually brought power transmission operations under public control in 1906, distributing Niagara's energy to various parts of the Canadian province. Currently between 50% and 75% of the Niagara River's flow is diverted via four huge tunnels that arise far upstream from the waterfalls. The water then passes through hydroelectric turbines that supply power to nearby areas of the Canada and the USA before returning to the river well past the Falls.
The most powerful hydroelectric stations on the Niagara River are Sir Adam Beck 1 and 2 on the Canadian side, and the Robert Moses Niagara Power Plant and the Lewiston Pump Generating Plant on the American side. All together, Niagara's generating stations can produce about 4.4 GW of power.
In August 2005, Ontario Power Generation, which is now responsible for the Sir Adam Beck stations, announced plans to build a new 6½ mile (10.4 km) tunnel to tap water from farther up the Niagara river than is possible with the existing arrangement. The project is expected to be completed in 2009, and will increase Sir Adam Beck's output by about 182 MW (4.2%).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Niagara_Falls
"The most environmentally sound move? Probably not, but the smartest move in terms of safety, development, crime, and hopefully growth."
Wes, this is Treehugger not Peoplehugger please stop spewing your anti-environment and pro-human being rhetoric.
Hey lego, they HAVE a hydro dam on the Niagara River. It powers most of the Northeast. And Buffalo is one of, if not THE most affordable mid-sized city to live in in the US.
And Scott, those factories (GM, Dupont, General Mills) are still running.
The majority of the city's housing stock is in great shape. We have some of the most beautiful, walkable residiential neighborhoods in teh US. Tree-lined street, statley victorian homes, world class architecture (Wright, Sullivan, Richardson, Saarinen, etc). It's just that the east side is in really bad shape and certain nieghborhhods are beyond repair.
"Too bad there isn't a good deconstruction alternative. Seems like lot of waste and CO2."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Treehugger post an article about how Buffalo was tearing down abandoned buildings and then having usable materials re-used and recycled? I'm not about to search through weeks of archives to find it, but I'm positive that it's there.
Also, just my opinion, but the actual Niagara Falls itself might be "pretty", but the landscape surrounding it on the US side that you pass through on your way to Queenston-Lewiston is easily the worst looking and most disgusting environment I have ever driven threw. Green, water-powered energy, sure...but at what cost to the rest of the landscape? Gotta love all those people living near those high-tension power lines, and the smell of that NoCo plant and the landfill on the way too. Ah yes, the beautiful Niagara region...
I live in one of the Buffalo suburbs (I know, suburban sprawl is ugly and gross, but I live 3 miles from my job now) and I will be moving out of the area entirely in the spring. I now drive a Yaris, but I'd rather be in NYC with no car. Also, I have a BA in the music industry and Buffalo has absolutely nothing to offer for someone aspiring for a job out of the 9-5 grind. I can't speak for how the city was 30 years ago, but in the 3 years I've been here I've found it a cheap city, but at the same time a somewhat difficult city in which to find happiness.
The mass evacuation of residents is not at all surprising. The east side of Buffalo is now often a scary area, and even some of the cooler areas like Allentown are spotted with beggars and crime. Jobs in the entire area are difficult to come by. Those of us even lucky enough to get full time jobs are stuck in industries we don't care about.
Walking down Delaware Avenue on a summer day is really nice, and the small neighborhood feel of Spot/New World on Elmwood is awesome, especially when there's a group of about half a dozen beer drinkers cheering and drinking with a big sign that says "You honk, we drink!"
But to me, the bad outweighs the good.
Man, you've got to be joking. Buffalo is a dump. I'm surprised it hasn't burned itself to the ground long ago. The nicest view of Buffalo I ever had was in my rear-view mirror.
Even though this may seem a waste, it would be an opportunity to start a-fresh and build some self sufficient agricultural communities.
Many post-industrial rust belt cities have suffered drastic population losses in the last few decades. I live in Cleveland, which has less than half of the population it had at its peak. So, the city struggles to provide services over the same land area with the same amount of streets (snow removal, police, trash pickup, etc) with half of the tax revenue it once had. There are many "forgotten" neighborhoods where every house on a given street is abandoned. These houses haven't been maintained, and have become decrepit, structurally unsound, and energy inefficient. Yes, someone with an interest in architecture or home restoration might see photos of these abandoned homes and visualize what they could be like if they could only be fixed up. I myself love fixer uppers and the satisfaction sweat equity can bring.
The problem is, as other commenters have noted, there just is not a market for these homes even if they were to be fixed up. Many of the neighborhoods are too unsafe or lacking in amenities, and there are too many other more desirable neighborhoods where one could choose to live given a large housing stock and a shrinking population. In reality, these houses will just sit, and the land they stand on will go unused. Wouldn't it be better if this land could be used for other reasons - community gardens to provide local produce for the schools and soup kitchens, park land, cellulosic ethanol crops, larger lot sizes to lure owners who might otherwise move to the suburbs? I am not that familiar with the Buffalo Mayor's plan, and I would like to learn more about it. I suspect that the houses won't be razed and shiny new ones put in place in every, or even most, instances. My guess is that the city will use the razing to save on city services, and other "highest and best" uses will be implemented in place of housing. That way limited resources can be concentrated to save or improve neighborhoods that need help but still have a hope of being viable. The fact of the matter is that the shrinking population has resulted in much less need for housing. So, I would hope the razed materials are recycled to the maximum practical extent but it is important to understand that new materials won't be brought in at anything approaching a 1 to 1 ratio.
When houses are razed on such a large scale, there is definitely the potential concern that the desires and opinions of few people living in the largely abandoned neighborhoods are not taken into account. However, Youngstown, Ohio, has implemented a similar initiative and has worked very closely with city residents to make sure their concerns are heard and needs are met.
To learn more about a similar "Shrinking Cities" initiative, please go to this website address below. I went to grad school for urban planning in Cleveland and have had some involvement with this initiatve.
http://www.cudc.kent.edu/d-Service-Learning/Shrinking/landurb.html
Also, the reasons housing values vary from city to city is a hugely complex issue that has a lot of overlap with reasons for population growth and decline. I don't want to babble on longer than I already have, but I just want to say this: that house may fetch a half a million dollars in Toronto, but in the worst neighborhoods in Cleveland, I'd say it might go for 10 thousand dollars, tops. And still, there's no market for it.
Buffalo - it's where the revolution starts.
1. The Northeast largest renewable sustainable energy source
2. Urban farming supporting organic restaurants
3. Re-engineering old industrial buildings into sustianable businesses
4. Jet Blue Hub to travel when the snow is too much
5. CHEAP HOUSING FOR ENTREPRENEURS
We have 20,000 sq for entrepreneurs with Biofuels business plans.