(erielack) Former EL Cities on This Sad List

[Dale and Ev SBC <gobills_@_ncweb.com>]

At 05:33 08-08-2008, you wrote:
>Subject: Re: (erielack) Former EL Cities on This Sad List
>
>Maybe the Forbes article did us all a favor.  For the most part, we believe
>what studies tell us and take it as more or less "gospel".  Well, anyone can
>manipulate statistics to prove a point.
>
>The response on this list about the so-called dying cities, Scranton,
>Youngstown-Warren, Cleveland, Buffalo and on has given this guy the 
>desire to want to
>see these cities and decide for myself.  I didn't think about doing that
>until I read the responses on the list.  Cities reinvent 
>themselves.  Scranton is
>one of them and so far, so good.
>
>Buffalo for example, hosted the NHL Winter Classic outdoors on New Year's Day
>2008 when their Sabres hosted the Pittsburgh Penguins.  The Bills' stadium
>was sold out.  That event brought people and bucks to a city that's 
>supposed to
>be dying and Mother Nature complied by delivering snow squalls.  One couldn't
>have asked for more and I'm sure that after this game that was televised
>across North America, Buffalo's pubs were full.  Perhaps one venue 
>but Buffalo
>received a lot of attention.  Good for Buffalo.


Having grown up in Buffalo during the end of its hey day, I really 
don't think Buffalo is as bad as it's made out to be.

Sure, it's the biggest city to get a lotta snow.  But Erie, 
Rochester, Oswego generally get more and more often.

Like many cities, Buffalo is no longer a place you can walk out of 
high school, cross the street, enter the shop floor and stay there 30 
years.  Like so much of the US, you need a degree and a current 
marketable skill to get a job.  In Buffalo, like Cleveland, education 
and health care are the main employers.

My FiL bemoans the fact there are no jobs in Buffalo, ignoring the 
shift in the local economy.  FiL cites the walks-on-water 
grandson-in-law with a college degree who had to go to Orlando to get 
a job as exhibit A.  That grandson never went on one interview in 
Buffalo.  He could do what he does in Orlando - an account rep for 
the arena there - for the Sabres-Bisons-HSBC-Dunn Tire Park just as easily.

A lot of what is bemoaned about is a generational thing.  And all of 
us remember how things used to be.  Especially if you like 
non-homogenized railroads that didn't have a SD73MACDEFG.


Dale 



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