Buffalo Ranks in Top 3 U.S. Cities With Vacant Houses
Tags: Buffalo, Erie Canal Harbor Redevelopment Project, redevelopment, vacant homes
An interesting fact via the Buffalo News ‘Inside The News’ blog:
Only two American cities, Detroit and New Orleans, have a higher percentage of vacant houses than Buffalo.
Yes, we all know of at least one horror story about the city’s vacant houses, but few of us are aware of the magnitude of the problem.
Did you know, for example, that City Hall is now Buffalo’s biggest landowner, and there are streets on the East Side where the city owns more than half of the properties are vacant or abandoned?
Did you also know that a third of all city streets have at least one vacant and abandoned property?
And did you know that new data indicates the city’s vacant housing crisis is spreading to Black-Riverside and Buffalo’s first-ring suburbs.
It’s a problem of immense proportions and, in the words of Kathryn Foster, director of the University at Buffalo’s Regional Institute, may pose the single biggest challenge to Buffalo’s neighborhoods.
There is apparently a lot of desire to tear down these vacant eye-sores from the city, which is a good idea, if combined with the proper planning for future development — which according to the article, doesn’t exist.
There is too much demolition, critics say, and too little effort at saving and reusing one of the city’s best assets — its low-cost housing.
“There’s no plan,” said Catherine Schweitzer of the Baird Foundation, a Buffalo group that the city approached for money to help pay for the demolitions. “Their strategy is a demolition-only strategy. There’s no sense of what should be saved.”
Buffalo certainly has the potential for a lot of exciting new development or redevelopment. The Erie Canal Harbor Redevelopment Project is a good example. The city could use some new architecture to attract businesses. There’s a lot of desire to see the Skyway taken down and replaced… I’d love to see something new and more reasonable take its place. The new courthouse downtown should be a nice addition to the citiy’s architecture… but it’s not enough. How about a viable plan for mass transportation into the city? With gas prices the way they are, I’m sure the desire for alternatives to driving into the city is at a high.
Buffalo needs some good short and long term city planning to assess the city’s potential and develop a strategy. Tearing down the vacant homes doesn’t fix the city’s problems in the long term. But I’m all for it if there’s a long term strategy involved.
Matt Margolis is co-author (with Mark Noonan) of Caucus of Corruption: The Truth About The New Democratic Majority. He also blogs at Blogs For Victory. Follow Matt on Twitter.