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Because it's one of the closest areas to the declining industrial northeast that is experiencing rapid growth and concomitant growth in job opportunities that are in short supply in the Northeast. (The DC area is another, but Charlotte is growing quicker because of cheaper real estate.) The "follow-the-jobs" migration has formed a sort of "critical mass" in Charlotte that has formed a substantial connection between it and Northeast cities like Buffalo, Rochester, Pittsburgh, Harrisburg, and the like -- similar to NYC and southern Florida. This has streamlined the integration of Northeasterners into Charlotte's economy and social networks.
(Buffalo, NY, August 31, 2007) - - It's a grim ranking for the queen city.
The U.S. Census Bureau says Buffalo is the second poorest big city in the country, just behind Detroit.
Buffalo's poverty rate is nearly 30 percent. Experts believe several welfare reform initiatives and a lack of universal health care are some of the reasons buffalo is so poor.
Another problem is the amount of people not graduating from high school.
As Colleen says, let's move on. And, BTW, if you don't like the place, you are free to move. You are also pointing out to non-Buffalo / WNYers a "citation" which indicates the entire area is as poor as Buffalo (city) is. It is not. And that is why compnaies relocate offices here for positions which do not require physical presence in their hometown... cheaper living, cheaper offcies, more appealing.
Someone here implied that Hilary Clinton is to be blamed for the sorry conditions of Buffalo's economy. I wouldn't blame Mrs. Clinton. It's not her fault that:
Buffalo has been wallowing in industrial decay and apathy for over three- and-a-half decades. (Has she been a NYS Senator since 1970?) The bulk of the blame for this appauling tragedy (of a once-great, important and proud city) goes to---surprise--everyone. Yes, all of us. You can dole out some of the blame to the politicians of the 1960's and 1970's, as well as the industry CEO's and shareholders of said decades. However, there's more, much more blame to go around. But it's not easy to assign the remainder of it. Why? The rest of this blame is much harder to dole out because, when it comes to something as gargantuan a human enterprise as economics, you need to include everyone who has a part in it. In other words: everyone! Quite simply, everyone is to blame for Buffalo's economic ills (for that matter, anywhere else's ills too, of course). I ask anyone who doubts this, and would rather blame Mrs. Clinton, to ask themselves:
Why did all of the major manufacturing industries leave Buffalo in the first place?
Where did they go?
What did the politicans of Buffalo at that time do to try to prevent them from leaving in the first place? Did they offer industry any incentive to stay in Buffalo? Did they take a pro-active stance by planning for the future for just such times when the ever-changing economics of the day dealt devasating blows as thousands upon thousands of jobs all of a sudden evaporated?
What plans did local business leaders, improvement agencies, the Buffalo Chamber of Commerce, to name but a few who held power then, do about mitigating such a disaster?
And perhaps, more telling, and hardest of all to pin-point with dead-reckoning accuracy is this question:
Can any politician or any individual citizen REALLY do anything at all about the aforementioned circumstances? Is it conceivably possible that the dynamic forces of economic change are so great and inscrutible that no one can really do anything about it?
Just rhetorical questions that we all need to think about and attempt to answer before we all play the blame game!
Pidgett
High taxes and no jobs cause the area to fall apart.
I second that.. charlotte is a boring corporate banking city. Incredibly sterile environment and place to live.. and thats not at all what Im looking for.
If you all you want out of life is a new cheaply constructed McMansion in the middle of anonymous suburban sprawl - then Charlottes the place. Thats all I ever see down there. Plus traffic is brutal because of all that. (other than at night when the city proper is a total ghost town)
I Agree with you, Putting my place up for sale next year. I've had enough its not for me.
Jobs?: - - - There's plenty of jobs in the Buffalo area; I looked into it. The main problem there, is a workforce that is largely acclimated to living off the easy welfare that NY State doles out. When we were trying to hire people for janitorial work, we ran through over 40 people for ten Home Depot stores, in the course of a month, because all they had to do to continue receiving aid, was to work for a few days, and then stop showing up... So, they did.
People are people, anywhere ya' go--- just some places have a higher concentration of people who don't care....
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