Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
North Buffalo, Kenmore, the Tonawandas and even Niagara Falls don't get nearly as much snow as the areas south of Buffalo (the Southtowns and "Ski Country").
If you decide to live in the city of Buffalo, you need to remember that the city does not plow side streets in a timely fashion. Sometimes, if the city gets a big snowfall, your street might not get plowed for days. How soon it gets plowed and how often is usually dependent upon the socioeconomic status of the residents and who in city government some of the residents are related to. If you live on a lower income street and nobody on your block is related to somebody who works in the streets department, you may see a snow plow twice a winter while a similar street two blocks over where the sister of one of the plow drivers lives get manicured any time a few flakes fly.
Buffalo pols will deny that that still goes on, but it still does: my cousins might as well shovel their own streets as wait for the city to get around to doing their streets. It's a big reason to choose to live outside the city.
I moved to Buffalo from NYC, where I grew up. In my opinion, Buffalo's nightlife is pretty lackluster (you might like it if you're a college student who's idea of nightlife involves stiletto heels and teeny-tiny dresses). Then again, if you don't particularly care about skilled bartenders and high quality drinks, there are plenty of sports bars and dive bars masquerading as hipster bars to keep you busy. Buffalo does have many excellent restaurants that rival my favorites in NYC. My general impression is that people here are overall pretty friendly and laidback and nonjudgmental.
Buffalo also has a lot of outdoorsy stuff within easy access; camping (check out Letchworth State Park), state parks, the Falls, nature preserves, and the Great Lakes. Plus, Buffalo is within 2 hours of Toronto, which is where I go when I crave being in a city (coming from NYC, Buffalo really doesn't feel like a city to me, more of a big, sprawling town with lots of neighborhoods.
Overall, I think that Buffalo can be a really great place to live, and if it has the program you're most interested in, then it's definitely worth giving it a shot.
I personally wouldn't attempt to live in Niagara Falls and commute. I imagine that you would be socially isolated there, and commuting would steal a lot of precious time that you could be using to do fun things or make money, in addition to being an expense you probably don't need. There are plenty of better places to live closer to campus.
I've only spent 2 winters here so far, but snow has not been an issue at all. Even this last winter, we'd get flurries daily that disappeared within seconds of hitting the ground, or occasionally a day with a few inches. Maybe once we had something closer to 6 inches, but it seems like lately the trend is less snow accumulation.
Definitely encourage you to make the move. You sound like you'd adjust well and would be an asset to the community. I would deter you from entertaining the notion of living in NF, whatever the incentives offered, but it's your call. Let me just say as a poker aficionado (which gives me reason to go there on a semi-regular basis) that there is essentially nothing in that city (on the American side, anyway) outside of the casino and the state park that borders the natural phenomenon. Well, actually there is, if we include urban blight, one quaint, cobblestoned street that would suggest greater activity than there actually is (Third Street), and...yeah, nothing else but lifers, many of whom are troubled, listless, and lifeless. I occasionally attempt to reach out to such people, but my efforts are in fact quite sporadic (not to say I don't have issues of my own). My point is, if you move there, at least to the core part of the city, prepare to have to make a philanthropic effort on the regular. Altruism doesn't really exist; such efforts would be out of self-interest.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.