Need to get to know Buffalo's GOOD & BAD areas VERY QUICKLY

[mycrows]

Originally Posted by BuffaloTransplant

Buffalo is very much a "street by street" basis for "quality".

I read this a lot but I guess I have no idea what it means. "street by street" makes it sound like it's totally random whether a street will be wealthy or not, but the well-to-do areas in Buffalo are all pretty much coterminous, right?

[xxchimerxx]

i'm not sure if you'll be working near UB, but avoid UB-South Campus's Univeristy Heights. the rent is cheap, but so is quality of living ... if you like living in fear.

i've spent too many years at Ub, and every year there are problems that increase in number and severity every year. and after every instance, ub posts general warnings that they'll increase patrols or something .... after 3-4 separate incidents in as many weeks, those "increased patrols" have no effect.

most of buffalo's 'burbs are nice though.

[BuffaloTransplant]

Originally Posted by mycrows

I read this a lot but I guess I have no idea what it means. "street by street" makes it sound like it's totally random whether a street will be wealthy or not, but the well-to-do areas in Buffalo are all pretty much coterminous, right?

If you mean in the same area, not necessarily. Think about Amherst St. West of Elmwood it is going downhill. It gets worse west of Grant. Between Delaware and Colvin it is quite decent, but by the time you get to Amherst station at Main, the entire character has changed. East of Main, it is ratty again. If you go south of Amherst ( and Delaware Park & Forest lawn) onot Delevan you get into some areas which go into ratty, some nice. Stay west of Delaware, it is fairly decent. East isn't.

I look at the streets and look at the street. You look at it as a defined chunk. So, I think it is rather random. You can't just say all areas on Amherst or Delevan are safe. East / west roads change more than North / south, I think. Then again, it is relevant on the area.

[mycrows]

Originally Posted by BuffaloTransplant

If you mean in the same area, not necessarily. Think about Amherst St. West of Elmwood it is going downhill. It gets worse west of Grant. Between Delaware and Colvin it is quite decent, but by the time you get to Amherst station at Main, the entire character has changed. East of Main, it is ratty again. If you go south of Amherst ( and Delaware Park & Forest lawn) onot Delevan you get into some areas which go into ratty, some nice. Stay west of Delaware, it is fairly decent. East isn't.

I look at the streets and look at the street. You look at it as a defined chunk. So, I think it is rather random. You can't just say all areas on Amherst or Delevan are safe. East / west roads change more than North / south, I think. Then again, it is relevant on the area.

I agree with your evaluation of Amherst St. And, of course, it would be dumb to say that the upper-class areas of Buffalo are a "defined chunk" because, of course, the transitions are gradual to an extent. My point is that Amherst St is at its zenith around Lincoln Pkwy and gets gradually less well-to-do the further you go in either direction. It's predictable: not random. It's not as though every other block of Amherst St is going to be destitute; on the contrary wealth and poverty are pretty much hierarchized (sic?) along this and other major east/west thoroughfares like Delavan.

If you pick a random street or intersection from the city, the next couple of streets/intersections away from it are going to be pretty similar. I'm having trouble finding a wealth-distribution map for Buffalo online. But I'm confident that if I could the wealthy areas would be largely coterminous, centered around Delaware ave.

I guess what people mean by "street by street" is that if, for example, you live on Richmond Ave, you might have extreme poverty a few blocks west and extreme wealth a few blocks east. But these kinds of transitions are common in any American city, so it doesn't seem like that useful of an observation for Buffalo. Since large demographic changes come so slowly to our city and major income dividing lines (like Main St) are so rigidly adhered to, it's actually a lot easier to predict which streets will be well-to-do in Buffalo than other parts of the country. People moving here should know that it's not terrible difficult to grasp how the nicer areas of the city are laid out.

So that's why I think the phrase "street by street" is misleading. But maybe that's just me! I guess we're just arguing semantics here.