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The other thing that Cheektowaga should be concerned about is similar to what wiped out Buffalo's tree canopy in the 1950s and 1950s. Just like Buffalo's tree canopy was once overwhelmingly comprised of Dutch Elms, Cheektowaga has a similar housing monoculture throughout the town. Outside of the Cleveland Hill area, the housing stock consists almost entirely of small houses and duplexes built for a working-class and lower-middle class population. Cheektowaga has plenty of starter houses, but nothing to move up to; for that, residents go to Lancaster or West Seneca. Very little of Cheektowaga's housing stock is valued at more than $125K, and the vast majority of homes in the town still carries a five digit price tag.
Even Tonawanda, with a similar blue-collar reputation, has a variety of housing stock for all income groups. One can easily drop $400K or more on a house in the beautiful Deerhurst neighborhood, or $200K+ in other areas near Colvin Avenue, Ellicott Creek, or in the Curtis Park area. Outside of a small portion of Cleveland Hill, there's no equivalent neighborhoods in Cheektowaga.
If you have the median household income in the Buffalo area, you can easily afford to live in a nice neighborhood in Tonawanda, West Seneca, or Hamburg. Why live in a Cheektowaga doll house?
Also an issue: because Cheektowaga has a rapidly aging population, with a large number of long-time homeowners, when houses come up for sale, they're usually in need of extensive updating. It might not make financial sense to spend $30K to update a 1950s kitchen in an $80K house.
It's a shame, because I think Cheektowaga has a really unique identity and personality that they've failed to use in marketing themselves. It's one of the last refuges of Buffalo's old-school blue-collar culture. Amherst is the power suburb, Tonawanda the suburb of summer memories. Also, if Cheektowaga goes, the Polish-American community in the area could lose its cohesiveness and identity, in a way that's similar to the fate of Buffalo's once-strong German-American community when the East Side first began to transform in the 1950s. Buffalo's German population hasn't shrunk since the 1950s, but it scattered away from its traditional centers in the Genesee Street area, Kensington, and Amherst.
Good posts, very thoughtful. But for me, "white flight" still obtains as a pretty accurate description of what's occurring and going to occur in Cheektowaga. Your post just explains in non-racial terms what the physical potentiators for white flight in an area are. Cheektowaga has them all.
It's been a while since I've been to the Buffalo Area but I recently checked out parts of West Cheektowaga and the much mentioned part of Amherst called Bucyrus Heights (aka "Looney Acres") in Google Maps. Sure enough the forum posters could've fooled me. The neighborhoods look so tranquil and green in Google Maps, I mean they look like the quintessential suburban neighborhoods everyone wanted to live in a generation ago. Actually, even your low income suburban neighborhoods look nicer than Boston's, at least in Google Maps.
Then I remember that we also have similar suburbs such as Randolph, Avon and Malden that are experiencing the exact same thing that you folks are saying Cheektowaga is experiencing i.e. White flight, increase in crime, etc. That is really sad. Randolph for example used to be a lovely suburban town that was full of affordable single family homes. Yet it was the affordability that attracted many former inner city residents to move to such towns as Randolph after they were priced out of a rapidly gentrifying Boston, and some of them took their problems with them. Now when I drive through Randolph, I see more and more boarded up storefronts on Main Street each time.
Both of these cases are symptoms of suburban (and especially inner ring suburban) neglect. The problem is there aren't enough politicians willing to put in money to fix up these suburbs. Rather people keep wanting to move to better and bigger homes that are further away from the city all the time, this is what drives up sprawl. It's happening in metro Boston and I'm sure it's happening in metro Buffalo too. Cheektowaga is a pretty large town. It can definitely be densified with the remaining space used for other purposes.
This OP is just reactionary rambling. Cheektowaga has always been a mediocre suburb with plenty of 'low rent' mentalities to go around. Tiorunda ring any bells? The mere idea that mowing lawns and picking up litter would create an economic and societal utopia is upsurd at best and ignorant at worst. The system is broken. The education system is a mess, racism is rampant and people feel hopeless. Sure drugs play a role but so does lack of jobs, education and money. Because I know that this thread is thinly veiled racism I will address it as such. You can't expect to change the course of 400 plus years of oppression after 30 years of (barely) equal playing field.
This OP is just reactionary rambling. Cheektowaga has always been a mediocre suburb with plenty of 'low rent' mentalities to go around. Tiorunda ring any bells? The mere idea that mowing lawns and picking up litter would create an economic and societal utopia is upsurd at best and ignorant at worst. The system is broken. The education system is a mess, racism is rampant and people feel hopeless. Sure drugs play a role but so does lack of jobs, education and money. Because I know that this thread is thinly veiled racism I will address it as such. You can't expect to change the course of 400 plus years of oppression after 30 years of (barely) equal playing field.
I was under the impression that Cheektowaga, even when the demographics were "Whiter", was still very working class and had it's seedy folks even back in the day. What's interesting is that Cleveland Hill, in spite of what ever issues, still seems to be a solid school district and I've even seen in one year that the Black graduation rate was higher than the White graduation rate, with both in the 80's in terms of percentage. So, I'm wondering if some of the hype behind this is a bit overblown.
You cannot save Cheektowaga, or any older ring suburbs, if the contigous part of the decaying city is not fixed. As the east side of Buffalo goes, so goes Cheektowaga.
I grew up in Cheektowaga, near the Town Park. I left over 41 years ago and I never thought that Cheetowaga was all that great of a planned town. It never had a library until about 1962 with the Reinsteing Branch at the Park. Imagine that: a town, as old and as large as Cheektowaga and no library--Just as example of a lower class mentality which did not value education. No main street and with a city hall, somewhere out in nowhere, with poor planning; few and poor parks. No movie theatres until the holiday showcase, about 1960, as I remember; poor public transportation. There are towns and cities that are much younger, all over the country that had better planned amenities. Yet Cheetowaga had a huge industrial tax base and blew the money on what?? high government pensions??
There was, and is, severe racial prejudice and will continue until the Polish ethnic racists dies or moves on. Cheektowaga eventually will have a larger Black population and may, very well, be a much better town. But again, it depends greatly on the conditions of the east side of Buffalo.
I live near Denver and in a close-in first ring suburbs. This suburb is not decaying because the very close and old area of Denver is becoming the "in-place" to live; and all the neighborhoods of Denver are growing and being revitilized. Yet Arvada, younger than Cheektowaga with less industrial tax base, had a library, a main street, extensive parks, public transit and a movie theatres much sooner, in history, than Cheektowaga with a greater population at that time. So, what is there really to save??? It has always been a bad town compared to others. However, as others have found out, we did not know it, until we left.
You cannot save Cheektowaga, or any older ring suburbs, if the contigous part of the decaying city is not fixed. As the east side of Buffalo goes, so goes Cheektowaga.
I grew up in Cheektowaga, near the Town Park. I left over 41 years ago and I never thought that Cheetowaga was all that great of a planned town. It never had a library until about 1962 with the Reinsteing Branch at the Park. Imagine that: a town, as old and as large as Cheektowaga and no library--Just as example of a lower class mentality which did not value education. No main street and with a city hall, somewhere out in nowhere, with poor planning; few and poor parks. No movie theatres until the holiday showcase, about 1960, as I remember; poor public transportation. There are towns and cities that are much younger, all over the country that had better planned amenities. Yet Cheetowaga had a huge industrial tax base and blew the money on what?? high government pensions??
There was, and is, severe racial prejudice and will continue until the Polish ethnic racists dies or moves on. Cheektowaga eventually will have a larger Black population and may, very well, be a much better town. But again, it depends greatly on the conditions of the east side of Buffalo.
I live near Denver and in a close-in first ring suburbs. This suburb is not decaying because the very close and old area of Denver is becoming the "in-place" to live; and all the neighborhoods of Denver are growing and being revitilized. Yet Arvada, younger than Cheektowaga with less industrial tax base, had a library, a main street, extensive parks, public transit and a movie theatres much sooner, in history, than Cheektowaga with a greater population at that time. So, what is there really to save??? It has always been a bad town compared to others. However, as others have found out, we did not know it, until we left.
Livecontent
I think it is possible that the East Side of Buffalo can get revitalized in some neighborhoods that are somewhat better than others closer to Cheektowaga. In Denver, Five Points is an example of a neighborhood that has cleaned up a bit, but it has been done at the expense to some degre, of the long time Black community that is/was there. Five Points was considered to be the "Harlem of the Rockies" and the same with parts of Buffalo's East Side at one time. It could possibly work in a way that Syracuse is trying to do with the Near West Side neighborhood by introducing art and encouraging artists to help build that neighborhood back up. Syracuse Art, Life & Tech SALT District « Near Westside Initiative
I believe someone mentioned that some type of revitalization is occurring near MLK Park and hopefully, if this is the case, it can continue throughout the East Side and includes residents in that side that want to help the build the neighborhoods on that side of town again.
I was under the impression that Cheektowaga, even when the demographics were "Whiter", was still very working class and had it's seedy folks even back in the day. What's interesting is that Cleveland Hill, in spite of what ever issues, still seems to be a solid school district and I've even seen in one year that the Black graduation rate was higher than the White graduation rate, with both in the 80's in terms of percentage. So, I'm wondering if some of the hype behind this is a bit overblown.
Cheektowaga isn't going to experience a rapid transition. Like Buffalo, where decline went unchecked, and no efforts were made to encourage stable racial integration (unlike east suburban Cleveland), it'll take decades. Without good planning, though, resegregation will happen. It won't be complete; the dividing line will probably be the Thruway when it's all done. I believe town officials know challenging times are ahead, and I expect that they'll be more proactive than their peers in Buffalo.
Outside of Cleveland Hill, the town was essentially an extension of the working-class Polish East Side. It wasn't white flight that created it, but rather overcrowding and a housing shortage in Polish (and, so some extent, German neighborhoods on the East Side after WWII, and shrinking family sizes, with the number of households growing much faster than the population. Remember, some lots on the East Side had up to four housing units (two-flat in front, and a two-flat rear house in the back yard), and each residence often houses two or three generations. The population density on some parts of the East Side was as high as 30,000 to 40,000 per square mile.
Anyhow, although there was some development before WWII, Cheektowaga emerged as a primarily working-class blue-collar suburb in the 1950s. This was still an era when ethnic groups were strongly associated with certain professions and trades, and at the time the Polish-American middle class was relatively small; not enough to drive demand for a large number of move-up houses.
An issue that's going to emerge in the next decade: what do do with a housing stock that nobody really wants, except to those who want out of Buffalo's worst neighborhoods? Does it make sense to spend $50K of improvements to update an $80K doll house off of George Urban Boulevard? While nationally, there is a slowly growing demand for smaller houses, the same people that want them also want amenities within walking distance. Housing trensds in the Buffalo area are also 20 to 30 years behind the rest of the country as a whole.
Suburban gentrification? Not likely. Buffalo's housing prices aren't high enough to drive young professionals to Cheektowaga. Hot neighborhoods in the city (Elmwood Village, Delaware District, Allentown, Parkside, North Buffalo, Nye Park) are still very affordable by national standards. Young professionals who want the character of a Buffalo urban neighborhood but are also concerned about schools are trickling into Kenmore, Snyder (Amherst) and Williamsville, walkable communities with an interesting housing stock. There's no equivalent area in Cheektowaga. Cleveland Hill comes the closest, but the Harlem Road strip is quite hard on the eyes and still vehicle-oriented. In some people's eyes, Cleveland Hill is also too close to Buffalo's Kensington neighborhood for comfort. (I grew up in Kensington, and nobody expected the transformation that took place between 1985 and 1995.)
You cannot save Cheektowaga, or any older ring suburbs, if the contigous part of the decaying city is not fixed. As the east side of Buffalo goes, so goes Cheektowaga.
This, and I believe Town officials know they have to team up with Buffalo to stabilize the city line area.
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I live near Denver and in a close-in first ring suburbs. This suburb is not decaying because the very close and old area of Denver is becoming the "in-place" to live; and all the neighborhoods of Denver are growing and being revitilized. Yet Arvada, younger than Cheektowaga with less industrial tax base, had a library, a main street, extensive parks, public transit and a movie theatres much sooner, in history, than Cheektowaga with a greater population at that time. So, what is there really to save??? It has always been a bad town compared to others. However, as others have found out, we did not know it, until we left.
Isn't it interesting how people in the Denver area consider the north side of Aurora to be a slum, yet physically it's comparable to what would be considered a decent lower-middle class to middle-class neighborhood back in suburban Buffalo? Same thing closer to you in many parts of Westminster.
Arvada is more of a middle-class to move-up suburb. I can't think of an equivalent to Cheektowaga in the Denver area. Maybe a combination of Thornton and Commerce City with no Hispanics?
An issue that's going to emerge in the next decade: what do do with a housing stock that nobody really wants, except to those who want out of Buffalo's worst neighborhoods? Does it make sense to spend $50K of improvements to update an $80K doll house off of George Urban Boulevard? While nationally, there is a slowly growing demand for smaller houses, the same people that want them also want amenities within walking distance. Housing trensds in the Buffalo area are also 20 to 30 years behind the rest of the country as a whole.
In many other cities, neighborhoods like Cheektowaga would be primarily full of Hispanic immigrants. It would still be solidly working class, of a different ethnicity yes, but it wouldn't be threatened with abandonment, which in the very long term 30-50 years is likely to happen to Cheektowaga as it transitions from being a working class area to a lower class area.
The fact that Buffalo is still primarily a black/white metro area makes it feel like I'm going back in a a time warp when I come to visit. In the NYC area, the idea that black people are "invading" a neighborhood is something out of the 1970's, not something that happens today. Most racial change in the suburbs nationally happens through "white fade" as the population becomes more diverse as white people die off or their population declines through low birth rates and they are replaced with Hispanic and Asian immigrants.
Being in a time warp can have both its good and bad points, the lack of population pressue certainly makes housing more affordable and people can live quite well on modest incomes. However, it contributes to sprawl as whites move further out to escape racial change and higher crime rates. The end result is a metro area that ends up eating itself from within. Seems like Detroit is following the same path.
I'm wondering if there is a highly or mostly Black neighborhood that is solidly middle class in the Buffalo area at all. Even Syracuse and Rochester have such neighborhoods. I find it hard to believe that Buffalo doesn't have a neighborhood like that.
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