Buffalo's undeserved bad reputation (Syracuse, Fredonia: unemployment, private schools, community college)

[Canerican]

Perhaps, but at least if you pay a lot for a house (generally) it is worth more in the end. With taxes you get nothing in the end.

I do agree that low housing prices are great. There are however, many places with low housing prices. It's always a supply and demand thing. We live in a place with alot of people leaving, therefore housing prices have to go down, so its not really a good thing when housing prices decline year over year. Yes, if you were planning on buying a house to flip you were really crushed by the housing bust, but in general you keep a house for a long time so unless you live in the worst hit places you will make it back anyway. You probably will break even in Buffalo. When is the last time you heard of people making tons of money off of their house in Buffalo? Unless they bought it in 1950.

[7 Wishes]

Originally Posted by Canerican

I hear ya! But why Chicago?!? I would have picked a place with more sun

As far as a can tell Chicago and Illinois as a whole are reasonable tax-wise, and it must be nice to live in a city where you can see new construction (that is actually beautiful, the Spire, right?).

I personally I am going to look at Clarkson TN, Roanoke VA, Greenville SC, or anywhere in Texas, once I graduate next year.

I'd be careful. From what I hear, TX is still a fairly decent economy, not sure about Clarkson and Roanoke (VA in general has relatively low unemployment, but the number is masked by very low unemployment near DC due to high numbers of gov't employees and with neighboring NC at 12% I can't imagine the unemployment rate in the rest of the state to be low). SC is also at 12% unemployment.

While I do think taxes hurt NY a lot (and especially upstate), be careful about the south and its "looser" tax and "business friendly policies", it's starting to bite them back. As noted above, the Carolinas have some of the highest unemployment rates in America, I imagine at best the "McJobs" situation is equal to or worse than Western NY State. And in Florida you have the same situation combined with an unemployment system that gives you just $275/week even if you were fired from a 6-figure job!

It's too bad, my sister lives in the Buffalo area and I do think your city is a lot better than it's reputation........

[mikesuicide]

Originally Posted by Canerican

Perhaps, but at least if you pay a lot for a house (generally) it is worth more in the end. With taxes you get nothing in the end.

I do agree that low housing prices are great. There are however, many places with low housing prices. It's always a supply and demand thing. We live in a place with alot of people leaving, therefore housing prices have to go down, so its not really a good thing when housing prices decline year over year. Yes, if you were planning on buying a house to flip you were really crushed by the housing bust, but in general you keep a house for a long time so unless you live in the worst hit places you will make it back anyway. You probably will break even in Buffalo. When is the last time you heard of people making tons of money off of their house in Buffalo? Unless they bought it in 1950.

I bought a commercial building in 2004 and sold it in 2006 and made a huge sum. I bought and sold 3 rental properties in the past 4 years (Last one sold in Jan of last year) and made a total profit of nearly 250k. It can be done.

[Canerican]

Well, I guess it can be done, you must have a great eye for those things.

[kiminbuffalo]

All in all, minus the architecture throughout the city, Buffalo is a dirty, poor,undereducated, underfunded place to live. I speak specificly about the city itslf and not the surrounding areas. There is 1 beautiful part of the city- Delaware Park. Even the homes around it are beautiful, but doesnt begin to make up for the 10000 other homes in tear down condition encompassing the city every way but north. Were taxed the 2nd highest in the country and were broke. Counting my days down, yes, Sacramento is better by comparison by 20 less murders a year at 2xs the population! Yeah, Buffalos great.

[bmd69]

Had a great time over the weeklend there. Weather and folks were very nice.

[ckhthankgod]

Originally Posted by kiminbuffalo

All in all, minus the architecture throughout the city, Buffalo is a dirty, poor,undereducated, underfunded place to live. I speak specificly about the city itslf and not the surrounding areas. There is 1 beautiful part of the city- Delaware Park. Even the homes around it are beautiful, but doesnt begin to make up for the 10000 other homes in tear down condition encompassing the city every way but north. Were taxed the 2nd highest in the country and were broke. Counting my days down, yes, Sacramento is better by comparison by 20 less murders a year at 2xs the population! Yeah, Buffalos great.

Are you sure about the Buffalo/Sacramento crime comparison? Check this out:
Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitors sites is not allowed

Moderator cut: link removed, linking to competitors sites is not allowed

[DaeinBuffalo]

I am amongst one of the Buffalonians that left and came back. I went to Raleigh NC for two years to aid family that moved there as well. I will tell you NC wasn't the place for me. For one the unemployment rate is higher and yes their taxes are lower but they have so many of them like food additional food taxes, vehicle property taxes, and not to mention terrible education. I could have stuck it out there and tried to make it, but there is no place like home. With the taxes look at some perks. They are reconstructing schools, this is one of the few states that anyone with low income can obtain free or low cost health insurance. I don't advocate for the government because I agree that they are not handling business. I feel that the only way to make changes in how things are done is to stay on them, be up in their faces, challenge there reasonings for the fiscal decisons they make. We the people need to stand up for city for change to come. If we all duck, hide and leave we will not change a thing. We need to stand our ground. At the same time, as people we all got to do what we've got to do and if that means leaving good luck. Just remember the grass isn't always greener on the otherside. Many people including my family that left to NC are coming back. Point blank I love this city and area, and I won't bail again.

[schayban88]

You have to realize that in life everything fluctuates. For example, when there is a low deer population there is a high wolf population. Over time, there are not enough deer for the wolves to eat so the wolves die off and in return there is a higher deer population than wolf population. Same thing pretty much goes for cities. Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Rochester, Syracuse, Detroit and etc used to be booming back in the 50's. At the same time out west and in the south was dead. As time went on out west started to boom and so did the south, in return it caused these rust belt cities to lose population. These cities are loosing population because they are undergoing a huge transition from manufacturing jobs to service jobs. In fact these areas are coming back stronger then ever. I predict that the future holds a better place in these northern cities then it does out west or down south. Just like I said, everything fluctuates, everything reaches its peak then it crashes.

[Canerican]

Originally Posted by schayban88

I predict that the future holds a better place in these northern cities then it does out west or down south. Just like I said, everything fluctuates, everything reaches its peak then it crashes.

Why is that?

I know that the reason why the car industry went to Detroit was because heavy industry was already there, Henry Ford wanted to set up in Alabama or Georgia because he liked the weather there better, however, being that transportation costs were so high then, he decided to just locate in Detroit. Now we don't have the barrier of the requirement of needing to be near other similar industries since transportation is much faster and much cheaper.

People like the weather in the South, if nothing else, so people have naturally migrated towards there. No you can relocate anywhere in the contiguous US and be able to be anywhere else within 4 hours. The friction of distance is far lower, so people will move where they want, and that simply doesn't bode well for any state in the upper midwest or the northeast.