25 Fastest Losing Cities (Buffalo, Rochester, Syracuse: crime, how much, houses)

[iloveupstateny]

http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/...7-91table4.pdf

Buffalo, Rochester, & Syracuse have all made it. Thoughts? Ways to combat? Or is it just simply the ability to bring more businesses to the area with a lower tax base that will solve everything? I'm curious.

[straight outta camden]

I'm skeptical about the lower-tax-base theory, partly because of good ol' NYC--a ludicrously expensive place to do business, yet there's still a lot of it about. Also because cities do not always raise taxes for fun. They also do it because they have a population that is needy and unproductive (usually because it is thinly-educated and old). High business taxes are a product of a dismal economy and a poor, aging population rather than the other way round.

Most of the towns in that list are former heavy-industrial spots. So they have wrecked the natural landscape. And, as fast as people are getting out, there are still plenty of desperate people about who will happily relieve you of your wallet. That puts people off, too.

Eventually they may become so desolate and decrepit that there is little left besides empty warehouses and factories. At which point the artists and the club kids might just move in and bring the place back to life. That's what happened to many cities in northern England, which went through the whole decline-of-industry thing earlier than America. Manchester is a good example.

[garmin239]

This is a theme in many northeastern cities. Many people flee the city for the suburbs. In Rochester many of these people leave the city to move to the suburbs for better schools and whatnot. I don't know how much the economy comes into play in this since places like Boston and Norfolk are on the list. Those places have booming economies. There are also a few Florida cities on the list, and many areas in Florida don't seem to have troubles keeping a population.

[Hustla718]

They need immigrants. Some cities in the rust belt are growing only becuase of immigrants. See NYC for example. If it wasn't for the immigrants, the city would still be shrinking.

Surprised I didn't see Philly on the list either.

[smalltownusa]

SAdly, when the biggest problems are economics/rising taxes, there isn't much hope it will get better...although higher pay scale may somewhat offset the tax increases, the ease in which people leave their birth states and families has grown and arresting this trend will not come easy. Who wants to retire and spend all their money offsetting the rising cost of living in NY? I just returned myself from the beautiful Amish area of Lititz, Pa. and even there, the costs are so much lower than upstate NY (gas alone, 3.16 NY; as low as 2.74 PA.) that hubbie and I are considering it for retirement. Bottom line: people are going to go where living is cheaper and more enjoyable both economically and weather-wise... for more and more people, NY loses in both categories

[Sgoldie]

Syracuse, Rochester, Buffalo. The cities themselves are losing population not the suburbs, which are growing. People are moving outside city limits because inner city ghettos are expanding. They don't want to deal with the crime and bad schools in city neighborhoods.

[bellafinzi]

Sgoldie is correct.

But what's the solution? I truly believe the only solution for the inner cities in Upstate NY is a fast growing economy. Why?

1. Immigrants can't locate here without jobs
2. Young Professionals are the ones most likely to fill up housing near the city center ~ without white collar professional jobs, that isn't going to happen
3. Many developers refuse to invest in a city center that is located in a Metropolitan Area that hasn't grown in population in over three decades

Growing the economy and increasing the population in these regions is the key to reviving the central cities.

[Ellwood]

Originally Posted by smalltownusa

SAdly, when the biggest problems are economics/rising taxes, there isn't much hope it will get better...although higher pay scale may somewhat offset the tax increases, the ease in which people leave their birth states and families has grown and arresting this trend will not come easy. Who wants to retire and spend all their money offsetting the rising cost of living in NY? I just returned myself from the beautiful Amish area of Lititz, Pa. and even there, the costs are so much lower than upstate NY (gas alone, 3.16 NY; as low as 2.74 PA.) that hubbie and I are considering it for retirement. Bottom line: people are going to go where living is cheaper and more enjoyable both economically and weather-wise... for more and more people, NY loses in both categories

We are retiring to Saratoga from NJ. After NJ taxes and cost of living, NY state is very affordable. We did our research from a financial standpoint on several states (PA, DE, MA, NJ, NY) based on pension/retirement/tax breaks versus income and found PA and NY comparable.
I noticed NJ is not on the list, probably due to city specific, yet people are moving out in droves.

[scatman]

Originally Posted by Hustla718

They need immigrants.

How do you explain the Florida cities?

As someone said, most of those cities were former heavy industrial spots. Boston's costs of living and housing may be factors in its population loss. Everyone knows N.O.!

[xamsx]

I always read these surveys with a degree of skepticism.

In the Rochester paper last Sunday there was an article on the area loosing 150K people in the last twenty years, yet somehow there are 50K more jobs today than twenty years ago in the area. The two just don't correlate. The same for Buffalo having less than 300K people in the city-proper according to the 2000 census. At that time, the public school system had approximately 45K students (plus additional students in the Catholic school system). The census numbers wanted one to believe that one in every every five - six people in the city of Buffalo was a K -12 school-age child. Somehow, I doubt that was true. *shrugs*