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You cannot beat the services and reputation Buffalo offers, although it seems Rochester is starting to become the city that gains more jobs and at a quicker pace.
Buffalo also has a severe NIMBY issue that prevents many things from getting done in the area.
I've always said that Rochester and Buffalo should forge stronger ties and act as a Dallas/ FT Worth or Minn./St Paul relationship. There'd be 2.5 million. There's a lot going on in Utica too. Syracuse is probably next to get some luvin' from the state. Can you imagine if we could remove the thruway toll from Buffalo to Albany and merge together somehow? That would be about 5 million people on the 90 corridor.
The Cleveland/Columbus dynamic in Ohio is very similar to Buffalo/Rochester.
Cleveland - larger metro, more old money, more/better high culture, considered more fun, entrenched blue collar culture, professional sports, gritty industrial past, more working class ad industrial satellite suburbs. Lumped in with Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Detroit, and other Rust Belt cities.
Columbus - solidly middle/upper middle class, polished and clean, more educated population, very "corporate" white collar crowd, considered kind of boring but more family friendly, gets high end retail and restaurant chains years before Cleveland. Lumped in with the "nice" Midwestern cities like Indianapolis, Minneapolis, Omaha, Des Moines, and so on.
You ever hear that you can always find the airport gate with the flight to Buffalo, just by looking at the people? Cleveland is that way. When I've flown out of Columbus, it's a Rochester-like crowd - you feel out of place if you're not in formal business wear.
As a neutral observer who's never been to either city, has no connections to either one, and as such has no reason to be biased in favor of one or the other, after reading this thread I definitely think I'd like Buffalo more. Street-Viewing around the respective downtowns, Buffalo's looks much more like that of a "major" city whereas Rochester's is just kinda whatever.
As a neutral observer who's never been to either city, has no connections to either one, and as such has no reason to be biased in favor of one or the other, after reading this thread I definitely think I'd like Buffalo more. Street-Viewing around the respective downtowns, Buffalo's looks much more like that of a "major" city whereas Rochester's is just kinda whatever.
True, and the city is much more flat, and the street grid is laid out more like a Midwestern city.
Rochester has a river which was difficult to put bridges across in the 19th C. (used to flood periodically, which hurt downtown commerce), especially the deep gorge part of the river (downtown and north of there). The street layout is wacky in spots, and Rochester does not have city streets/boulevards which afford a quick way to get across town, in all 4 compass directions. Buffalo has the wider, multi-lane "boulevard" type streets I like to use to get across a city quickly.
To drive from, say, the airport in Rochester to Brighton, using streets, would probably drive someone from out-of-town nuts. I like my streets vs. highways. You'd have to drive Scottsville Rd., cross the river where it becomes Elmwood, try to navigate the crazy traffic at UofR/Strong, then keep heading east into Brighton to the Twelve Corners. Other, city neighborhoods? Lots of turns. There are only so many bridges which cross the river, so people have to be cognizant of that when not using the interstates and 104 when driving through the city.
Buffalo wins in the city street grid category, just easier to get around, really.
I like driving city streets during rush hour in late afternoons, too, to avoid accidents and whatnot on the highways. Rochester plain sucks when trying to drive city streets across certain parts of town, plus a lot of the drivers there are bad ones, so there's the scary factor on a Driving Park Ave., etc.
Location: Appalachian New York, Formerly Louisiana
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Originally Posted by HowardRoarke
True, and the city is much more flat, and the street grid is laid out more like a Midwestern city.
Rochester has a river which was difficult to put bridges across in the 19th C. (used to flood periodically, which hurt downtown commerce), especially the deep gorge part of the river (downtown and north of there). The street layout is wacky in spots, and Rochester does not have city streets/boulevards which afford a quick way to get across town, in all 4 compass directions. Buffalo has the wider, multi-lane "boulevard" type streets I like to use to get across a city quickly.
To drive from, say, the airport in Rochester to Brighton, using streets, would probably drive someone from out-of-town nuts. I like my streets vs. highways. You'd have to drive Scottsville Rd., cross the river where it becomes Elmwood, try to navigate the crazy traffic at UofR/Strong, then keep heading east into Brighton to the Twelve Corners. Other, city neighborhoods? Lots of turns. There are only so many bridges which cross the river, so people have to be cognizant of that when not using the interstates and 104 when driving through the city.
Buffalo wins in the city street grid category, just easier to get around, really.
I like driving city streets during rush hour in late afternoons, too, to avoid accidents and whatnot on the highways. Rochester plain sucks when trying to drive city streets across certain parts of town, plus a lot of the drivers there are bad ones, so there's the scary factor on a Driving Park Ave., etc.
You think Rochester's road map is bad? Try any southern tier city.
While driving has its challenges, I prefer Rochester. It's more complicated and interesting. However, I find more and more that I exist in a minority on many of life's debates.
At the very least, NY doesn't have anything as terrible as Boston.
While Buffalo city proper was laid out better, It's really not that hard to get around Rochester, and keep in mind, Buffalo was much larger when the street grid was laid out. For some reason though, over the past couple of decades, Buffalo has lost 300,000 people, while Rochester gained that many.
For some reason though, over the past couple of decades, Buffalo has lost 300,000 people, while Rochester gained that many.
Sure, if you talk about city proper in Buffalo's case and the metro area in Rochester's (and you also need a couple more decades than 'a couple' to be correct, though I'm too lazy to wikipedia for specifics right now)
True, and the city is much more flat, and the street grid is laid out more like a Midwestern city.
Rochester has a river which was difficult to put bridges across in the 19th C. (used to flood periodically, which hurt downtown commerce), especially the deep gorge part of the river (downtown and north of there). The street layout is wacky in spots, and Rochester does not have city streets/boulevards which afford a quick way to get across town, in all 4 compass directions. Buffalo has the wider, multi-lane "boulevard" type streets I like to use to get across a city quickly.
To drive from, say, the airport in Rochester to Brighton, using streets, would probably drive someone from out-of-town nuts. I like my streets vs. highways. You'd have to drive Scottsville Rd., cross the river where it becomes Elmwood, try to navigate the crazy traffic at UofR/Strong, then keep heading east into Brighton to the Twelve Corners. Other, city neighborhoods? Lots of turns. There are only so many bridges which cross the river, so people have to be cognizant of that when not using the interstates and 104 when driving through the city.
Buffalo wins in the city street grid category, just easier to get around, really.
I like driving city streets during rush hour in late afternoons, too, to avoid accidents and whatnot on the highways. Rochester plain sucks when trying to drive city streets across certain parts of town, plus a lot of the drivers there are bad ones, so there's the scary factor on a Driving Park Ave., etc.
Which Midwestern cities are you referring to? I ask because some can be more compact in terms of built environment and some can be more spread out.
As a general aside, one city peaked at 580,000 within 40 square miles(Buffalo) and the other peaked at a little over 332,000 in just under 36 square miles. So, just by looking at that information gives an idea of the built environment in regards to both cities.
Some of this could be due to the type of housing available in both of these cities. For instance, Buffalo has a good concentration of flats/doubles in parts of the city, which in turn held more people in the past when there were big ethnic families in these cities.
Last edited by ckhthankgod; 10-11-2018 at 05:24 AM..
Sure, if you talk about city proper in Buffalo's case and the metro area in Rochester's (and you also need a couple more decades than 'a couple' to be correct, though I'm too lazy to wikipedia for specifics right now)
Metro Buffalo had about 1.5 million in the 70's. It is now about 1,135,000
Metro Rochester had about 700,000 in the 70's It's now about 1,084,000
By the way, in terms of the Combined Statistical Area level, Buffalo has 1,214,204 (44th) and Rochester has 1,170,402 (47th) according to 2017 estimates. There are 171 such areas in the United States. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combin...tistical_areas So, there are just under 2.4 million people between the 2 adjacent CSA's.
To put the above into perspective, the combined Buffalo and Rochester CSA's in terms of land area(6548 square miles) is only about 863 square miles bigger than the Richmond VA metro area(5685 sq. mi.), is about 1800 square miles smaller than the Denver CO metro area(8346 sq. mi. and has only 500,000 more people), is 839 square miles smaller than the San Antonio TX metro area(7387 sq. mi and has slightly more people than the combined CSA's) and is slightly smaller than the Portland OR metro area in land area and population(6684 sq. mi and has 2,453,168 people).
So, if those 2 CSA's were elsewhere, they are likely MSA's. In turn, the 2 would be a CSA of essentially 2.4 million, instead of being 2 separate and evenly populated CSA's.
Last edited by ckhthankgod; 10-11-2018 at 08:51 AM..
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