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I don't know where you're getting your google results from, but that is absolutely not true!..with the exception of maybe cities in Pennsylvania.
If you've ever lived on the Northeast coast? If you live on the Northeast coast and move to Buffalo or any part of WNY (like myself) you can see the difference in cloudy days.
Even if the information is true, then how can Seattle and Portland still attract people while being ahead of Buffalo in that regard? Keep in mind that the list is for metros with over 1 million people. Miami is on the second list and it doesn't have an issue with adding people to its metro area. Same with Houston and Orlando.
Even if the information is true, then how can Seattle and Portland still attract people while being ahead of Buffalo in that regard? Keep in mind that the list is for metros with over 1 million people. Miami is on the second list and it doesn't have an issue with adding people to its metro area. Same with Houston and Orlando.
Seattle and Portland attract more people than Buffalo because they're much progressive and economically prosperous cities - Seattle is where Microsoft was established. They attract yuppies (mostly Seattle) and have a more modern infrastructure, something Buffalo does not do. Seattle and Portland also seem to have a more outdoorsy culture compared to Buffalo which may attract more transplants as well. As for weather, yes Seattle and Portland are cloudier than Buffalo but the temperatures are much more mild year round. El Nino also occurs in the PNW every few years allowing the winters to be drier and sunnier.
If Buffalo had a vibe like Seattle or Portland, it would do wonders IMHO.
Miami, Orlando, and Houston are on the list for days being 1/4 cloudy or more. Buffalo, Seattle, and Portland are on the list for days being 3/4 cloudy or more. Big difference! And the 1/4 cloud coverage in Miami and Orlando is mostly due to the afternoon thunderstorms during the hotter months.
If I recall correctly the sunny reference is to summers in Buffalo.
This from the NOAA
"[SIZE=4]Overall though, Buffalo has the sunniest and driest summers of any major city in the Northeast, with enough rain to keep vegetation green and lush."[/SIZE]
[SIZE=4][/SIZE]
[SIZE=4]this is the website[/SIZE]
I wouldn't necessarily call Portland more prosperous than Buffalo. The unemployment rate is significantly higher there than here. On the other hand. Portland attracts people because of its vibe and the investments the city government has made into making it a very livable, vibrant place.
WNY actually has more sunny days than most of the rest of the Northeast. You can google it...
COL in Seattle is not on par with San Diego. SD is wayyy more expensive. You can google it...
Chicago and especially Minneapolis are colder in winter than Buffalo. They have considerably less snow however. Again, just google it.
The only thing I can agree with you on is that WNY has great potential. The nice thing is many already realize that potential. It's happening all around people here and yet many seem to be unable to see it.
Looking at it with "fresh eyes" I wish more of my native friends would get it...
I did google those things, and I think we are using a different google... Or perhaps one of us sees what they want.
Buffalo just isn't going to grow in any meaningful way in our lifetime. Many of the old northeastern cities sprouted up where they did due to things that don't matter the way they do now, such as proximity to shipping lanes, fresh water, viable farmland, etc. With technology improvements, we can now put a few million people in an extremely dry desert without sacrificing their quality of living. So, now a bunch of places that might have more desirable weather are on the table. People prefer warm weather by a two to one margin, and among those who prefer cold weather, the most popular cities are Seattle, Portland and Denver, which are not cold in the way Midwestern and Northeastern cities are. So then you ask yourself, what does Buffalo have that can't be obtained somewhere with better weather?
To survive this population shift you have to have high quality institutions (schools, government) that aren't just going to pack up and leave to enjoy better weather. Or you have to have a very strong industry that is based off of intellectual capital (insurance, finance) that is historically located in your city. Manufacturing and transportation related industries are way
I don't know where you're getting your google results from, but that is absolutely not true!..with the exception of maybe cities in Pennsylvania.
If you've ever lived on the Northeast coast? If you live on the Northeast coast and move to Buffalo or any part of WNY (like myself) you can see the difference in cloudy days.
Yes it is true. Do some research before you smack your head so many times.
From NOAA.com:
Summer is pleasant in the Buffalo area. Sunshine is plentiful, temperatures are warm, and humidity levels are moderate. Rainfall is adequate, but it shows an overnight maximum, so it is seldom a problem for outdoor activities. The stabilizing effect of Lake Erie continues to inhibit thunderstorms and enhance sunshine in the immediate Buffalo area through most of July. The lake also modifies the extreme heat that approaches from the Ohio Valley. There usually are periods of uncomfortably warm and humid weather during summer, but an average of only three 90 degree readings makes conditions more bearable than at most other locations. August usually turns a bit more showery and humid as the lake is warmer and loses its stabilizing influence. In fact, a good nighttime thunderstorm or two is often a feature of late summer in Buffalo. Overall though, Buffalo has the sunniest and driest summers of any major city in the Northeast, with enough rain to keep vegetation green and lush.
I did google those things, and I think we are using a different google... Or perhaps one of us sees what they want.
Buffalo just isn't going to grow in any meaningful way in our lifetime. Many of the old northeastern cities sprouted up where they did due to things that don't matter the way they do now, such as proximity to shipping lanes, fresh water, viable farmland, etc. With technology improvements, we can now put a few million people in an extremely dry desert without sacrificing their quality of living. So, now a bunch of places that might have more desirable weather are on the table. People prefer warm weather by a two to one margin, and among those who prefer cold weather, the most popular cities are Seattle, Portland and Denver, which are not cold in the way Midwestern and Northeastern cities are. So then you ask yourself, what does Buffalo have that can't be obtained somewhere with better weather?
To survive this population shift you have to have high quality institutions (schools, government) that aren't just going to pack up and leave to enjoy better weather. Or you have to have a very strong industry that is based off of intellectual capital (insurance, finance) that is historically located in your city. Manufacturing and transportation related industries are way
Buffalo already has these things actually. So, it has to be something else.
Yes it is true. Do some research before you smack your head so many times.
From NOAA.com:
Summer is pleasant in the Buffalo area. Sunshine is plentiful, temperatures are warm, and humidity levels are moderate. Rainfall is adequate, but it shows an overnight maximum, so it is seldom a problem for outdoor activities. The stabilizing effect of Lake Erie continues to inhibit thunderstorms and enhance sunshine in the immediate Buffalo area through most of July. The lake also modifies the extreme heat that approaches from the Ohio Valley. There usually are periods of uncomfortably warm and humid weather during summer, but an average of only three 90 degree readings makes conditions more bearable than at most other locations. August usually turns a bit more showery and humid as the lake is warmer and loses its stabilizing influence. In fact, a good nighttime thunderstorm or two is often a feature of late summer in Buffalo. Overall though, Buffalo has the sunniest and driest summers of any major city in the Northeast, with enough rain to keep vegetation green and lush.
This is only mentioning the summers. I was talking about the year round weather, not just summers. Maybe Buffalo has a few more sunnier days than the rest of the Northeast during the summers, but definitely not year round. The statistics back this up, as well as people who lived or spent a lot of time there. When I was in Buffalo, I remember all the people from the NYC metro who were there for college would say how much sunnier it was downstate compared to Buffalo.
Quote:
Originally Posted by ckhthankgod
Buffalo already has these things actually. So, it has to be something else.
Buffalo has some very good colleges, but they can't compare to several top colleges in Boston which will always attract more people not just for education but for high end academic research. Buffalo has no where near the historical intellectual capital of NYC or even Philly. Buffalo does not have any large IT industry like in Seattle or the Bay Area. Nor has Buffalo tried to make an intellectual economic comeback in other industries, like Pittsburgh with biotechnology.
Never. There are many reasons why a lot of cities in upstate NY are shrinking. Local economies blow, weather sucks, people hate on everything, etc.
Irony?
Buffalo has an amazing amount going for it as it is, IMHO - great food, growing diversity, local businesses dominating our major shopping areas, a variety of sports & recreational activities, great park system, beautiful (slowly improving) water front, great art & music scenes, plenty of history (war of 1812, multiple registered historic districts, etc), booming education and medical industries, and so on. That said the city proper does need population growth to improve economically and culturally. Here’s why:
1) More residents equals more people to patron businesses and to buy/live in houses instead of purchasing them to rent out and then not maintaining them, abandoning them to the city or tearing them down once they sit vacant for years. We have a MASSIVE excess of unused real estate - residential, industrial, commercial and mixed use - most of which has become the responsibility of the city; this is a visual and physical blight on neighborhoods and a huge drain on our economy. You read ANYTHING complaining about Buffalo and without fail you will see someone mention the number of boarded up, broken down properties. They really besmirch otherwise decent streets.
2) We need intellectual capital coming into the area. We have a serious shortage of "new" ideas and well-intentioned-but-inside-the box-thinking is not helping. Many of this community's leaders seem content to complain about everything and talk a good game about the “future of the city” but then discourage any real change - the Peace Bridge, bringing in new businesses, etc. all wind up being non-compromise issues that stall out any movement forward (the fact that we are willing to tear down an entire section of a mostly-inhabited neighborhood because we can't come up with any better ideas concerns me).
3) General population size does offer some modicum of political clout as far as regional, state and national politicians paying attention to getting Buffalo voters on their side.
4) Our population is statistically older than a lot of areas – in a decade or so we will have a gigantic mass of retired folks, many of whom are living on small, fixed incomes and not contributing a lot economically. Also, many of those folks who own homes will not remain in their homes once they reach a certain age or develop medical problems. They will move in with children, often outside the city, into fixed income apartments that contribute a fraction in taxes per person versus home ownership or into nursing homes (even less taxes per person and again often outside of the city). As it stands levels of educated, middle-middle to upper-middle class young people who can make real contributions economically and socially to the area are not putting down permanent roots in great numbers. Even lower-middle class young people, educated or not, often flee to the suburbs the second they get married or have kids, maybe because of economic/crime concerns but often I think because of the “American dream” allure of those communities.
5) Buffalo people are largely nice and many are very hard-working, but in terms of involvement they leave a lot to be desired, especially in working class/impoverished areas. There is definitely a vibe in a lot of poorer communities that their voice doesn’t mean anything, that nothing will change because the deterioration has set in for so long and the problems have become so numerous, so they just don’t get involved. Voter participation is terrible in most of the city proper people are slow to get involved in local politics or in neighborhood improvement groups in all but a few areas. When I’ve seen people move in from outside the area, that can see it with a fresh pair of eyes and may come from a background with more community involvement, they can rally locals with new ideas and put out a contagious, optimistic perspective (Rediscover Riverside is a great example of this).
Of course to support all these new people you need to have more jobs in general and more HIGH-PAYING, skilled jobs specifically. I have two college degrees and couldn't find a job around here in what I went for. I loved the area so much I took something lower paying and outside my field to stay - I've been out of my field so long now I'm not even certified anymore and would have to jump through some serious hoops to become so again. A lot of people aren't willing to do that. If they grow up/go to college here and the area doesn't offer what they want to do, or something financially comparable, they move even if they are otherwise happy. If they aren't from the area/don't go to college here there's no incentive financially to move in, even if they like our other amenities. I really don’t buy that weather is that big of a concern. A lot of places in the country have more snow, colder and windier temperatures and definitely more extreme weather phenomenon (tornadoes, earth quakes, hurricanes, etc) that have not stopped those areas from becoming developed.
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