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I think these two news stories about Rochester in the last few days are both very interesting. One is from TheStreet.com and the other from the New York Times:
These stories confirm an opinion that I've been developing over the last 3 years that I've lived here since moving from Washington, D.C. which is:
Rochester has a severe self-esteem problem.
I've come to this opinion based on the number of people who are willing, or even enjoy, bad-mouthing their home town. I'm not claiming that there are not problems here - there certainly are. But face it folks, there are problems in every urban environment in America. What amazes me is the lack of home-town pride that you see in even some of the worst places in America. What further amazes me is the complaints that come from people who have never lived anywhere else. My guess is that they are suffering from the typical "grass is greener" phenomenon.
Give these reports an honest read and fight your urge to go all "Bah Humbug!"
(you know who you are) There is some great news and national press for Rochester here.
I've come to this opinion based on the number of people who are willing, or even enjoy, bad-mouthing their home town. I'm not claiming that there are not problems here - there certainly are. But face it folks, there are problems in every urban environment in America. What amazes me is the lack of home-town pride that you see in even some of the worst places in America. What further amazes me is the complaints that come from people who have never lived anywhere else. My guess is that they are suffering from the typical "grass is greener" phenomenon.
Give these reports an honest read and fight your urge to go all "Bah Humbug!"
(you know who you are) There is some great news and national press for Rochester here.
I agree with this to an extent. There are some people who haven't lived anywhere else, or lived 1 other place for a brief period who love bashing the area with exaggerations and lies. I tend to hang around with people that have more home town pride and the constant negativity I see, is mostly on the internet.
Some of the bashing I've seen in real life comes from miserable people who would be unhappy anywhere, or close minded people who complain that the city lacks certain things, but ignore you when you give them a list of suggestions to the contrary.
Why am I not allowed to just dislike a lot of the things about where I live without living anywhere else? I couldn't care less about anywhere else in all honesty, because I don't live anywhere else and don't plan on it for a long time since I'm pretty tied down in Rochester.
-Our taxes blow
-Our county/town/city governments appear to be so corrupt I'd swear I live in Chicago or early 20th century Atlantic City
-Downtown is a complete disaster with no known direction
-City schools make city living questionable at best if you have kids
-Suburbs are getting overrun with city trash lowering our value of life and quality of schools (southeast Greece is a prime example of this)
-We have a potentially gorgeous park in Charlotte Beach but nobody cares to really put some effort in to it and clean it up or figure out a decent parking situation, increase safety to keep the trash out, etc.
-Did I mention taxes? :-p
I understand I could be somewhere much worse but I really don't give a $h1t about those places because I'm not there, I'm here. I'm thankful for what I do have, no doubt about it, but I think things could be much better than what we have now if we just had solid leadership. It's like the whole "it could be worse" mentality puts us at a stalemate. Instead of wanting to be marginally better than other cities, why not be great and put us on the map? Oh that's right, government.........
Why am I not allowed to just dislike a lot of the things about where I live without living anywhere else? I couldn't care less about anywhere else in all honesty, because I don't live anywhere else and don't plan on it for a long time since I'm pretty tied down in Rochester.
-Our taxes blow
-Our county/town/city governments appear to be so corrupt I'd swear I live in Chicago or early 20th century Atlantic City
-Downtown is a complete disaster with no known direction
-City schools make city living questionable at best if you have kids
-Suburbs are getting overrun with city trash lowering our value of life and quality of schools (southeast Greece is a prime example of this)
-We have a potentially gorgeous park in Charlotte Beach but nobody cares to really put some effort in to it and clean it up or figure out a decent parking situation, increase safety to keep the trash out, etc.
-Did I mention taxes? :-p
I understand I could be somewhere much worse but I really don't give a $h1t about those places because I'm not there, I'm here. I'm thankful for what I do have, no doubt about it, but I think things could be much better than what we have now if we just had solid leadership. It's like the whole "it could be worse" mentality puts us at a stalemate. Instead of wanting to be marginally better than other cities, why not be great and put us on the map? Oh that's right, government.........
And if you lived elsewhere, there'd be a whole new list of problems for that area.
According to Yahoo...Rochester among the best home values and is also "NY's well-kept secret" for lower unemployment, relatively high job growth, and healthy real estate market. (I still hate how yahoo always uses High Falls as the "cityscape" view of Rochester instead of a nice central shot of the skyline from south of downtown though!)
I have said this over and over again as well. We haven't lived in Rochester for 15 years now, but we are
There often and we would love to be living there closer to our family & friends.
Unfortunately, one negative is that my husband cannot find a job in his field that is willing to pay him what he is currently making and he isn't willing to take less....
Rochester never saw the spike in home prices that much of the country saw, and still, even though home prices may be slightly increasing there, you can get far more for your money. There are beautiful places to live in Rochester.
The complaining about taxes is old. You don't have the highest property taxes, yes, you have high taxes, but Jersey gets to boast about the highest property taxes. We live in the mid-Atlantic and our property taxes are much more than many people we know in Rochester, especially those in Ontario County.
There are some great public schools there and state of the art medical facilities.
There are cultural events, museums, wonderful family outings to be had, you have the Strong Children's museum and so many other wonderful family outings to be had.
Yes, Rochester has a self esteem problem and "they" always seem to want to find the bad and make it worse than it is. I assume most of those naysayers have never lived anywhere else.
I think *some* of the responses on this forum prove my point better than I could have ;-)
As for the others, well done... As an entrepreneur myself, I helped make 250 jobs in my last business (50 of which I put in Albany, NY). In my current business, I have brought 10 jobs to Rochester so far. Nothing huge, but it doesn't hurt...
But I can tell you OVERTAXED - That I could have come up with list after list after list of why my businesses wouldn't have succeeded - each time putting blame on someone else (government, competition, market conditions, dot-com problems, etc). But you know what? I didn't. Instead I took it upon myself to grow my businesses and make those jobs a reality. That took a certain amount of optimism and determination in the face of some negative news. Rochester is no different. If *CAN* be a great mid-sized city (many argue it currently is) - but it will take different attitudes than the one you consistently show on this forum to move it forward.
BTW - Have you ever been on a competitive sports team? Did you ever have a winning season?
I played baseball for 11 years, won a few championships with different teams and coaches, threw a few no hitters as a pitcher, have a few gameballs sitting in a closet for outstanding performances, and made it in to a Greece Post article for one of my pitching and hitting performances in a double header. So yeah, I guess you could say I have played on a competitive sports team or two and been fairly successful. Not sure what that has to do with the state of our city though....
As far as my attitude, it's far from being the type of attitude to keep this city down. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm anti-greed, anti-corruption, anti-large gov't, etc. You know, the REAL factors keeping our city in the dumps. In fact, I'm pretty sure I said....
Quote:
"Instead of wanting to be marginally better than other cities, why not be great and put us on the map?"
Is that a terrible attitude to have? To actually WANT to be better than comparable cities? Personally, I see nothing *great* about the city of Rochester, nothing to put us on the map save for a few cool museums and a large business or two. Oh, and UofR and RIT, big whoop. But that's it. Something tells me nobody in Boston or NYC ever says "hey hunny, you wanna get away for a while and go on a little vacation to Rochester NY?". Yeah there might be a handful of examples that do, but it's certainly the exception and not the rule.
Trust me, I WANT to see Rochester rebound and flourish. I'd love nothing more than to live in an area that I don't have to explain as being halfway in between Buffalo and 'Cuse, both of which are just as crappy as Rochester in my eyes; just went to 'Cuse a few weeks ago for the game against Marquette, and what lousy scenery that was! Buffalo sure isn't an aesthetic gem either, but yet we're still that city residing between the two others.
I played baseball for 11 years, won a few championships with different teams and coaches, threw a few no hitters as a pitcher, have a few gameballs sitting in a closet for outstanding performances, and made it in to a Greece Post article for one of my pitching and hitting performances in a double header. So yeah, I guess you could say I have played on a competitive sports team or two and been fairly successful. Not sure what that has to do with the state of our city though....
As far as my attitude, it's far from being the type of attitude to keep this city down. I don't know if you can tell, but I'm anti-greed, anti-corruption, anti-large gov't, etc. You know, the REAL factors keeping our city in the dumps. In fact, I'm pretty sure I said....
Is that a terrible attitude to have? To actually WANT to be better than comparable cities? Personally, I see nothing *great* about the city of Rochester, nothing to put us on the map save for a few cool museums and a large business or two. Oh, and UofR and RIT, big whoop. But that's it. Something tells me nobody in Boston or NYC ever says "hey hunny, you wanna get away for a while and go on a little vacation to Rochester NY?". Yeah there might be a handful of examples that do, but it's certainly the exception and not the rule.
Trust me, I WANT to see Rochester rebound and flourish. I'd love nothing more than to live in an area that I don't have to explain as being halfway in between Buffalo and 'Cuse, both of which are just as crappy as Rochester in my eyes; just went to 'Cuse a few weeks ago for the game against Marquette, and what lousy scenery that was! Buffalo sure isn't an aesthetic gem either, but yet we're still that city residing between the two others.
Hey guys. You have hijacked my thread and turned into a discussion on race. Not exactly the stated topic. So let's get back on track.
I find it fascinating that Overtax was such a great athlete. Its even better that you won. I know that if you think back to your championship games you would agree that a positive attitude was critical for your success. I've never been on a winning team with a negative attitude. Get my point? It is not subtle, but you seem to miss it every day in this forum.
I love your statement above. But you are wrong about how important your attitude is. Like it or not, Rochester is your team now. Just like your pitching days. Time to help the team do some winning.
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There is some great news and national press for Rochester here.
