At last, Buffalo’s downtown is thriving. Last year’s surge of development downtown brought Canalside to life and now, construction continues to transform Buffalo’s waterfront.
From the $172 million HarborCenter, with its hockey rinks and two-story television screens, to the 120-acre medical campus and a 1-million-square-foot solar panel factory, SolarCity, it’s clear that the influence of the Buffalo Billion initiative, as well as moguls like Terry Pegula, is both welcome and unwavering.
There’s no denying the many and massive benefits to this sort of development – new businesses and new jobs are precisely what Buffalo needs to continue on its path of economic recovery.
But with downtown development getting the spotlight and garnering praise, it’s all too easy to forget about the problems still plaguing Buffalo.
There’s more to this area than the waterfront, and there’s more to the population than millennials flocking to the city, eager to snap up jobs.
Ice rinks and sports bars are a lot more fun to discuss than affordable housing and failing schools, but education and poverty are still issues that plague this region, and it’s critical that they don’t get overshadowed.
Because even as Buffalo’s RiverWorks Complex revitalizes the abandoned industrial complexes on the harbor, equally dilapidated neighborhoods all over Buffalo go ignored.
It’s not a matter of money – projects like RiverWorks are privately funded – but rather an issue of attention and priorities.
Trendy loft apartments and remodeled spaces are all the rage in Buffalo. Meanwhile, foreclosed homes sit empty.
And though the middle class is certainly enjoying the new attractions and job opportunities downtown, Buffalo’s impoverished community isn’t benefiting from employment opportunities in fields like biomedical engineering and information technology.
It’s easy to look at downtown Buffalo and praise the progress that’s so easy to see and experience.
But it’s much more difficult – and far more important – to see the individuals falling through the cracks, the homeless population that doesn’t have enough shelters to meet their needs and the schools falling farther and farther behind.
New job opportunities downtown don’t mean much to students in Buffalo when public schools’ graduation rates barely exceed 50 percent.
Four out of five public schools in Buffalo are failing to meet academic standards, a number which quadruples the statewide statistics.
These are numbers that are far gloomier than the facts about numbers of new jobs and rising revenue, but these are the numbers that cannot be overlooked.
Development downtown is in the spotlight – it’s a source of optimism and excitement, and promise of opportunity.
But Buffalo cannot forget about its true source of promise, its most important and precious resource – its children.
email: editorial@ubspectrum.com
Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly explained company SolarCity's name.
