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Upstate New York cities Back in business Hope grows in two cities more accustomed to disappointment Jun 30th 2012 | BUFFALO AND ROCHESTER | from the print edition THERE is an eerie beauty to Buffalo’s waterfront. Long-abandoned buildings and unused grain elevators stand along Lake Erie’s shore. General Mills is one of the few companies that still use it—the smell of Cheerios, a breakfast cereal, permeates the air. But newer life is springing up, too. Part of the harbour, near the centre of city, has been redeveloped as a 6.5-acre (2.6-hectare) spread of parks and monuments. Twenty-one more acres of harbour land will become shops and residential space with more development to come. Main Street, most of which was closed to traffic for three decades, is being opened up and will eventually connect the centre of town to the river. One of the newest additions to the city skyline, which is known for architectural gems, is the $300m ten-storey Gates Vascular Institute/Clinical and Translational Research Centre. Things are changing for the second-biggest city in New York state. Manufacturing in upstate New York has been declining since the 1940s. Buffalo, with its access to the Great Lakes and the St Lawrence seaway, was once an economic engine, not just for the region, but for the country. But when manufacturing began to leave, with the steel industry worst affected, the city was, until very recently, unable to cope. Some 30% of the city’s population now lives below the poverty line. Buffalo is the third-poorest big city in the country; only Detroit and Cleveland are in worse shape. The population has shrunk, while the urbanised sprawl beyond the city borders tripled between 1950 and 2000. Sprawl without growth is not helpful: it leaves too few taxpayers to support local government and infrastructure. The city, like many in the rustbelt, has vast amounts of abandoned property, more than any city except Detroit and New Orleans. Yet despite these problems, Bruce Katz, of the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, says he is bullish on Buffalo. He believes the city can lead the next economic wave, one driven by advanced manufacturing, innovation and exports and powered by low carbon. Rochester, which is about 75 miles east of Buffalo, also missed the boom times. Thirty years ago, Kodak, Xerox and Bausch & Lomb employed around 60% of the region’s workforce. In 1982 Kodak, which is headquartered in Rochester, had 60,400 employees. Today it has around 5,000 and has filed for bankruptcy protection. The population of the city fell from a peak of 332,000 in 1950 to 210,600 in 2010. Almost a third of those who remain are poor. Kodak’s bankruptcy filing, in January, did not devastate Rochester only because the Kodak jobs had long left. The impact was more psychological than anything else. Most residents seem to have a grandfather who once worked at Kodak, but its effect is no longer as strong. Nowadays, much has changed. Virtually all of the workforce is employed by companies of 100 employees or fewer, according to the Greater Rochester Enterprise, a public-private outfit which markets the city to businesses. The city leads the state in job growth since the end of the recession, recovering 98% of the jobs it lost then. Indeed, there are roughly 100,000 more jobs now than there were three decades ago. The Kodak name is still a draw. Monroe Community College will move into the old Kodak complex on State Street. Companies like ITT Exelis, which developed software used by Google Earth, have also taken space in old Kodak buildings. Economic diversity helped, too. Rochester has more than 100 food and drink companies, including Wegmans, a supermarket chain and the region’s second-biggest employer. The University of Rochester is the biggest, with an economic impact of $143m in sales tax, income tax and property taxes. Five of the top ten private-sector employers in the Finger Lakes region, where Rochester lies, are in higher education and health care. Higher education is also a big employer in Buffalo; the University at Buffalo is the second-biggest employer. It has been moving its medical centre downtown, and changing a whole neighbourhood as it does so. Howard Zemsky, a local businessman, has had a similar impact. A decade ago he began to redevelop one of the city’s oldest industrial areas, known as the Hydraulics district. Today, around 30 dilapidated or abandoned sites have been transformed into an office and residential space called the Larkin District. Even an old petrol station has been converted into a retro restaurant. Groups such as Partnership for the Public Good are working together to make vacant plots into community gardens. The Centre for Urban Studies at the University at Buffalo and the city’s housing authority are combining to help a neighbourhood in need. Collaboration is essential, says Byron Brown, Buffalo’s mayor. “Right people! Right place! Right time!” And timing and place are both part of the reason that Andrew Cuomo, the governor, pledged $1 billion earlier this year to help revive the economy of Buffalo and western New York state. Mr Katz is helping the region develop a plan to use that $1 billion effectively. “This is about the long term,” he says. “It will be the gift that keeps on giving.” http://www.economist.com/node/21557797

The Myth of Montreal Posted 12 Feb 2008 at 12:18 PM by Bill Archer There are a great many of you who will stop reading at the above title and skip right to the comments section which Huss thoughtfully provides in order for all and sundry to heap abuse on poor ink-stained wretches like Dan and I. Fair enough. We can take it. (Just lay off of 10Shirt. He's a sensitive, New Age guy.) So in the spirit of goodwill, mutual respect and bonhomie for which I am justifiably famous, herewith some "Inconvenient Truths" regarding Montreal fielding a team in MLS. First off, let's look at Montreal's geographical dilemma, because lost somewhere in the discussion about whether Montreal is leaving USL1 is the fact that USL1 seems to be leaving Montreal. This concept is illustrated perfectly by the history of the "Can-Am Cup" competition, which was a competition between Montreal, Toronto, Rochester and Syracuse. A nice little regional tournament which added a little drama to the season by highlighting natural rivalries. Except that Syracuse folded in 2004, Toronto left the league in 2007 and there's a good chance Rochester will cease to exist in 2008. So much for natural rivalries. In fact, USL1 used to have quite a few teams within a quick plane flight, and all of them - save the teetering Rochester Rhinos - are now just memories: Long Island collapsed in 2002. Pittsburgh and Indiana in 2003. Syracuse was gone in 2004. Virginia Beach in 2006. Toronto skipped to MLS in 2007. And what new cities have taken their place? Well, there was Portland Oregon in 2001, followed by Puerto Rico in 2003 and Miami in 2005. In other words, if Rochester really does go the way of all things, the shortest road trip and closest "regional rival" will be the Carolina Railhawks, in Cary, NC, a mere 871 miles away. If home and home grudge matches between those two don't light you up, your next choices would be Charleston, SC (1134 miles) St Paul (1240 miles) and their friendly neighbor Vancouver, which is a staggering 3000 miles from the stinky cheese of home. And the league is welcoming a new member this year: Austin Texas (the obnoxiously named "Aztex"). Apparently the Dark Side of the Moon still has some stadium issues to sort out, but look for them in 2009. In short, if you're a travel agent, the Impact is the Mother lode, Holy Grail, put-down-a-deposit-on-oceanfront-property of clients. By the end of 2008 they'll have racked up more frequent flier miles than Barack Obama. Compare this planeride/hotel existence competing against a bunch of far distant cities the average Quebecois couldn't care less about with membership in Major League Soccer East: Toronto anybody? How about New York? New England? DC? Possibly Philadelphia? Think maybe you could gin up a little fan interest in any of those games? Talk about a no-brainer: step up to a Division 1 league offering readymade rivalries with major North American cities and have your travel expenses go down? Where do I sign? Get Garber on the horn! Plus, as everyone knows, because it gets repeated on BigSoccer 50 times a day, Montreal is a) moving into a gleaming new Soccer Specific Stadium this April, b) Draws 12,000 fans a game in a minor league and c) is owned by a scion of the deep-pockets Saputo family, worldwide cheese purveyors. What else could you possibly want? What kind of idiot is Don Garber, wasting time playing footsie with Philly and St Looey while this golden opportunity is just a quick hop across the border? Well, to paraphrase Havey Keitel (Mr Wolf) in Pulp Fiction, let's not start "congratulating ourselves" quite yet, gentlemen. There are a couple of issues getting lost in the confetti here, to wit: First of all, the Impact is not owned by team President Joey Saputo. After the team went bankrupt in 2002 (something nobody ever seems to mention) the team was resurrected as a non-profit organization owned by Saputo, the Quebec Government and Hydro-Quebec. It's charter is to serve as a representative for Montreal tourism and as an incubator for Quebec-born soccer talent. So leaving aside the question of just how Phil Anschutz might feel about being partnered with a bunch of French-speaking politicians, and just how this ownership structure translates to MLS (and, honestly, it doesn't) there's the fact that a good deal of the Impact's success at the box office is due to the fact that they field as many Quebed-born players as they can find, another thing which won't likely translate well into MLS unless their goal is to lose all the time. Furthermore, Saputo, who would have to be the one to take over ownership and become and MLS partner, has been bad mouthing MLS for the better part of a decade, very publicly disparaging the caliber of play and scoffing at any hint that he might be interested in joining up. Back when MLS was desperate for someone - anyone - to step up and buy a team, Saputo ridiculed the idea that it was worth the $10 million asking price. A year or two later, when he could have bought in for $15 million, he announced that it just wasn't worth the money. But maybe, as the USL has migrated away from Montreal, and after seeing Toronto's success last season, maybe he's changed his mind and, being the gracious, good-hearted, forgiving types that we are, why wouldn't we simply forgive and forget and - assuming he's changed his mind, a proposition for which there is but scant evidence - roll out the red carpet and welcome him with roses and champagne? Short answer: his stadium. Now, on any day of the week you can read dozens of BigSoccer expansion experts raving about the wonderful new stadium in Montreal. They'll tell you how, although it only seats 13,000, it is "expandable" to 18,000 (officially it was 17,000 but 18 sounds better, apparently) and if that's still a little small, well, why let that get in the way of a good story? I would suggest to those of you who are dying to put MLS in that building to look at a couple facts. Starting with the cost of construction: Among recent stadium projects, Red Bull Park will come in somewhere between $180-200 million. If memory serves, Bridgeview was built for around $100 million. Sandy Stadium is projected to wind up at roughly $115 million. Chester (Philadelphia) and the proposal in Miami both call for $100 million buildings. Saputo Stadium (Stade Saputo for you Francophones) will be completed this April at a total cost of $15 million. Canadian. By comparison, Columbus Crew stadium, which a lot of MLS fans denigrate as being a cheaply built galvanized erector set high school stadium cost Lamar Hunt over $28 million. Ten year ago. So let's have a look at the gleaming soccer palace which so many of you insist ought to become an MLS venue immediately if not sooner, shall we? The small cement block building in the corner is the combination restroom and concession stand. Just like your local high school only smaller. The expansion to 17,000? They'll put another set of bleachers in the open end, where the consruction trailers are. It'll make all the difference, I'm sure. Now this is a very nice little stadium for USL1. Works very well. But for MLS? Seriously? I mean, the place makes Crew Stadium look like Anfield. Sorry, Montreal. It's just not going to happen. http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/blog.php?b=277