No longer in decline, Buffalo now among best-performing Rust Belt cities
After decades of urban blight, decaying old factories, loss of population and woe-is-us bemoaning, Buffalo has turned the corner in a revitalization that is reaping economic results, according to a study from CommercialCafe, a division of Yardi Matrix.
Is Buffalo still in decline? Quite the contrary.
In fact, by one measure, the Queen City is among the best-performing Rust Belt cities in the Northeast and Midwest, beating out major rivals like Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus, Detroit, Chicago and St. Louis.
After decades of urban blight, decaying old factories, loss of population and woe-is-us bemoaning, Buffalo has turned the corner in a revitalization that is reaping economic results, according to a study from CommercialCafe, a division of Yardi Matrix.
From home values to household income, Buffalo posted impressive economic increases compared with other Rust Belt cities over a five-year period that was studied and evaluated by CommercialCafe.
Derek Gee, Buffalo News
From home values to household income, Buffalo posted impressive increases over the five-year period that Yardi studied and evaluated, using not only its own data and Census Bureau statistics but insights from three academic experts. It even stood out in fighting poverty and reducing unemployment, and tied for the biggest population increase among the 14 cities with more than 200,000 people.
Only Madison, Wis., did better overall.
“Our region’s health is looking pretty darn good when compared to peer cities,” said Keith Belanger, a senior vice president at M&T Bank Corp., and chair of Buffalo Place, adding that he was not surprised. “I can feel the difference between where we have taken Buffalo and many of the cities I visit.”
That’s not to say it’s “mission accomplished” for Buffalo, which still faces many challenges.
Nearly a quarter of the population remains under the poverty level, for example, and the report looks at Buffalo broadly rather than looking at individual neighborhoods or ZIP codes.
Job growth across the region also has lagged far behind the rest of the country. The Buffalo Niagara region’s job losses during the Covid-19 lockdowns were far steeper than the national average, and the recovery since then has been slower. The region still has not recovered about 1% of the jobs lost during the pandemic, while the rest of the country fully recovered two years ago and has since added 4% more jobs, according to federal employment data.
“It’s a half-full glass or a half-empty glass,” said Robert Shibley, distinguished professor and Rudy Bruner Chair of Urban Excellence at University at Buffalo’s School of Architecture and Planning, who drove creation of the Queen City Hub plan two decades ago. “We’ve seen lots and lots of examples of progress in our city, but we know there’s still a huge amount to do to build the equitable city that we all deserve.”
But it appears to demonstrate that the city is gaining traction.
“Nearly two decades of determined leadership and strategic planning has changed Buffalo from a cautionary tale of decline to a story of recovery and resilience,” said Buffalo Mayor Byron W. Brown. “A foundation for greater and more equitable growth has been built that will sustain Buffalo’s competitive position with peer cities for decades to come.”
And that’s yielding high-fives across town.
“You’re so used to being on the negative side that it makes you feel good,” said Michael Schmand, executive director of Buffalo Place, the nonprofit organization that runs the downtown business improvement district. “I’m very happy to see this as a Buffalonian and someone who works to try to make the city better. It makes you feel good. It gives you an extra bounce in your step when you walk down Main Street.”
Deliberate efforts
Buffalo’s efforts to reverse its decades-long decline have been well-documented, as Western New York’s business, community and political leaders have sought to revitalize the city and change the dynamics that dominated its recent history.“It has not happened on its own. There has been a lot of hard work put in by both the public and private sectors to stimulate the positive momentum we have experienced,” Belanger said. “My biggest regret is that Covid slowed us down.”
Initiatives such as the Queen City Hub plan, the city’s new Green Code, the Buffalo Building ReUse Program, the state-funded Buffalo Billion and Better Buffalo Fund, and the city’s Race for Place and waterfront efforts have all been designed to spur redevelopment, renovation and new growth.
Private developers have picked up the challenge – and tax benefits – to bring old factories, warehouses and offices back to life with apartments, stores and restaurants.
“Buffalo has benefited from metro-to-metro migration, with people who have been priced out of New York City opting for the more affordable housing market in the area,” said Doug Ressler, manager of business intelligence at Yardi Matrix. “There’s also plenty of activity in terms of construction and renovation. A few of the transformative projects like Canalside and the Buffalo AKG Art Museum expansion helped Buffalo in its recovery process.”
Business development and innovative incubator programs like 43North, alongside a sharpened focus on high-tech and advanced manufacturing, have brought new companies, investments and jobs to the region as part of broader economic development goals. Venture-capital and angel investors are working alongside colleges, universities and medical institutions to create an ecosystem to support startup ventures. And job training programs have picked up.
Those efforts aren’t unique to Buffalo. “Local governments and community leaders across the former Rust Belt have taken steps to reimagine the area as a place of innovation − a Silicon Heartland of sorts with plenty of local talent to draw upon and the higher learning institutions to nurture it,” the report said.
But the payoff locally has been clear. The 2020 census showed Erie County’s population rose for the first time in decades, Ressler said, although recent estimates indicate that population losses have resumed in recent years.
Most promising
The Covid-19 pandemic was a setback for all cities, radically altering the commercial office landscape and taking away many downtown workers. Downtown Buffalo also has lost an estimated 20,000 daily workers, but people also are returning to downtown as residents, restaurant patrons and tourists, as they see the allure and increased quality of life beckoning them back – especially for younger generations that desire urban living and density.“We have for years, consistently and deliberately, created a planning structure that is delivering,” Shibley said. “The downtown when I got here in 1982 is sure not the downtown we have now.”
However, instead of just anecdotal evidence and snapshots of time, the report by CommercialCafe sought to quantify those results over a five-year period to identify “the most promising” Rust-Belt cities. And it found Buffalo ranked second among the 14 cities, based on a dozen metrics in population growth, household income, job creation, poverty-fighting, housing and commercial real estate growth, and median home values.
Specifically, the study said Buffalo was:
- No. 1 in home value growth, as the median home price jumped 73% from $92,700 to $160,700. Pittsburgh, Detroit, Columbus and Rochester also saw over 60% growth each.
- No. 1 in population increase with 7% − tied with Madison − which represents “a positive development for the city after decades of contraction,” the report said. Buffalo now has 276,500 residents, just ahead of Madison at 273,000, after that city “benefited from a prolonged upward trend” since the early 1990s.
- No. 1 in cutting unemployment, which dropped 3.8% in the five years from 2017 to 2022. That was tied with Toledo.
- No. 1 in cutting poverty, tied with Rochester, as the percentage of people below the poverty level fell by 6%.
- No. 2 in median household income growth, just behind Philadelphia, as earnings rose 40% or $14,000 over the five years, to $48,904.
- No. 4 in housing units, with 4.4% growth. Madison had 15.7%, followed by Philadelphia and Columbus.
“Things change so rapidly. You just have to keep working,” Schmand said
