Who's to Blame for Buffalo's Ills?
by Daniel B. Honigman
Buffalonians often wonder why their city is in such bad shape. A new book by a former Buffalonian, Diana Dillaway, takes a look at decision-making in the city over the last 40 or 50 years. In the book, Power Failure, Dillaway offers explanations as to why the city is in its current state, tracing some of the major policy and development choices made by Buffalo’s politicians and business elite, many of whom were working in their own best interests, she writes. However, we wondered what you thought.
Click to watchName: Jeremiah Stevens
Occupation: Information technology
Residence: Buffalo
What do you think has been the best decision for Buffalo in the last 10 years, and what’s the biggest impending decision? It’s going to be how they handle the waterfront. They have a huge amount of property there that can be developed, and a huge amount of economic potential. The best decision so far is developing the medical campus, and getting a lot of biotech and cancer research, which brings in lots of jobs.
What do you think has been the worst decision for Buffalo in the last 10 years? The casino could probably be the worst decision coming up. Other than that, dragging our feet on the waterfront—it’s hard to say what the one worst decision is.
Who do you think makes the decisions for Buffalo, politicians or businessmen? Hopefully, it should be both. Right now it’s being more driven by politicians, which is bad. We need to get businessmen more involved in the decision-making, and make sure that we’re looking out for the interests of some corporations, at least. If we don’t have businesses giving people jobs, then the politicians don’t matter.
Name: Damon Johnson
Occupation: Retail manager
Residence: Buffalo
What do you think has been the best decision for Buffalo in the last 10 years, and what’s the biggest impending decision? The casino and the Bass Pro moving to the Aud.
What do you think has been the worst decision for Buffalo in the last 10 years? Redeveloping downtown. Downtown’s a disgrace right now. We need traffic going back down Main Street.
Who do you think makes the decisions for Buffalo, politicians or businessmen? Politicians have a lot of control. They listen to the businessmen…but the politicians make the final decisions based on the way things are going right now—the slow process for the Peace Bridge, different things like that. It’s the politicians that do things.
Name: Carlos Benitez
Occupation: “The UPS Guy”
Residence: Buffalo
What do you think has been the best decision for Buffalo in the last 10 years, and what’s the biggest impending decision? The best decision was probably to regionalize certain utilities, and it has proven to be a plus. They’ve also smoothed [the relationship] between the unions and City Hall so that you can come to some consensus. The biggest impending decisions are job development and the infrastructure within the city.
What do you think has been the worst decision for Buffalo in the last 10 years? Moving the Sabres out of the Aud was a big decision, not so much because they had built a new arena, but they had no contingency for the Aud. Why get them out and leave an [eyesore] collecting dust in a primary part of town?
Who do you think makes the decisions for Buffalo, politicians or businessmen? It’s a combination, because politicians get lobbied and influenced by businessmen, so they go hand in hand.
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