Issues Take Action

Building a more just, sustainable, and culturally vibrant community demands a detailed understanding of our shared strengths and challenges. While the specific initiatives covered by our Community Agenda may vary from year to year, the broader issues we address do not. 

Buffalo has a rich culture and history. Preserving, deepening, and broadening that tradition is essential to revitalizing the region. This means providing dedicated governmental funding for cultural groups, making culture a part of economic development, and moving quickly to preserve important …

Most of the serious crime in the region is committed against people living in concentrated poverty. The most effective crime-prevention strategy is an anti-poverty strategy. We also need a major new emphasis on community policing, rehabilitation, reentry, restorative justice, and juvenile diversion …

A solid grounding in the facts is the foundation of all good public policy. Improving our community means understanding the lives of people who live here in specific, quantifiable ways. The information below helps tell the story of life in the Buffalo-Niagara region.

Buffalo’s future lies not in “silver-bullet” development schemes but in sustainable, community-based development that supports locally owned independent businesses, living wage jobs, and environmental responsibility. Development resources should be concentrated in high-need areas …

The most severe problems that appear in our public schools are not really education problems but rather symptoms of the extreme, concentrated poverty in Buffalo and Niagara Falls. Even so, major improvements in public education are possible, starting with universal, quality pre-kindergarten, …

The Buffalo Niagara region is facing major environmental problems with sprawl, air pollution, poor water quality, and numerous brownfields. But with its abundant water, wind, and solar resources, Buffalo Niagara also has the potential to be a major hub for clean, green energy. By protecting …

Sadly, Buffalo Niagara is one of the most segregated metropolitan regions in the nation, and minority communities suffer from astounding rates of poverty. Illegal discrimination based on race, sexual orientation, gender identity, disability, national origin, and other classifications …

Making state and local government more democratic, efficient, and accountable will require campaign finance reform, the curtailing of independent authorities, and increased regional cooperation. It will also require close attention to issues of patronage, contracting procedures, ethics, public …

Buffalo Niagara suffers from serious health problems closely linked to poverty, environmental problems, and systemic inequality. Problems like lead poisoning and asthma, for example, disproportionately affect people of color and people with low incomes. Like other regions, Buffalo Niagara also …

Paradoxically, Buffalo has both a crisis of abandoned housing and a severe homelessness problem. Top housing priorities should be preventing abandonment, preserving and rehabilitating existing units, and weatherizing housing to reduce energy costs and pollution simultaneously. Any new housing …

Poverty and inequality are the worst problems afflicting Buffalo Niagara, and the primary cause of most of the others. While poverty rates in the region as a whole are roughly average, the city of Buffalo consistently ranks as one of the poorest in the nation. Any conversation about revitalization …