Call it a comeback, a renaissance or a resurgence. No matter your preferred term, it's likely been used many times in recent years to describe the flurry of economic activity that has brought some of the shine back to Buffalo after decades in the doldrums.

But what does it mean for the typical Buffalonian? Is he or she better off as a result of this much-lauded revitalization? If so, it's hard to measure how. Income, poverty and quality of life stats in Western New York are largely stagnant from where they were 25 years ago. By some measures, things have gotten worse.

People in Western New York make less money than the national average, and that gulf is widening. In 2000, the per-capita personal income for the Buffalo region was $28,227 — $2,302 behind the national figure. In 2023 Western New Yorkers made $61,106 per capita — $8,309 behind.

About 14.1% of Erie County living residents were living below the poverty line in 2023, up from 11.2% in 2000. In the City of Buffalo the poverty rate is much higher — 27.4% according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

Employment stats are basically flat. Almost the same number of Buffalo area residents were employed in 2023 as in 2000.

Trina Burruss, president and CEO of the United Way Buffalo and Erie County, compares the economic health of the region to a car with four wheels — government, businesses, nonprofits and individuals. Individuals in Erie County are struggling, she said.

"The car looks good, but one of the tires is just not doing as well as the other three, so we need to get really, really laser-focused on what the challenges are in our community and what the potential solutions are," she said.

The issue will require effort from all stakeholders to improve the quality of life for Western New Yorkers and truly unlock Buffalo's potential.

The case for Buffalo

Standing on a downtown street corner, Brendan Mehaffy can point to nearly a dozen Buffalo buildings that have undergone transformative renovations in the last 15 years. There's a sense of vibrancy and optimism that didn't exist when Mehaffy became executive director of the mayor's office of strategic planning in 2010.

That does matter, said Mehaffy, who recently left city government and this year became director of development strategies for Wendel Cos.

"That experience people have, at least in the physical environment, is far better than it was 15 years ago," he said. "We were in a position where we had to make a value statement for why Buffalo should exist."

The tax base has increased substantially in the last 15 years. The 2020 census showed a modest increase in population after years of decline. Outside investors, most notably Douglas Jemal, have taken interest in the region. There's an energy and optimism the city didn't have a few years ago.

But Mehaffy said the work is far from finished. A city cannot thrive on vibes alone. Busy cafés and laudatory articles in the New York Times about the city's comeback are not enough.

"People have mistaken that for saying 'OK, the job is done,' " Mehaffy said.

If the redevelopment of Buffalo is a football game, Mehaffy said the city just finished the first quarter. It's done well so far, but he's worried that it might not be able to finish strong.

He said resources like historic and brownfield tax credits have played a massive role in the city's transformation, but many of the properties best able to benefit from those programs have already been developed.

Mehaffy said Buffalo still needs a lot of public money to reach its full potential, and to fill in the many gaps between its development hot spots to create critical mass.

"This city still needs a lot from New York state and a lot from Erie County," he said.

He said the city also needs support from large local corporations working together. He pointed to Cincinnati as an example of this strategy done right, where the nonprofit Cincinnati Center City Development Corp. has led dozens of downtown development projects with backing largely from the city's major corporations.

 
Mehaffy has seen little momentum on either the public or private side to make similar strides in Buffalo.

"Those types of tools don't exist right now to take Buffalo to the next level," he said.

No silver bullets

Critics of the city's development strategy to date say there's been too much focus on major projects like Canalside and the Tesla plant. Andrea Ó Súilleabháin, executive director of the Partnership for Public Good, said these splashy developments have cost the public millions in subsidies, with relatively little benefit for everyday residents.

"The development strategy at the city and the state level have focused on big silver-bullet development projects rather than sustainable, community-based development," she said. "Those things can be great, but they're still not reaching everyday people."

She said the city needs more efforts like the Five Points neighborhood on the West Side, built up into a thriving hub of businesses and restaurants through numerous small, community-driven projects.

"We actually have wonderful examples of neighborhood led, micro-level development that has punched above its weight in terms of impact," Ó Súilleabháin said.

She said the city should be more proactive about putting thousands of vacant city-owned lots to use, partnering with nonprofits and local developers at a far more rapid rate than it does now.

The Partnership for Public Good has advocated for a new county law that would require large projects that receive public subsidies to agree to community benefit agreements that would guarantee local hiring and services for the neighborhoods where these projects are based.

"There has been a huge amount of investment and development in Buffalo Niagara in the last 20 years, but most of that has not reached everyday people and it has not reached segregated neighborhoods in the city of Buffalo," Ó Súilleabháin said,

A common narrative about Buffalo is that it's impossible to make projects pencil out without substantial public investment, and that requiring community benefits would scare away much-needed development. Ó Súilleabháin believes that is no longer true now that the city is attracting out-of-town investors in a way it never did a few decades ago.

"Buffalo is an attractive place now, so I think we kind of need to change the narratives we tell about our own city," she said."We can start to ask for some reinvestment and not scare away every development."

What you can do to make a difference today

• Listen to your employees. More than 40% of employed Erie County families struggle to make ends meet, and there are some low-cost steps like flexible hours that employers can take to help ease the burden.
• Look at the numbers. There's a lot of buzz about Buffalo lately, and that's a good thing, but statistics show the region's struggle with poverty is far from over. It's important to understand the underlying issues that still face the region.
• Consider the impact. Buffalo has seen quite a bit of development and momentum in recent years. Developers of new projects should consider how they will benefit local communities.
• Look to the future. It's anyone's guess what a new mayoral administration might mean for Buffalo next year, but some advocates see the changing as a guard as an opportunity for new ideas.
• Find your scale. Development in Buffalo has taken many forms, from massive mega-projects to tiny community-led developments. There's plenty of room for both, and everything in between.

Henry Louis Taylor Jr., director of the University at Buffalo's Center for Urban Studies, said the new optimism about the city is a double-edged sword.

"The thing I hear from young people is that Buffalo is a much more exciting city," he said. "The image of the city has clearly changed."

That's a good thing, but it also creates problems. The new excitement about Buffalo means more out-of-town investors are buying property here.

A recent report by the UB Center for Urban Studies found more than half of all homes purchase in the city in 2022 were made by investors, not people looking to live in the purchased home. For low-cost homes that number was much higher, 84%.

"The number of investor-acquired houses, particularly on the East Side, is scary," Taylor said.

Many of these investors don't live in the area, which means the rent they are paid leaves the local economy.

Taylor said the number of evictions and foreclosures among low-income residents has gone up over the last decade.

He believes the optimism in the city is "not deeply grounded," and that the Buffalo region lacks the economic spark to reach true prosperity.

He advocates a bottom-up approach to city development, renovating the city's vast swathe of decrepit housing stock and encouraging local ownership so that more money stays local.

 "I see a lot of abandoned buildings, I see a lot of neighborhoods that appear to be on hold, or on some layer or levels of decline," he said. "You can't have great neighborhoods in the midst of decaying cities and regions. They all have to work together."

Instead of a patchwork of major projects, Taylor said there should be a focus on clusters that create jobs and housing — both improving life for existing residents and attracting new ones.

"How do we begin to reimagine these things and create new ideas and conceptions of vibrancy as a way of keeping the city alive and joyful, but also as a way of creating the kind of space and place that would make Buffalo an attractive destination for people?" he said.

Workers left behind

The United Way tracks the number of ALICE households in the region. That stands for Asset-Limited, Income-Constrained and Employed — people and families living paycheck to paycheck and unable to meet all of their basic financial needs, despite having jobs.

In 2023, the most recent data available, 42% of Erie County households met this definition, up from 40% the year prior.

"We're not seeing movement in the right direction," Burruss said "Folks are really struggling."

Burruss said having a world-class art museum like the Buffalo AKG and a popular outdoor recreation destination like Canalside is great for Buffalo, but a sizable portion of the local population doesn't have the time or resources to enjoy these amenities because they're struggling to make ends meet.

 
"Great decisions have been made that have turned out great things," she said. "But we have folks, 42% of them, who have been left behind."

Burruss encouraged governments to find ways to mitigate the "benefits cliff." Low-income workers often are disincentivized from pursuing modest raises that would cause them to become ineligible for public benefits — causing them to lose far more than they'd earn from the raise.

As for employers, Burruss encouraged them to learn as much as possible about the struggles of their employees. Flexible hours can go a long way toward helping workers meet their child care needs and other responsibilities while earning a living.

There's a fair bit of disagreement among local stakeholders about how the economy should be developed to most effectively benefit Western New Yorkers. And with a mayoral race coming up this fall, it remains to be seen whether the city will stay the course or take a different tack. But everyone agrees the city still has a long way to go.

"Buffalo is really a resilient community, we've seen it time, and time and time again," Burruss said. If we are all focused on the same thing, for as many people as possible to do well in our community, then our community as a whole will be better."

Read the full article on Buffalo Business First.