Megan McArdle on Upstate & Western New York
As a spinoff from her discussion about the bailout of the big 3, McArdle recounts the hard fall of Rochester’s Kodak, and writes this about her mother’s native upstate:
Syracuse is slightly more fortunate, because it wasn’t so heavily dependent on one firm. Nonetheless, its population now stands at less than 140,000, down from 220,000 in the 1950s. And the story is replicated in almost any town you can name in upstate New York. Utica. Elmira. Buffalo. Troy. These were major industrial towns, once. Now they are slowly collapsing in on themselves, surrounded by the discarded shells of once prosperous factories.
There are any number of candidates to blame. Cold weather. The Saint Lawrence Seaway, which destroyed the Erie Canal as a viable economic channel. New York’s business-unfriendly environment, which has gotten worse and worse as power has shifted towards New York City and the financial industry which is not much affected by the various work rules its employees like to vote for.
But it doesn’t matter. These vital towns, where generations of people lived happy lives and raised fat, burbling babies to a middle-class adulthood, are all dying. Should the government save these places too? Shall we support Eastman Kodak indefinitely, whether or not it can produce a product anyone wants to buy? And Xerox, and Carrier, and a thousand companies you’ve never heard of? Shall we make it illegal to make a better product than American corporations? Why not just ban new products that make old ones unprofitable?
To do that, we’ll have to take the money from other people, in other cities. Other businesses will not get the capital that we give to dying firms, so they won’t expand. Some other families, not yours, will lose their homes because their business failed, or have to move away from home in order to get jobs because their area is in the doldrums. Meanwhile, everyone in the country will be slightly worse off, because we’ve shifted limited economic resources towards products they demonstrably do not want.
She says she loves WNY and would save it if she could…
But I can’t save it. Pouring government money in has been tried . . . and tried, and tried, and tried. It props up the local construction business, or some company, for a few more years, and then slowly drains away. Western New York has been the lucky recipient of largesse from a generous federal government, a flush state government, and not a few self-made men with happy memories of a childhood there. And still, it dies.
She argues that the government should only bailout an entity when it benefits the nation as a whole, rather than a particular region or single entity. That’s why AIG gets money but Lehman doesn’t. That’s probably why GM, Ford, and Chrysler will get a handout but other companies won’t.
I’ve lived in WNY since 2001, and I’m trying to come up with a palpable way it’s improved. There have been some victories, but an overarching decline – we’re always one step forward, two steps back.
When I write the words in the next sentence, I’m not necessarily talking about people – I’m talking about policies, mindsets, assumptions, and perceptions.
Clean sweep.
(Photo courtesy David OpdenDries @ Flickr)
Sad but true. But after a clean sweep, what’s next?
There are plenty of ways to save the region, that I presume we all love, without added government monies. We need to approach government through a different prism. We need first and foremost to shed parochial beliefs that pits town against cities and town against towns. We need to embrace regionalism. As cliched as it may be divided we fall, united we stand. Western New York has experience decades of “sprawl without growth.” It has been my belief that above all costly and inefficient sprawl has been the number one factor behind Western New York’s decline.
A few ideas that I’d like to throw out there that I think could work if they were supported by both the people and the government officials whom they elect.
1. Restrict development to already developed areas. Portland, Oregon has been doing this for years. By focusing development in core cities- in our case, Buffalo in Erie County and Niagara Falls in Niagara County- we would reduce redundant infrastructure spending. Why build new streets, power, phone and sewage lines in Wheatfield, Clarence, or Lancaster when those same developments could be built in vacated land in our core cities where they already exist?
2. Create “business incubators.” I am not an expert in new technology businesses, however why not the IDA’s of Erie and Niagara County buy a vacant building in each core city renovate and offer free/cheap rent and technological infrastructure to young entrepreneurs with a solid idea and business plan in return of a commitment to keep x number of jobs in the city if/when they are able to out grow the incubator. This has been successful in Youngstown, Ohio; a community not all that different than ours.
3. Sharing services, not only costs no money- it saves large amounts of money.
4. Consolidation- there is NO reason what so ever for the parochial layers of government that overlap each other in so many of our communities. For example could the Town and City of Tonawanda not exist with the same or better level of public services as one municipal government as opposed to two? The same with the City of Niagara Falls and the town of Niagara or Buffalo and Lackawana, or East Aurora and Elma. The list goes on and on of petty government officials who would rather keep grasping at their small straws of power than allow their communities to thrive.
There are a million other free things we could do to save ourselves if we want to suck up our pride and really make a difference for the betterment of our community and as the Moody Blues said “For Our Children’s Children’s Children.”
McArdle says it very well. This part sounds just like what Ed Glaeser said in his writing about Buffalo and talk he gave here which greatly upset some locals:
I don;t think clean sweeps of policies, mindsets, etc. ever happen. Can you think of any examples from modern history where that happened? I can’t. Things like that can evolve over long periods of time, but not change fast.
What would have to be swept is a lot of people across New York (not a few politicos, but many voters and workers) swapped away for some others from somewhere else. Fantasy. And then we’d still have the weather.
Hey, my dad was born and raised in the Bronx. We’ve poured enough government money into the Bronx, haven’t we? It’s dead. Let it go. What’s that? What do actual residents of the Bronx have to say about this? Who cares, listen to me. I say it’s dead. It’s all over for them. I would save the Bronx if I could! Oh, what were I could!!!! But seriously, don’t give them any money. Listen to me, I’m bona-fide. I have a parent from there. What could be more authentic than that? Who could know more about it than me?
reflip, Megan would probably agree with you completely, despite your sarcasm
Funny thing is it looks like the Feds are working themselves up to prop up the bloated over priced (phony economy) housing market in Florida and the Southwest. If only Buffalo still had that kind of clout!
And who is Megan McArdle?
It’s odd to argue that it’s unfair to “take the money from other people, in other cities” in order to help struggling northern cities considering that the (temporarily) thriving cities of the south and west only exist because of government money. Everyone is subsidized. The question is whether subsidizing Phoenix is more sustainable than subsidizing Buffalo.
Take a scalpel to the up to now untouchable, redundant school districts. Gaughan should focus on them next. Look at them all crying about State aid shrinking, even just a little bit. The unions and the districts must be the last ones to know that the economy is sunk and NY State gov’t is in big trouble.
WCP:
Great idea about the school districts. My wife teaches in Farifax County, Virginia- which is one of the best run and most refutable school districts in the country. Fairfax County has just over 1,000,000 people, and you know how many school districts it has, ONE. There is no reason that Erie and Niagara County could not go to a county district. Not only would it cut down on cost but it would make their city school’s equal to suburban schools.
And to those of you who live in Clarence, or Amherst- stop! Don’t start with your racist rants about wanting your kids to go to good schools. They would still be good schools, they would just reflect the real world. A world much bigger than your small minded lily white communities.
Anthony makes a very valid point.
In libtard strongholds like WNY, Education is an even more sacred cow than local political fiefdoms.
“Taking the scalpel” to education will NEVER happen. Doesn’t happen hardly anywhere. Teacher Unions and the insanely wasteful and un-necessary federal Department of Education have fostered huge bureacracies, where more unionized civil service employees suck at the taxpayer-fed government teat.
There was a time–50 or so years ago, when teachers didn’t make much money at all. Teaching was considered a profession you got into for altruistic reasons; among those a love of children, a desire to educate the generation to follow your own, to see young minds absorb information and bloom into critical and anaylitical adults, who would be good citizens.
Now–It’s to “Make a Buck”, get healthcare packages that auto workers would drool over, and if the kids don’t learn anything? Too fucking bad for them, we’ll build more prisons and public housing to plantation their asses. A glance at graduation percentages in BPS attests to the truth.
There are 100 counties in North Carolina. There are 100 School systems, and 100 Boards of Education. How many separate school systems are there in Niagara/Erie counties? I think there are 3 in Cheektowaga alone. Does the Town of Tonawanda, City of Tonawanda, and North Tonawanda all need seperate school systems?
Ask your local politicos for an answer.
Hank,
Hank,
I don’t normally agree with you, especially on a national scale but I’m glad you’re on board. I think Cheektowaga has 4, Maryvale, Cheektowaga, Sloan and whichever one JFK high school is in. Amherst has three! Think of the savings to the tax payers of a consolidated county school district, not to mention the opportunities for both educators and students a large district would bring. I’m not saying that we need large schools- research proves that the ideal size for a high schools is around 800 pupils, however there is no need 4 school superintendents in a town of around 80-90,000 people.
Anthony – I think you meant to write “irrefutable”? Actually, Fairfax County schools vary from community to community depending on the demographics.
Know that first hand.
Ivan- as do I. My wife teaches in demographically the poorest middle school in Fairfax County, yet they have the finest resources and great professional development and student-learning/exploration environments.
Dream on,
The friggin County can not even consolidate ECC into one campus!
One Erie County school district will happen when men land on the sun. Then again we did just elect an African American President.
@Steel:
“One Erie County school district will happen when men land on the sun”
Well, maybe they could land at night.
(/Ali G)
That would be the Erie County way Hank
With 29 school districts in Erie County there is a school district for approximately each 7000 students.
Exactly why do WNYers complain about their taxes when they support this kind of crap.
See how fast other Metro’s start to hold out their hands when the going get tough. Atlanta, Phoenix, and Philly have all asked for a cut of the Bailout package, because of hard times.
My wife and I went from Plattsburg to Minnesota. Income taxes dropped by half. Property taxes went down 64% for the same price house, and the house here is much nicer. Sales tax dropped. Gas tax dropped. Prices of goods in general dropped. In state college tuition dropped like a stone. School quality improved despite larger class size. And Minnesota is one of the more expensive MidWest states!
Sorry. No reason to go back. We loved the Adirondacks and the Lake, but it wasn’t worth it.