Welcome back

The Buffalo News Editorial Page’s paean to Old Home Week:

Welcome back, we missed you. But we who stayed and live here have to say, you made the wrong call. Buffalo was, is and will be a great place to live and, yes, work.

Yeah, it doesn’t snow much in Santa Fe. Charlotte’s warmer. Dallas has a winning football team. Milwaukee opened a new art museum and removed its Skyway. Denver’s got the Rockies. LA and San Fran are hot. And our big brother the Big Apple remains an electromagnet.

But as those of you who returned this weekend for Buffalo Old Home Week will see, this region still has rare assets, and we choose to be optimistic about its economy. The lake shimmers in the late-August sun, the temperature nudging 80 with a cooling breeze over the largest fresh water resource in America. Some 50,000 college students are returning to UB, Canisius, Niagara, Bona and a host of other schools that cleverly customized their programs to meet the burgeoning needs of a more educated workforce. New buildings are going up, the most in years, and young, can-do developers are converting old ones to new uses.

Buffalo has a bright new mayor with goals and strategies. Hertel, Elmwood and lower Main rock. South Park, Jefferson, Vulcan and elsewhere need help, but what city doesn’t have needs? And liabilities? We’ve got a few: giveaways to unions, Albany, Erie County’s government. (See above).

But enough about the basics. What really matters is the people. That’s who will draw you back to stay. They’re friends, family, acquaintances. Or, they may be transplants, recruited to work in the downtown medical campus, or at thriving companies like Moog, Gibraltar, M&T, HSBC, Rich Products, New Era or Delaware North. Or they might work at any of the law, accounting, advertising or service firms that use this region’s low cost of living to attract national clients. Talk to them. Ask them how much house they got here, compared to what they left. Ask them if they feel safe on 95 percent of the region’s streets. Find out if their kids like their schools, sports teams, teachers and coaches.

And ask, most importantly, about jobs. They’re here, you just have to be patient to find them. We know a family that just moved here from the Midwest. Took them more than a year to find the right work. But they did. You can too.

If you are “back” you’re looking at schools, churches, neighborhoods, synagogues, golf courses, bike paths, parks, museums, restaurants, and a “new,” easily managed airport. We’ve got all that and more. Go to a Bisons game. Is there a better venue between Fenway and Wrigley? Live in North Buffalo or the Delaware district and commute to work in Amherst or Elma. Still 20 minutes, in either direction.

What in the end will hook you, however, is the heart and soul of the place. Sure, we argue like alley cats. But we unite against outsiders. We’re divided along racial, class, economic and educational lines like, you know, America. But we talk about it. We struggle with it. We care about it. The waterfront will happen, soon. Main Street will have cars again.

You should reflect on the impersonal aspects of Atlanta and Miami, of Phoenix and Fresno, of Chicago and St. Louis. And come back to where your heart is, to Buffalo.

Old Home Week Info here.