4 Comments

1. pauldub says:

   April 21, 2006 at 7:11 am

   No shit. Last paragraph is truth. Craig is the Nattering Nabob of negativism.
2. B says:

   April 22, 2006 at 5:29 pm

   The cost per square foot for office space (including infrastructure costs) in Buffalo is ridiculously cheaper in Buffalo than it is in NYC/Chicago/Boston.

   This office space cost delta vs. the huge world-class cities you mention has existed for many years and this is not some secret waiting to be discovered. Unfortunately, the reality is that the economies of Buffalo and Upstate are not benefiting from this very much. Companies pay the premium to do business in NYC, Chicago, and Boston because there’s some economic benefit they get in return.

   You seem to want to deny or ignore the reality that medium-sized cities with which Buffalo competes for private sector investment have a strong correlation between their level of business-friendliness (laws and taxes) and their economic success. It’s not a matter of complaining taxes are too high, but if nothing is done about that and other costs of doing business then all the cheerleading and feel-good approaches will make no substantial difference.

   The UnshackleUpstate group has some nice fact-based analysis of all this – 2 page overview here and 25 page report here
3. BuffaloGeek says:

   April 22, 2006 at 6:42 pm

   Yes, the infrastructure cost benefits of Buffalo versus other large cities have existed for some time. However, two factors present themselves when analyzing why companies have decided not to leverage those benefits and locate here.

   1.) We’ve never made a full effort to recuit them. Through discussions I’ve had with local business leaders and those involved in business recruitment it would appear that the focus has been on light industrial manufacturers and assemblers. There has not been a concerted effort to this point to recruit white collar companies to Buffalo because the electorate demands “good blue collar jobs”. Since politicians are in the business of getting re-elected, they focus on bringing those jobs here. Unfortunately, the laws you referenced (Workmen’s comp, unions, etc) make that difficult. It’s interesting that you refernce Chicago and NYC as they suffer under the same laws and union issues that we do in Buffalo. Somehow, they have been able to overcome the issues and continually recruit large technical and business service companies to their cities.

   2.) Companies have traditionally chosen to locate in major markets for the closeness to customers and the efficiencies of doing business. Successful businesses breed others to support and partner with them. With the cost of doing business in major markets at an all time high, companies are finding value in distributed and flexible office locations due to the efficiencies of the network.

   It’s easier and cheaper to do business in a distributed fashion, more than it has ever been in the past.

   I’m not pretending that I have all the answers and I actually agree with many of the positions laid out in the UU agenda, I really do. Unfortunately, the problem with Buffalo is that everyone is a god damned expert on everything. People tend to find their own particular boogeyman for the reasons Buffalo fails to grow and focus on a single issue. The problems are many and varied.

   To lay our problems solely at the foot of taxation and labor law is short sighted and pollyannaish. A little bit of positive thinking and cheerleading is a good thing.

   Think big time, be big time. If we want to advertise what a woeful god damned place Buffalo is and how miserably difficult it is to conduct business here, guess what? People begin to believe it.
4. B says:

   April 23, 2006 at 3:56 pm

   1.) We’ve never made a full effort to recuit them.

   “Them” are not stupid; they analyze relevant factors when deciding where to locate their investments even when they are recruited. There was a big effort to recruit British Areospace for an aircraft plant last year (Schumer, Slaughter, Pataki etc.) and WNY didn’t make even the first cut (four southern states were finalists). Rich Products actually threw previously awarded incentive money back at NYS a few years ago and chose to expand a plant in Tenessee instead of on Niagara St as they initially had planned, citing in great detail the relatively higher costs of doing business in NY state as the reason. And that’s a privately held co with unusually strong ties to this area but even they blew us off. Sure, “recruitment” can have a few victories here and there (such as Geico with Bflo News guy lobbying Buffet) – but these have very small effects compared to economic growth in other cities close to our size. Better than nothing, ok, but it won’t stop our shrinking here or of upstate in general.

   2.) …With the cost of doing business in major markets at an all time high, companies are finding value in distributed and flexible office locations due to the efficiencies of the network.

   Agreed, but even when Buffalo is cheaper than NYC/Chicago/Boston, our real competition is the Charlottes, Phoenixes, Nashvilles of the world. ClientLogic ended up moving most of their Buffalo operations to Nashville as I recall. And it seems everyone has a neighbor, cousin, and classmate who moved to Carolinas. Reason is not that people from those places are better “talkers” at recruiting companies to invest down there.

   To lay our problems solely at the foot of taxation and labor law is short sighted and pollyannaish.

   I’m not aware of anyone who’s saying “solely”. But if you change “solely” to “primarily”, then perhaps we’d disagree(?)