Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Rust Belt 2.0

Cleveland, Erie, Youngstown, and Pittsburgh all have at least some blogger interest in meeting and perhaps in collaboration. Either the Buffalo bloggers run in different circles, or we have failed to inspire them. I mention Buffalo because the rest of us on board have not done any behind the scenes e-mailing, at least to which I'm privy. I'll try linking to some appropriate Buffalo blogs in order to garner attention.

A post about beer in Buffalo catches my eye. What Bruce Katz is doing at Brookings is also of interest in Buffalo. Maybe Buffalo doesn't quite fit in our ad hoc region, instead more oriented towards global city Toronto instead of the Chi-Pitts Mega Region. Then again, Pittsburgh may be the odd city out since it can't claim to be part of "America's North Coast." Of course, I'm certain that all of us share a concern about city shrinkage and the resulting diaspora.

4 comments:

Buffalopundit said...

Hey! The linking got my attention. I've checked out a few Erie, PA blogs, but haven't really ventured further afield to the west.

I think the Buffalo blogs that bother with politics and economic issues generally gravitate east to other, similarly situated upstate NY cities, as well as toxic Albany politics.

But tell me more, because all of these rust belt cities have similar issues.

buffalopundit [at] gmail.com

Schultz said...

Pittsburgh resident and member of Buffalo diaspora here. First, I have to go on the record to state that Beef on Weck is way better than anything you can get at Primanti Brothers. Anytime I go up to WNY to visit family I make sure to stop at two staples: Mighty Taco and Charlie the Butcher's.

Unfortunatley, besides some local sports blogs and the great blog Fix Buffalo Now, there doesn't seem to be as many widely read blogs in Buffalo as there are in here in Pittsburgh. The Buffalo economy is one of the few comparatively sized cities that I can say is worse off than Pittsburgh's, and the taxes may even be higher in Western NY than they are here in South Western PA.

It is good to see some positive things happening in the city of Buffalo - the demolition of all of those houses is a great start. Despite all of the negatives I'm heading back there in two weeks to visit family and I cannot wait.

Schultz said...

BTW, Buffalo Pundit - cool blog. I will mark you as the 2nd Buffalo blog on my Google Reader subscriptions.

Christopher Byrd said...

I once called Pittsburgh home in the late 80s...lived in the North Hills and Millvale...

I run a personal blog...

indabuff.com

And...

An activist site/blog...

broadwayfillmorealive.org BFA is trying to breathe new life into my old Buffalo neighborhood...one of the things we embrace is the emergence of an Arab neighborhood in part of what used to be Buffalo's Polonia...in a lot of ways they are doing what my Polish ancestors did on Buffalo's East Side by establish a community for themselves...doctors...engineers...etc...rehabbing old homes and building new ones...we have also seen an influx of Vietnamese taking root in the neighborhood...I think attracting immigrants to parts of Buffalo that have been losing population is key to helping revive our wonderful city...please count me in...