Phoenix versus Buffalo [The Real Estate Economy]

November 15th, 2006 by | Filed under NVPC, Real estate, no additives or antibiotics.

There’s a debate raging in the forum below about the housing and lifestyle merits of Phoenix versus Buffalo. The two are inverse mirrors of each other: the city of Buffalo has lost almost half of its 600,000 residents in the post-war period. The Buffalo-Niagara region as a whole, which is 1.2 million people today, was one of only two major metros in the U.S. that lost population during the booming 1990s. Meanwhile, Phoenix has more than doubled in the past two decades.

You know something’s off when the scary-sounding National Vacant Properties Campaign (NVPC) decides to make your city its poster-child, and that is what’s happening tomorrow with Buffalo. NVPC is actually a coalition of private foundations like Ford and non-profits that estimates 15 percent of Buffalo’s structures are vacant and that more than 40 percent of them are outright abandoned — a higher rate than in any other Rustbelt city. Talk about a vulture play — the NVPC’s slogan is “creating opportunity from abandonment.”

I just got off the phone with the lead author of the “Blueprint Buffalo” they’re releasing tomorrow, Joe Schilling of Virginia Tech’s Metropolitan Institute. The 100-page plan outlines the biggest revitalization program in the U.S. since the Bronx in the 1980s.

Schilling says that it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars over several years but a lot of that money can be re-directed from existing programs. “What struck me while doing this research is that there’s already a lot of funding available so why doesn’t anything get done? There are 120 agencies and programs in there, and it’s simply overwhelming for a policy maker.”

Schilling says the first priority is to “contain and clean up” the existing blight. Who wants to buy in areas that look like a dump? Over the past decade, the report says, Buffalo has already spent $30 million demolishing 4,500 vacant buildings. The state’s 2007 budget earmarks another $10 million to take out 3,000 more. Expect some serious federal fudning to kick in now that Democrats from New York have the strongest presence in the House and Senate in decades.

Here are some highlights from the Buffalo v. Phoenix debate from the comment thread below:

I moved from Phoenix back to Buffalo NY - while the summers have become warmer in Phoenix (global warming), the winters here are much milder - I couldn’t take the heat anymore, when I left it was 102 on Thanksgiving.

FYI - average home price in Buffalo is under 100k

- Patrick

I checked the National Weather Service keeping records since 1890, it has never been 102 in Phoenix on Thanksgiving. Avg temp is 78 and low 56 why fabricate. If you like upstate NY fine, but we lived in Denver where the elevation is 5,000 feet at 95 it feels 115 (July-Aug). i’ll take 105 in Phoenix and 8% humidity any day over summers in the East especially. Or FYI we are in our convertible last night in North Scottsdale 71 and the sunset is awesome did you ride in a conv LAST NIGHT???

- Tom

LETS SEE, IF I WIN THE LOTTO THE FIRST PLACE I WANT TO MOVE IS BUFFALO NY??? BTW, i also checked the record books and the all time high ever in Phoenix was 89 in Nov. and the avg is 71, so why not tell the truth?

Posted by: Kathy F

I moved to Phoenix from Buffalo about 2 years ago. While they both have their advantages and disadvantages, I have to say I do miss Buffalo. I had a three bedroom house with a pool for $87,000 in the village of Kenmore. I now have a one bedroom condo that I paid $168,000 for last year. Plus I can’t even get the Sunday paper, because my neighbors keep stealing it. In Buffalo, yes there is a lot of snow, but dealing with it brought us together as a community. There would be many mornings that I wake up and my sidewalk was already shoveled by one of my many wonderful neighbors. I have yet to find that many wonderful people in such a big city as Phoenix.

- Chuck