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Suburban
Renewal
 As
the race for Mayor of Buffalo heats up, it’s good to know
that the man who currently holds that seat has not forgotten
his friends – you know, the people who have helped make his
dream of turning Buffalo around a reality.
So
it was with some sense of smug satisfaction that Tony Masiello
announced that Rocco Termini and Carl Paladino were winners
in the Buffalo Urban Renewal Agency’s downtown real estate
sweepstakes. The total dollar amount in tax breaks and goodies
was not specified and BURA did not return our calls, but we
trust that it was generous.
Termini
converted the Holling Press building to apartments after Holling
Press was driven out of town by the horrendous Convention
Center atrocity. He will now rehab the Buffalo Alternative
High School on Oak St.
As
for Paladino, his firm Ellicott Development Co. beat out a
design by Norstar Development for a waterfront development.
Paladino’s project is geared towards wealthier tenants paying
rents over $2,000 per month. Norstar’s proposal would have
provided housing units affordable to middle class tenants.
This calls to mind the Berger’s building project which also
featured Paladino’s luxury suite plan beating out Landmark
Development’s proposal for moderately priced units.
While
there can be no doubt that the downtown housing market is
on the up tick, if one looks more closely it becomes clear
that the model is not based on traditional city living, but
on a series of self-enclosed, gated communities for the wealthy.
You might call the master plan Fortress Buffalo, or Clarence-By-the-Sea.
It mirrors the cater-to-the-wealthy public policy that has
pretty much taken over American political culture. Why flee
the city for the suburbs, when we can bring the suburbs to
the city?
Of
course this gets the approval of The Buffalo News. “All of
these projects are designed to bring more people downtown
to work, live and shop,” one News editorial read. “They reflect
a key part of a Queen City Hub plan to build and knit together
the central business district and its surrounding neighborhoods.”
The
Roswell Park campus does not “mesh” with the nearby fruit
belt, the Skyway walls off the waterfront, and the construction
of a casino will only increase the problems of situating an
upper class playground in the midst of a culture of poverty
and despair. But hey, at least there will be “cranes in the
sky.”
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