This is How the Greater Western New York Region Should Respond If Amazon Picks Another Option

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If you haven’t heard by now, Amazon wants to build a second headquarters somewhere else, preferably in the USA. Many pundits believe, since it’s already on the West Coast (Seattle), it only makes sense to place the new headquarters somewhere in the eastern half of the nation. Forbes, on the other hand, believes the top five most likely cities are Atlanta, Austin, Toronto, Pittsburgh, and Boston.

The good news is Rochester and Buffalo have finally realized they’re on the same team and, rather than each placing a competing bid as originally considered, will be joining together in one unified Greater Western New York bid. This is significant. Here’s why.Continue Reading “This is How the Greater Western New York Region Should Respond If Amazon Picks Another Option”

A Whole Greater than the Sum of Its Parts

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Now that we’ve marked the boundaries of Greater Western New York, the fun really begins. First, we can delineate the counties included. Greater Western New York contains 17 counties. These represent all the counties west of or touching the correct Pre-Emption Line. Those counties are:

● Allegany             ● Chautauqua
● Cattaraugus      ● Chemung
● Erie                    ● Genesee
● Livingston          ● Monroe
● Niagara              ● Ontario
● Orleans              ● Seneca
● Schuyler            ● Steuben            ● Wayne               ● Wyoming            ● Yates

We should note that Pre-Emption Line marks the western border of both Seneca County (maybe, depending on who owns Seneca Lake) and Chemung County. The Line slices through the counties of Wayne, Yates and Schuyler. As it stands, the eastern borders of Wayne, Seneca, Schuyler and Chemung form a fairly straight line from Lake Ontario to the Pennsylvania line. OK, maybe it’s not quite straight enough to convince an officer you’re not unduly influenced, but it’s close enough.

What exactly does this constellation of the 17 western-most counties of New York State tell us? I discovered this particular hidden gem while preparing for a January 2004 Continue Reading “A Whole Greater than the Sum of Its Parts”

A New Metric for Elected Officials

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Quick, off the top of your head, what is the fourth (soon to be third) largest city in New York State? I’ll give you a hint. It’s not Syracuse.

FortuneCover1951.07_Made_in_Buffalo_300G. Scott Thomas wrote a story (“Buffalo slips to 70th in city population,” Business First, November 22, 2010) that both concisely states the problem and suggests the single most important metric we should hold elected officials accountable for.

But first, the story, and how it defines the problem.

Some, as the Business First article intimates, say Buffalo hit its highpoint in 1900 when it ranked as the 8th largest city in the nation. This figure, however, misleads. The nation had not yet quite filled itself out and some of the western cities were just getting started. These western cities had natural growth advantages and one could argue the 1900 ranking placed Buffalo too high.

The more accurate apex would be July 1951, when Fortune magazine featured “Made Continue Reading “A New Metric for Elected Officials”

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