A funny thing happened on the way to researching my book 50 Hidden Gems of Greater Western New York. For years I had been trying to explain to people just 
what exactly I meant by “Greater Western New York.” From a regional mutual fund’s perspective, it was easy. The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires all regional funds to specify the municipalities covered by the fund. In the case where a fund’s region encompasses only a portion of a state, the fund’s prospectus must list all the counties included in its unique definition of the region covered. Like I said, from the SEC’s standpoint, defining Greater Western New York was easy.
Beyond that, though, I had to justify why we chose those particular counties. This was especially important because we market the fund only to New York residents, specifically, Western New York residents. And the folks we consider “Western” New York residents don’t necessarily consider themselves “western.” Or, in the case of those in the Buffalo-Niagara metropolitan area, they don’t consider Continue Reading “We Preempt Westward American Expansion for…”
A Royal Mess Of Competing Colonial Charters
Or so it would appear.
Greater Western New York had been claimed many times before it was ever governed. European powers declared it theirs, and when Britain removed its rivals, the claims didn’t disappear—they multiplied. Now they came from within, as competing colonial charters layered atop one another. At one point, no fewer than five colonies claimed the region.
Yet, not one ever truly governed it.
Authority did not collapse at the forest’s edge. It contradicted itself at the source.
Long before a single settler felled a tree in Western New York, the kings of England were Continue Reading “A Royal Mess Of Competing Colonial Charters”