New York routinely neglects the center
New York’s capital would be a better city if the uptown University at Albany campus had been built differently. If you’ve been to Burlington, Vt., or Madison, Wis., you may know what I mean. With universities close to downtown, those cities have collegiate energy
that’s largely missing in Albany, where the early-1960s decision to place a SUNY campus on the Guilderland border limited the possibility for spinoff vibrancy.
Like the adjacent Harriman complex of state offices, the uptown SUNY campus is an island. It has plenty of room for cars and massive parking lots, but it lacks the collegiate commercial strip enjoyed by students at other universities. It isn’t well integrated into the city.
From an economic development perspective, it’s fair to
view the school’s placement and design as a mistake, albeit not unique to Albany. New York built island campuses across upstate, including in Buffalo, where the University at Buffalo is mostly in suburban Amherst. Well, what’s done is done. Perhaps. Except there’s little evidence the state has learned from those errors. When massive infrastructure opportunities come along, New York’s honchos still often think building on the outskirts is the better choice.
The GlobalFoundries campus in Malta is an example. With $1.2 billion in state incentives on the table, New York perhaps should have insisted that the project started in 2009 be built on abandoned urban land — in North Albany, say. Instead, the chip plant was built in a forest 30 miles north of downtown Albany.
All that state money has undeniably encouraged urban sprawl. It has boosted the economy and housing prices in Saratoga County, which was thriving before the investment. But has it done anything to help the impoverished urban neighborhoods left behind by generations of neglect?
If so, it isn’t obvious.
The new Buffalo Bills stadium is another example. Under the deal negotiated by Gov. Kathy Hochul, New York and Erie County will invest more than $1 billion for the construction and maintenance of a stadium built in the relatively affluent suburb of Orchard Park, across the street from the team’s existing home.
For the Bills, the financial advantages are clear. Since nearly everyone will have to drive to the stadium, the Bills can charge fans to park in surrounding lots. Since there will be few nearby stores and restaurants, the team and Delaware North Cos., its longtime food and retail vendor, don’t have to worry about outside competition.
But those shouldn’t be the state’s priorities.
If the stadium is going to consume so much public money, Hochul should demand that it be built to leverage the investment. The project should encourage spinoff development and vibrancy in a city that, like others in upstate New York, has one of the nation’s highest rates of childhood poverty. It should build on prior infrastructure and public transportation investments, instead of ignoring them.
That’s the argument being made by the Buffalo NAACP and the group Bills in Buffalo. They say jobs associated with the project should be accessible to the people who need them. They say that the project should be about more than football and that it should build on progress already made in Buffalo.
“Putting the stadium in the city was the next logical move,” said Ryan Miller, a Bills in Buffalo member who sees the planned placement of the stadium as another in a line of errors that includes putting the University at Buffalo in Amherst. “It’s just such a missed opportunity in terms of helping this city realize its potential.”
So far, the argument is falling on deaf ears. The Hochul administration seems determined to repeat old mistakes.
“We seem not to be able to make far-sighted decisions on these big infrastructure projects,” said Gene Bunnell, a retired University at Albany professor of urban planning who is writing a book on Buffalo’s attempted comeback.
“It’s a disservice to put the stadium in Orchard Park, given that putting it in the city will have a much more beneficial effect,” Bunnell added, noting that the stadium decision, like some other big planning errors, is being made hurriedly and without public input.
Of course, the argument against a Buffalo stadium is that it would likely be more expensive and would certainly be more complicated. It would be harder. The counter-argument is that these opportunities are rare, and we have an obligation to make the most of them — even if doing so takes a little more time, effort and money.
No, a stadium in Buffalo wouldn’t be a panacea for all the city’s many problems, and as Albany’s Empire State Plaza proves, downtown investment done poorly can also be fruitless.
But tossing away a billion dollars for a project with such limited potential is a terrible mistake. A state that doesn’t learn from mistakes of the past doesn’t encourage hope for the future.