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As we love census statistics, new demographic data and the sociology behind it all, we found today's NY Times article about the exodus of young adults from upstate New York fascinating. There are many examples of people leaving areas like Troy, Buffalo and Syracuse for greener pastures like Tampa - there's a picture of a born-in-upstate couple in their beautiful Florida home (that looks like an indoor swimming pool!). But towards the end of the article, there's hope of an upswing - and this quote:
In the Rochester area, Andrew Allen's older sister, Laura Jeanne Hammond, 26, returned to her hometown after graduating in 2001 from the University of Missouri with a journalism degree. She was hired as managing editor of Next Step Magazine, which is distributed in school guidance offices, and also founded a social group, Rochester-Area 20-Somethings. "My friends escaped to New York City for a life of poverty and I bought a house and started a family," she said.Eh, different strokes for different folks. And another woman in the article left Rochester for Albany "after becoming a victim of several minor crimes," so no one can tell us Rochester is that great.
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While NYC can make you poor in the pocketbook, its culture, character and soul will make your life richer than anywhere else in the world.
"there's a picture of a couple who grew up in upstate in their beautiful Tampa home (that looks like an indoor swimming pool!)."
yet another incomprehensible post
I'm from Rochester and live there now...I rather be living poor in the greatest city in the world than living comfy in a city I feel okay in.
NYC's cultural richness does not help anybody out in case of a financial catastrophe. I often wonder what my life would be like had I chosen to live somewhere less expensive (meaning: pretty much anywhere else).
rochester is the greatest city in the world?!?!?!?! have you even been to any other cities in the world?
Before you jump to a conclusion about that indoor swimming pool, be aware that most people who want to sit outside during the buggy season, January-December, usually have a lanai, a fully enclosed screened-in patio behind their homes to keep the creepy-crawley things away. And did I mention 'gators in the nearby bodies of water?
Sign me "Happy to live near the greatest city on earth."
I love upstate NY and would consider living there but for the lack of jobs.
I'm from a small town about an hour north of Albany, and most of my friends and classmates fled upstate NY for greener pastures shortly after college. It's a beautiful, place, yes, but there's absolutely. nothing. to do.
Not to mention the lack of jobs. Most of upstate NY's manufacturing base has fled as well (for Mexico, India, you name it), and the economy has suffered as a result. My town has had numerous paper mills and paper-manufacturing related offices close in the past decade. It is essentially becoming a service-based economy, but I wonder what will sustain it for much longer.
Yes, it's expensive to live in NYC, but the earning potential is much greater as well. The jobs (and jobs with good pay) simply don't exist up there.
I came to New York from the whitebread suburbs of Albany. I'll take poverty here over easy access to good hot wings and garbage bread any day. Besides, since Dinosaur BBQ opened on 127th St., the only thing transplanted upstaters lack are Freihoffers cookies and Stewarts ice cream.
This is a photography joke but most of you will get it (and I'll put an explanation at the end):
Q: Why is Kodak's Headquarters in Rochester, NY?
A: Because the sky is always 18% Gray.
(18% Gray is a measure used by light meters in cameras to detect correct exposure; there are cards printed at 18% gray (which means 18% black to 82% white ratio, so it is a light dull gray).
Having had to visit Rochester any number of times, I remember seeing sunlight for all of 1 hour...
I'd rather live anywhere but there. The best part about Rochester? It's only 3 1/2 hours from Toronto...
Mmmm... Freihoffer's...
Mmmm... Stewart's (especially their "Crumbs Along the Mohawk" flavor.. caramel ripples in graham cracker flavored ice cream).
Upstate is boring, has no jobs and no culture that can compete. Unless all 3 change somehow it will only continue.
Buffalo has just about anything, for any age group. Great bars, restaurants (tons better food than wings and beef on weck), theater (Saul Elkin is my hero), parks, its easy to get around (ok, so the subway goes from Main and Bailey to downtown in one straight line), there's a festival for every racial, ethnic, religious, sexual, animal, vegetable, or mineral group. There's great blues, jazz, and rock, a fantastic philharmonic with a great lady conductor. We have the 2nd largest attendance at an outdoor Shakespeare theater program-and its free (but, you don't have to waste a morning waiting for tickets, you just show up in Delaware Park). Yeah, we get snow, but so what? You either ski, hike in it, or grab a 6 pack and watch tv. And, we've already had 85+ days-summers here, are fantastic-lots of sun. There's fishing, Niagara Falls isn't that far off, Canada is just over there (hey, eh!), Toronto is just an hour and a half away. If you want to get out of the city, the highway system here is set up, so that 20 minutes or so from downtown, you can be looking at a cow, if you like rural areas. There's hills for skiing half an hour south of town. You can hunt for deer, bear, turkeys (besides Tom Reynolds), ducks, geese. Two Great Lakes, and Lake Chautauqua in our back yards. A casino on either side of the river, and one to come soon, in Buffalo. $700 will get you 2-3 large bedrooms/living room/kitchen/dining room, plus possibly a large porch or patio. Mortages aren't bad.
Ok...now, we just need jobs to replace the ones that have gone to Mexico.
BUFFALO??? HA! The only thing it has going for it is it is 2 1/2 hours to Toronto and 45 minutes to Rochester!!
There are some cute parts of Buffalo, but some of the bad parts of town were as dangerous and decrepit as a third-world city.
White flight, cheap labor in other parts of the country (and world), NYS tax insanity and bureaucracy -- all have come together in a perfect storm to slowly bleed upstate to death over the past 40 years. A pocket of economic stability or growth might be here or there, but it's a dreadful situation. If NYS didn't have NYC to fall back on for cash, we'd be West Virginia or Mississippi.
At least there is natural beauty and higher education to try to save upstate (SUNY, Cornell, Syracuse, U of Rochester, RIT, RPI).
I grew up in upstate in the Binghamton area.. Live in the city now, and can't imagine ever returing to live there.. No jobs a winter that runs from october to june, and nothing to do.. I'd rather be broke living on the 8th floor of a walkup in bushwick than move back upstate
Hey, as a former denizen of NYC who hightailed it upstate for cheap livin' (try a nice 3 bedroom house on 1/3 acre behind a farm for 149k!), I have to say that while NYC will always have my heart, Rochester's pretty endearing. What we lack in nightlife and avant garde art, we make up for in green space and Wegmans...
Shit, I totally forgot about Wegmans. So there are three things now that can save upstate -- Wegmans, universities, and nature.
I think the closest Weggies to NYC is in Woodbridge, NJ. It makes even Stew Leonard's look like a bodega.
Buffalo is a great city, if one could only find a job that isn't with a collections agency. Karen is completely right (although I doubt that the casino downtown, much like Bass Pro, will "save" Buffalo proper). Essentially, it's the little city that could. Too bad it's been so poorly mismanaged, decade after decade. That being said, there's a bit of rust belt pride that comes with being from Buffalo; you see so much potential, as it does, in fact, have a fairly decent arts scene (not to mention the cheap rent, amazing architecture and 4am closing time). Like the Sabres, it is very much the underdog, and probably will be unless the city seriously gets its act together with the economy and jobs (I recently had to move to the South as I couldn't find anything worthwhile in the area).
As an upstate transplant myself (Utica) I am aware of the conflict. The basis for the economy crumbled. The main employer was the public sector government jobs. But there still was a lot to recommend it--there was a vibrant ethnic presence with lots of great restaurants. There was beautiful landscapes--mixed in with power lines and ruined farms (which are beautiful in their own way, I think). Lots of history. If I could have had solid employment in the field I chose, I would have stayed. But it isn't there. And now today, the big box chains are moving in. They're about to cut a major portion of the apple orchard I used to go to in the fall to pick apples and drink cider when I was small---to put in a Lowe's department store. When there's one not 10 miles away on the newly installed superhighway. The place has changed--its cast its lot with the retail economy, which I think is disastrous. The govt. taxpayer funded jobs don't put more revenue into the area than they siphon off, and the retail jobs don't contribute either.
I might mention that the crime rate is pretty deplorable. I might also mention that the majority of murders are drug-related--and, curiously, involve people from Brooklyn shooting a Utican or another person from Brooklyn.
As a former Rochesterian (38 years) who loves living in New York City (9 years), I know that both places have their attributes. But I can't understand why New Yorkers, of all people, feel they need to bash Upstate cities to prove NYC's superiority.
London? Paris? Rome? Okay. But... Rochester? You're not even comparing apples to oranges here; you're comparing apples to Volkswagons.
Thank you Brightliner for clarifying that point :)
Don't get me wrong, I looooooooooove Rochester, I don't think NY Metro is better than it, in fact if I were pursuing something, like teaching or something in healthcare, I would be fine here, but I'm not.
And because I'm not, I'd much prefer to live in a dinky ass overpriced apartment with a roommate who might smell (your little faults New York, just remember that) to get the opportunity to do the things I can do while I'm living there.
And by the way, there be plenty to do here, I think Rochester has a festival every weekend during the months of May and October.
No need to trash your hometowns while you're in the city. New York's horrible liveability index will send most of you people back home soon enough.
Actually, NY Sun had an article a while back saying that New York is losing tons of people too. The Democrats keep pushing for more and more taxes, and most young New Yorkers are too concerned with the latest bar openings and reading tabloids to even question anything. It's amazing how little New Yorkers know about the goings-on in Albany and how they're getting raped in the income tax department. I never understand how a town can complain so much about being broke, yet cry foul whenever anyone brings up tax cuts just because they're so scared of rich people reaping ANY benefits. They'd rather screw themselves financially by fighting tax cuts than allow anything that benefits rich people.
Most Gothamist readers don't know sh!t about politics, let alone state and city politics. People should start reading the Politicker and get a clue.
I went to U of R for college, and I really fell in love with the city. (I'm a NY native.)
Rochester could be amazing if they found a way to revitalize the economy. It's got a great arts community, excellent colleges, and is generally a cool place--if you know what to look for.
I miss Rochester a lot. I wouldn't move back there because most of my friends are down here, but I often think about what I could do to raise it up to what I know it can be.
There was an interesting NY Times article a few months ago about how Hillary Clinton used some of her clout to nudge the Chinese to drop some tarrif on fiber optic gear that helped out Corning. Obviously, Corning directs their political money her way. It would have been nice if her husband hadn't steered money for a particle collider away from Cornell and toward Stanford for entirely political reasons. Cornell's proposal was $100 million less.
why oh why are you all trying to convince the handful of 20-somethings who havent yet moved to ny that they should? you should be happy to read about people deciding to make homes from themselves elsewhere- now if that trend would only continue...
Who can tell me where I can get a Garbage Plate in NYC? And when is Wegmans opening here?
I lived in rochester for awhile. everyone encouraged the youth to stick around and revitalize the city. so I did. then, it took six months to find any sort of job, and once I had, I was layed off in two months. said fuck it and came here.
all the propaganda in the world can't hide the fact that upstate is sinking deeper each year. which is a shame, because it can be a wonderful place, although somewhat regressive. lovely for a weekend trip.
when it's snowing in Rochester, or even when it's warm, you can get good BBQ and go watch great films at the George Eastman House 6 nights a week for $5 a pop. It's one of the best places to watch the best films in the world. They often screen stuff before it's released in NYC. Plus they show nitrate films!
hmm, what is worse: a blizzard or a hurricane? hard to say
but if you live upstate, the best nearby "real city" is toronto!
As a recent transplant from NYC to Buffalo, let me just say that nothing pisses me off more than hearing this "Buffalo has great restaurants" meme. Buffalo has restaurants ranging from awful to OK. I'd trade a single block of Smith Street for the entire cityload of eateries here.
Buffalonians just aren't used to good food.
Even the blue collar stuff that you'd expect might be OK - say, pizza - absolutely blows. Last visit to NYC, I started tearing up in my old neighborhood pizzeria.
On the upside, the housing prices are insanely low. I traded a 2 bedroom apartment in Bklyn for, let's see, a seven bedroom, three story house, circa 1900 but mint condition, in the best neighborhood - and it cost 1/3 of what I sold my apartment for.
And Wegmans is OK - if you like crowds - but the Lexington Co-op is the one thing that I've found here that I'd actually miss if I moved back to NYC. Convenience of a bodega, but fancy-ass organics, prepared-foods, etc...
I was born and raised in Queens, but my parents moved up to Orange County, NY when I was 14 because they wanted a bigger house and better high school for me.
the only thing I miss from the city is the subway for only 2 bucks instead of Metro-North which costs $11.50 one way to GCT! the 2003 25-30% rike hike killed it
I was born and raised in Rochester, and in my early 20's, thought moving to a major city was a good idea. Wrong-o. I moved back here 4 years later, and don't plan on leaving anytime soon. While major cities have their charms, there's no place like home.
If WEgman's is too crowded, try Tops. Better yet, if there's a Top's International near you try that.
I agree, Western NY (God, we HATE being called Upstate-to us, thats Westchester to Albany, Syracuse to Rochester is Central, The Adirondacks is, well, Adirondack, and there's the Southerntier), is loosing big time. Jobs, people, resources. NAFTA didn't help anything-a lot of our manufacturing and chemical jobs-mostly blue collar-went to Mexico or China, and a lot of those jobs were located in smaller towns, and were the mainstay of those places. Now it seems that we are going to become reliant on seasonal agricultural or serice work, in a lot of areas. Bass Pro is not going to save Buffalo or its empty waterfront. Casinos only worsen things for some people-those who think they can get lucky, and triple the pay check at the slots or tables.
On one hand, this is my home. My family has been here for generations. I love the weather, the closeness to areas I like to visit but don't want to live in, I want to see WNY grow as profitable as it was, 120 years ago. I want to see people succeed. On the other hand...If I get a better offer somewhere else, its going to be a tough decision, and either way, I'm probably going to have a lot of regrets.
I grew up in Rochester (go Wilson Wildcats!) and have lived in NYC since 1994. I have made my home in Brooklyn for most of those years now. Rochester isn't that bad, it's the people! It's really difficult being a progressive person of color in a very conservative city. There are so many things to do: museums, festivals, nature, history, etc. It's just too bad that the public school system sucks and that it is cold 9 months out of the year. I truly miss Wegmans, Abbott's, and white hots! Luckily, I still get my Rochester jones on a few times a year when I go and visit mama!
19th ward in the house! Rochesterians will know what that means.
i did my undergrad at the university of rochester. then i spent a few years in nyc. i recently moved back to rochester for many reasons. i can afford a house, not an apt share with 2 roommates. i don't have to deal with insane people everyday on the street and subways. the smells. nyc smells like ass. especially during the summer. don't get me wrong, i loved my time there, but i've now checke that box.
how am i making rochester better? by opening a store here that's a mix of st. marks bookshop/other music/kid robot/design within reach/kate's paperie. but really - just take the best parts of all those places.
Rochester, although located in a great area (hell, 25 minutes from downtown, you're out in the country or woods) is not being managed properly. The Fast Ferry, Brown's Race, High Falls, none have really succeeded. Rochester's management would like to make something really succeed in the downtown area and make it vibrant again, but it's always seemed like they haven't been paying attention to what folks want.
For those of you who love Rochester, great. I lived there for years, and moved to Brooklyn just under two years ago. There's things I miss, but I've learned to compensate and appreciate what's here.
NYC has been more enriching, more fun, more entertaining -- even though it's not a city I'll ultimately make home. Eventually I'll move again, but it won't be back up to Rochester. Western NY is, in essence, becoming a dim shell of what it once was -- and I doubt it'll become prosperous again anytime soon.
Rochester is a great place to live. If you think it's boring come live in Raleigh NC for 11 years and see what you think! Raleigh might have a warmer climate and better job market, but it's a transient peice of shit. Nobody knows anyone that lives within a mile radious of them, there's no sense of coumminity and all of the neighborhoods are nothing but cookie-cutter charecterless houses that all look the same. Rochester is awsome and don't bash it just because it's not as big as NYC. I'm moving back to Rochester within the year and looking very forward to it. I can BUY an 1800 square foot house in Rochester and still have a thriving arts scene, beautiful architecture in close knit, community oriented neighborhoods for the same amount of money I would have to spend to live in a 400 sq foot shithole apartment with the rats in NYC. But gee, I sure would have satisfaction in knowing that I was in "the greatest city on earth"..... give me a break. Upstate is more than cornfields, bumpkins, and depressed towns and cities..... A LOT more.