Albany
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Buffalo
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Binghamton
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Newburgh
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Poughkeepsie
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Rochester
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Saratoga Springs
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Schenectady
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Syracuse
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Troy
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Watertown
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In other words...... the nice part of the state! ;)

Fantastic pictures! :)

no utica? :(

these pics make me homesick. excellent tour.

A bigger Connecticut.

thanks for showing us pictures of houses instead of the usual downtown high-rise buildings. new york state is a treasure trove for historic preservationists. do you have any more photos of other ny communities?

I want to see some pics of Trumansburg in particular. My grandpa used to tell me about that town and how it was named after our family, but it was sevearly mispelled (mom's maiden name is Tremaine; the village was originally called "Tremaines Village", after my great great however many greats going back to the 1790's Grandpa Abner Tremaine). He passed away a few weeks ago while we were visiting and I was going through some old stuff and found out from some letter from 1902 that it really was true! I want to see what that town looks like! I found it on a map and it is in Tompkins County NW of Ithaca, right in the heart of the Fingerlakes.

Niiiice! Never knew Albany looked that nice. The other cities as well have nice architecture.

NYC is New York state. Simple as that.

NYC is New York state. Simple as that.

yes, and toledo is a suburb of michigan.

NYC is New York state. Simple as that.

And Toledo is the rectum of Detroit.

And Toledo is the rectum of Detroit.

Now come on, I didn't mean to piss in your cereal.

Wow, Albany is looking very nice!

yes, and toledo is a suburb of michigan.

Very true, most of the "other" Ohioans thinks that Toledo is the second largest city in the state of Michigan.

i actually hold toledo in high regard, it offers quite a bit for a metro its size.
i just thought that your NYC IS NYS comment to be pretty darn ignorant(i hope you were kidding). you might find that without new york city, new york state has quite a bit in common with both ohio and michigan.

i actually hold toledo in high regard, it offers quite a bit for a metro its size.
i just thought that your NYC IS NYS comment to be pretty darn ignorant(i hope you were kidding). you might find that without new york city, new york state has quite a bit in common with both ohio and michigan.

I certainly hope you think I'm kidding. I agree with your NY (minus NYC) comment to Ohio and Michigan. But the whole underlying point I was trying to make is..shame on the Chamber of NY, businesses and other entities for promoting the state of NY with the image of NYC as many of us outside of NY think of the state just relating to the city only.

Perhaps promoting the Adirondack, Niagra, Finger lakes, Upper Hudson River, Hamptons, cities such as Buffalo, Rochester, Albany, and many other amentities gives NY a strong distinct flavor despite of the over-promotion of NYC.

Now I will go back to the rectum part of Detroit (aka Toledo).

i visited toledo... much worse than any NY city pictured in this thread

i visited toledo... much worse than any NY city pictured in this thread

Now no one's knocking off the cities of NY--lord lay off the comments toward Toledo. I'm guessing the heat wave is getting you all whoosey.

Nice pics, :cheers1: I like the rest of New York better than NYC.

Lower taxes?

West Virginia

West Virginia

http://209.85.12.232/html/emoticons/blink.gif http://209.85.12.232/html/emoticons/blink.gif

Unfortunately, getting rid of NYC will still leave us with the Pessimistic Psychotic Downer of Rochester known as "Susie". (a.k.a the Tokyo Rose of Western New York) and her little toady "Fprmer".

West Virginia

West Virginia has some of the best small cities in the country... Wheeling, Charleston, Huntingdon are all small urban gems.

My Thoughts Exactly!!! Don't forget Morgantown. Plus some awesome scenery just like we have with Letchworth State Park.

Nice photo thread.

There was an article in today's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette about Letchworth... I went there when I was 12 and was blown away by the gorge and waterfalls... I can't believe that park isn't known by everyone in the Eastern US...

NY is such a huge state. People from the west coast don't grasp that. I've gotten tired over the years explaining that Buffalo is very far from NYC while actually much closer to Canada and Toronto.

At least you aren't in the south; if you tell someone you are from New York you are automaticaly in the worst category of the "damn yankees". And if you say "Western New York", they think you are talking about the upper west side or something. I've said upstate ny a few times and they don't really seem to grasp that conept down here. Many people really do think that New York City takes up the whole state.

What's the Albany neighborhood with the cool stores and restaurants?

NYC is New York state. Simple as that.


Example of a product of the US education system. Who was the first president?

When I'm out of town and mention I'm from Buffalo, I often get a response like I just said I'm from NYC. As if Buffalo is another burough or something.

They're usually surprised when I say buffalo is closer to Detroit than it is to NYC. And they usually don't know Buffalo is right next to Niagara Falls either.

Geography lessons ensue. :)

Then of course sometimes I get a complete opposite reaction (and equally wrong) that Buffalo is a tiny town with no density. One girl kept saying "what do you mean "Downtown Buffalo"... is there a city in Buffalo?"

I'm not kidding.

Thereare three things most everyone knows. Bills, snow, chicken wings- that's it.

i have actually heard people refer to our wonderful neighbor on our northern boundary as "canadia," presumably because canadians come from there. some people think that "canadia" is somewhere in upstate ny, but they aren't sure. there is something in fast food that is making people stupid as well as obese.

They're usually surprised when I say buffalo is closer to Detroit than it is to NYC.
Also closer to Philadelphia, as the crow flies anyways...i have actually heard people refer to our wonderful neighbor on our northern boundary as "canadia,"...
I've caught myself in that slip so many times, half the time I call it "Canadia" myself. Or "Canuckia". Not to be derogatory, I actually visited Canada today.

The worst though, by FAR, the one that should make everyone upstate's blood boil, is when people from the NYC metro area refer to Upstate NY as "country"....oooh, There are shitload of NYC transplants in "the triangle", (way more than people from WNY), and when they ask where I'm from (I have an accent that pretty much says I'm not from the south, but doesn't really have that great lakes twang anymore), I say, just to see if they (NYC'ers) know what it is' "Rochester", and they say.....oh, up in the country! At that time I feel like calling them damn yankees myself. lol

nice thread...Syracuse looks very nice.

Now no one's knocking off the cities of NY--lord lay off the comments toward Toledo. I'm guessing the heat wave is getting you all whoosey.

no really man...Toledo kinda sucks :sleepy:

my apoligies bonjour, i mistook your original post.
i think toledo alright, no disrespect here.

oh come on...Toledo is like a shitty Gary Indiana. lol

I'm just kidding, any city in the "rustbelt" is cool in my book

isn't it fun to pretend we could say another city sucks just because we wanted to? lol

Example of a product of the US education system. Who was the first president?

Um...George Washington???? :scouserd:

Nope; he was the first president under the new constitution, the real first president was technicaly John Hanson. (gotta love AP US History)

I'm just kidding, any city in the "rustbelt" is cool in my book

isn't it fun to pretend we could say another city sucks just because we wanted to? lol

You got me on the first and second post, and I was about to cringe and choke you to death. But since I read the third post, you just redeemed yourself. :)

Nope; he was the first president under the new constitution, the real first president was technicaly John Hanson. (gotta love AP US History)

I've never heard of John Hanson

Most haven't. But theoreticaly; he was the first president from 1781 until the constitution was drafted.

When I went to Toronto we went to a resturant and they noticed our Great Lakes accent and they asked were we were from. When we told them Buffalo, NY they said "O, you mean New York City. I bet it must have been along drive." and when we told told them everything about the location they were all pissed because they were wrong.

Speaking of accents, I my self do not have a great lake accent. I have a light Philly accent even though I have never lived there and a light souther accent again never lived lived in the south and a light canadian accent. The Philly and Canadian accent get stronger every year.

New York is looking great without NYC!

WZ1 you are back???

i'm gonna have to get out of the city and do a state tour!

ps. dont hate me, i just moved to this state... =)

When I went to Toronto we went to a resturant and they noticed our Great Lakes accent and they asked were we were from. When we told them Buffalo, NY they said "O, you mean New York City. I bet it must have been along drive." and when we told told them everything about the location they were all pissed because they were wrong.

Speaking of accents, I my self do not have a great lake accent. I have a light Philly accent even though I have never lived there and a light souther accent again never lived lived in the south and a light canadian accent. The Philly and Canadian accent get stronger every year.

That's pretty weird. Mine is sort of a combination of southern and great lakes. I still say " mahm" "haht", and all of that exaggerated a stuff occasionaly with some words; but I've also noticed myself sluring "i"'s like they do in the south...... once and a while a "mah" for "my" will slip out and I find I have a harder time saying things like "miles" correctly (comes out sounding almost like I'm saying mall). I'm hoping I'll return to how I naturally talked with the slight Great Lakes accent after I move back to Rochester.

WZ1 you are back???


Ya i was in the brig for questionable voting in the UPC.. :) hehe..

Most haven't. But theoreticaly; he was the first president from 1781 until the constitution was drafted.
Yeah, I read about that, I actually never learned that in school lol. There were several presidents under the Articles of Confederation, I think one every year. Got a list of the others?

Nope; that's just one random fact I remember hearing in class. lol

Nope; he was the first president under the new constitution, the real first president was technicaly John Hanson. (gotta love AP US History)

This was really interesting to me, so I had to check this out. However, I found this article, which makes me wonder if you're correct.

link: http://www.johnhanson.net/

excerpt: It is important to note here that John Hanson was NOT the 1st President of the United states of America under the Articles of Confederation. This claim is a MYTH created by Seymour Wemyss Smith writing a book called John Hanson - Our First President in 1932. Samuel Huntington was installed as the 1st President of the United States on March 2, 1781 an official ceremony in Philadelphia.

All of NYS's towns and cities have great urbanity in them, I'm impressed with Syracuse's urbanity.

In other words, if you took NYC out of NYS, you'd have one hell of a beautiful state, maybe even no tax problems. You'd also have Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse thriving economically, maybe.

Yeah, a lot of damn Yankees from here... ::looks around::

I have friends from upstate that think NYC is the only thing worthwhile in NYS, so they come down here and only further the prejudice, hahaha.

@ROC, I don't know if you should call downstaters that think Rochester is the country "damn Yankees". I think you should just call them "retarded".

That was a joke. I just say that because in NC. people with distincly northern accentrs; New York accents especially, often get referred to as "damn yankees".

if someone would say "damn yankees" I would say "I know, I hate the New York Yankees to."lol, i would love to see the reaction

i actually hold toledo in high regard, it offers quite a bit for a metro its size.
i just thought that your NYC IS NYS comment to be pretty darn ignorant(i hope you were kidding). you might find that without new york city, new york state has quite a bit in common with both ohio and michigan.


i spent a semester of school in michigan, tell me, what the fuck does new york have in common with ohio and michigan? maybe only WESTERN NY, certainly not points east. :ohno:

from nyc, raised in utica, which is in between syracuse and albany. its a very historic city, more new england in culture and appearance. dont forget folks, upstate is divided into its own regions itself. western new york should just be in ohio. thats the only part i find any similarities with the midwest. be more specific 'veryprotourism'. i would definitely not say nys has much in common with ohio and michigan, so specify, cause idk whether you mean buffalo or albany, which is two completely different things. the state divide should be syracuse, which is ironically the exact midpoint of buffalo and albany.

Ohio's major cities seem to be doing rather well - I wouldn't mind jumping off the sinking SS New York State myself.

i spent a semester of school in michigan, tell me, what the fuck does new york have in common with ohio and michigan? maybe only WESTERN NY, certainly not points east. :ohno:

perhaps you should learn a little more about the new york state west of the hudson.

no they have "NOTHING" in common. not coal and natural gas(southern tier), not textiles, and ceramics, and leather(cny), not grain handling(all of new york's cities), not lake shipping, not steel, not car parts, not having been settled originally by new englanders, not the similar housing styles, not the similar accents(west of the 'cuse anyhow), wow nothing in common at all!!! :dunno:

are you getting it yet? your comment was typical of the ignorance most new yaawkers have towards the rest of their state and towards america as a whole. "you mean upstate? where like yonkers?, what do you do up there, tip cows?"

spooky, i do agree with you that is utica is more new england than midwestern. however, i still tend to think it has more in common with the western region than it does with new york city.

A bigger Connecticut.




I co-sign that. Without NYC it's more rural, and sleepy-like (not dissing NY state). Like in CT , without Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, Stamford, it would be more rural, quiet and sleepylike. It seems more of a nature themed state, and some of those small towns look like places where you can just relax and get away from the hustle and bustle of cities.

I co-sign that. Without NYC it's more rural, and sleepy-like (not dissing NY state). Like in CT , without Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, Stamford, it would be more rural, quiet and sleepylike. It seems more of a nature themed state, and some of those small towns look like places where you can just relax and get away from the hustle and bustle of cities.

No shit! if you take out all cities in a state, you end up with nothing! Look at Wyoming, its just openness everywhere you look.

Ohio's major cities seem to be doing rather well - I wouldn't mind jumping off the sinking SS New York State myself.

Yes they are all humming right along - ssdc

http://www.cleveland.com/forums/braindrain/

A sample from their site (not my personal opinion):

The only thing Northeast Ohio is good for - geographic arbitrage.
I reside in Hudson and leave Cleveland every Monday morning to fly to other large cities to perform management consulting (Atlanta, NYC, Chicago, LA, etc.) and return on Thursday evenings. I get paid a “big city” salary and have the costs of a small Midwestern town. Work in Cleveland, HA! Every interview I had in the city I’d have to cut my salary between 25-50% and downtown Cleveland stinks. Might as well get my weekly fill of big city life and money and continue to play geographic arbitrage to the hilt

****************

As a general rule people from upstate NY seem to be of the opinion that the rest of the country is doing so much better than they are. I think this attitude is harmful and unfounded. I deal extensively with Upstate NY NE Ohio and Western Pa. There is not a great deal of difference in regards to the relative economic health of the area with the exceptions of Syracuse which is doing the best relative to the others and Rochester which is doing the worst. The difference between the rest seems to be that Pittsburgh unlike Cleveland or upstate NY does not dwell on it's past glories but is instead focused on building a brighter future. Perhaps this is a legacy from it's RenI and RenII days. Or perhaps a region's self esteem is based in large part upon how successful it's downtown core is?

perhaps you should learn a little more about the new york state west of the hudson.

no they have "NOTHING" in common. not coal and natural gas(southern tier), not textiles, and ceramics, and leather(cny), not grain handling(all of new york's cities), not lake shipping, not steel, not car parts, not having been settled originally by new englanders, not the similar housing styles, not the similar accents(west of the 'cuse anyhow), wow nothing in common at all!!! :dunno:

are you getting it yet? your comment was typical of the ignorance most new yaawkers have towards the rest of their state and towards america as a whole. "you mean upstate? where like yonkers?, what do you do up there, tip cows?"


The only part of New York that should be in the same breath as the Midwest in terms of comparison is Western. I dont know where you get off saying 'west of the hudson'. Thats ridiculous. You pass judgement too quickly saying im 'one of those' ignorant NYers. I was born in the city, and partly raised in Utica, which is in the Mohawk Valley, many sites to the Revolutionary War are there. There is far more similarities it has with NE than the......midwest? Im tired of seeing the generalization. You talk about the industry in upstate, yeah, its got as much in common with the midwest in that as any other rustbelt region, which STARTS in new england. might as well include that. :ohno: industry is the only similarity that holds water. As for the lake bullshit, thats only the western part, north of syracuse and watertown. Youre including Utica in your generalization, which is absurd. Have you ever been? Housing styles, lingo, culturally, geographically, historically...............midwest? :bash:
Yeah i got my boat right on the lakefront in Utica, lets add Albany to that too, hell why not the whole Mohawk Valley, the Adirondack and Catskill mountains, ya know its all midwest. :ohno:

The only part of New York that should be in the same breath as the Midwest in terms of comparison is Western. I dont know where you get off saying 'west of the hudson'. Thats ridiculous. You pass judgement too quickly saying im 'one of those' ignorant NYers. I was born in the city, and partly raised in Utica, which is in the Mohawk Valley, many sites to the Revolutionary War are there. There is far more similarities it has with NE than the......midwest? Im tired of seeing the generalization. You talk about the industry in upstate, yeah, its got as much in common with the midwest in that as any other rustbelt region, which STARTS in new england. might as well include that. :ohno: industry is the only similarity that holds water. As for the lake bullshit, thats only the western part, north of syracuse and watertown. Youre including Utica in your generalization, which is absurd. Have you ever been? Housing styles, lingo, culturally, geographically, historically...............midwest? :bash:
Yeah i got my boat right on the lakefront in Utica. :ohno:
Well... you did spend an ENTIRE SEMESTER in Michigan so I can see where you'd have a deep well of experience to base that off of.

To say points west of the hudson is absurd. Maybe points west of Syracuse.

spooky, i do agree with you that is utica is more new england than midwestern. however, i still tend to think it has more in common with the western region than it does with new york city.

i don't think utica physically resembles NYC but nothing remotely midwestern about it at all either. utica could pass for a typical new england city...albeit a really shitty one.

however, attitude and culturally, utica is probably the closest upstate city (outside of albany) to new york city.

Pewtica! My grandpa moved there from Spencerport 30 years ago when he got remarried after divorcing my Grandma. He left a dirty-blonde, fair-skinned, 160 lb. German; and is now a jet black haired (starting to get seirouly gray though), shade under a mexican, 300 lb Italian! (no kidding; obviously he didn't change nationalities, but he might as well have!)

300lb italian eh? mama mia! too many cannolis?

...utica could pass for a typical new england city...albeit a really shitty one.
Utica sort of reminds me of a Worcester or a Lowell, but one that doesn't have the coattails of a Boston to ride back to success. At least that's the impression I get, as someone who really hasn't spent any appreciable time there.

He's old now too, that has something to do with it. 300 might be an exaggeration, but definitley over 230. . He's now the only grandpa I have left. Pretty sad seeing as I've only seen him like 4 times that I can remember. He sends me clothes every christmas that would better fit a 12 year old. lol

spooky, i do agree with you that is utica is more new england than midwestern. however, i still tend to think it has more in common with the western region than it does with new york city.


jmanc and myself have both lived in utica. ive also lived in nyc. i find more in common with nyc than western. our opinions are the same. take it as it is i guess, but whatever. id like to know why you think that. utica is 200 miles from buffalo, and 220 from nyc, so neither city really has much proximity over the other.

utica culturally, its probably one the most diverse cities of its size. a satellite city of nyc in terms of diversity. utica is nyc without the skyscrapers. i cant tell you how many ppl i find who have relocated here FROM the city, ie: myself. that brings alot of city influence to this area, not to mention having the largest refugee center in the NE. utica physically resembles new england, lots and lots of hills. the ride on the thruway from utica to the city or back, is all valley and rivers. the hudson from nyc to albany, and the mohawk from albany to utica. underrated and beautiful scenery. the lingo even, which is a weak argument, but IT IS NOT POP. youll find MANY young ppl in utica even saying 'wicked', which is i think a NE thing. the lingo here is NE influenced, the grocery stores are NE influences, look it up, hannaford, price chopper, and yes jmanc, probably havent been in awhile but kaufmanns is now macy's. as for sports, somewhere around here youll find those influence maps floating around, commoncensus.org i believe. the sports teams that dominate this area, are new york teams. rangers, yankees, giants, and knicks. again, weak argument, but it is what it is. my guess is, were in NEW YORK, we identify with NY teams, we wouldnt really identify ourselves with the sabres or bills, were not buffalo, but there are still a good amount of those fans ie: jmanc himself. there was an extremely large influx of italians in the beginning of the 20th century to utica, just like all the stereotypical mob bullshit in nyc, the same you will find in utica, bigtime. historically, the house styles here are hundreds of years old, all through the mohawk valley, even to albany, there are similar styles, and into NE. there are revolutionary war sites around here, and i think they stop around rome or so. im not saying ppl from here dont go to buffalo, or wny, but the character of the city itself, is NE, and when it comes to buffalo or nyc, ill go with nyc for sure.

youll find most of this on wikipedia.

ive schooled in michigan AND brockport. i found more in common with those two than still even utica.

and the upstate divide, id say, would be syracuse, which is also the exact midpoint between buffalo and albany.

if only there was a turnpike through the catskills to nyc, the distance from utica to nyc would be only around 150 miles. its annoying having to drive around them everytime.

ive schooled in michigan AND brockport. i found more in common with those two than still even utica.

Brockport is a canal (erie ofcourse) town. Quintessential Upstate NY; and not Ohio or Michigian, or any other midwestern state.

the people is what reminded me. the way they talk and just how they went about themselves, and the bad food hahah. plus im already biased just because all these guys walked around in bills and sabres jerseys. bleh

http://criminaljustice.state.ny.us/graphics/crmtrnd01/ct_006.gif

I looked through a bunch of maps depicting regions, and this one seemed to make the most sense to me. Though I'd throw Clinton and Essex into a separate "might as well be Vermont" region, and condense NYC, LI, Westchester and Rockland into one. To say there is just "upstate, Noo Yawk, and WNY", then fight about it for a page is kind of oversimplifying.

The numbers have to do with decrease in crime rate from 1994-2001, if you're curious.

good map.

I like that map; it puts New York City in New Jersey!

^^ And the way the map is exploded, the North Country gets pushed the farthest from Albany relative to where they're located. While NYC is the only one to get closer.

My, how that mimics reality.

Ah, but something we missed; Albany is also pushed into Massachusetts! Now the real Upstate can prospour beyond it's wildest dreams!

^^ And the way the map is exploded, the North Country gets pushed the farthest from Albany relative to where they're located. While NYC is the only one to get closer.

My, how that mimics reality.

kinda sorta. although NYC is pushed closer to the midhudson, i dont really see how it mimics reality. that is still downstate, very relative to NYC, and NYC influenced. Its all really annoying, because this is all still.....New York.

Do people honestly think upstate is that up for grabs? Its still fuckin NY. Were not Brewers fans for gods sake.

You can give us the Hudson valley... :jk:

Spook, he's just saying that Albany is in NYC's pocket, is all... and North Country is the most neglected. Downstate politicians are notorious for neglecting the needs of the rest of the state when it comes to voting, and down here we claim that upstate sucks up all our tax dollars. It's basically a circular resentment that will never ever cease, frankly. In our nature as New Yorkers.

NY State without NYC & Downstate? Sadly, too much like Appalachia. Here’s a recent article:

Upstate and Appalachia: A study in hard times ; Spitzer comparison angered some Republicans, but upstate bears unsettling resemblance to Appalachia; [Final Edition] Michael Gormley. Buffalo News. Buffalo, N.Y.: Mar 26, 2006. pg. A.1

Don Charboneau expected more of his hometown.
"There were a lot more jobs, a lot more things to do," said the father of three.
Behind him stood Schenectady's huge General Electric Co. complex, a pale shadow of its former self.
Up the street, another sprawling factory that used to "haul the world" by building America's locomotives now sits mostly idle and rusting. Across from a shuttered hardware store owned by a family for generations sits a pornography shop, now one of the boulevard's fixtures.
"We're looking for a way out of here, just to live somewhere else, outside of New York," said Charboneau, 41. "Everything is emptying out instead of filling up."
State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who wants to be the Democratic candidate for governor, raised a furor last week when he told a Manhattan audience: "If you drive from Schenectady to Niagara Falls, you'll see an economy that is devastated. It looks like Appalachia. This is not the New York we dream of."
Some pounced at the statement as an in sult. Others nodded in agreement at the jarring comparison between New York and the symbol of American poverty.
"There's more cause for optimism in Appalachia today than in upstate New York," said Robert Ward, director of the Business Council of New York State's Public Policy Institute.
Spitzer's comment triggered criticism by Republican candidates for governor and Gov. George E. Pataki. The governor, who for 12 years has made reviving upstate's flagging economy a policy and campaign goal, called Spitzer's analogy "an insult to the hardworking people of upstate New York." Instead of speaking directly of Appalachia, Pataki conceded there are "areas that are economically not where we want them to be."
>'We need help'
Yet, statistically -- and in the eyes of some New Yorkers -- upstate bears an unsettling resemblance to Appalachia.
"We need help, no question about it," said Charles Oliver, 63, who owns a tractor dealership in Canaseraga, a struggling village of 600 people in Allegany County, part of the federally designated Appalachian region.
"But the government in Albany don't see it that way," added Oliver, a somber, stocky man.
"They don't care about these small communities. The political goodwill goes to New York City. It doesn't go upstate," he said. "When I got out of school here in 1960, this was a booming town with three grocery stores, three bars, a drug store, two machine dealers, three dairy feed mills. Now you got one grocery, one machine dealer, a bank, a bar. There's really nothing here for the kids. It doesn't make you feel very good."
New York's share of Appalachia also includes parts of Broome, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua, Chemung, Chenango, Cortland, Delaware, Otsego, Schoharie, Schuyler, Steuben, Tioga and Tompkins counties.
The Appalachian Regional Commission uses some basic figures to track the economy of the mountainous region that includes 410 counties in 13 states, including New York. A comparison includes:
In Appalachia, the poverty rate (people living below the poverty line) was 15.4 percent in 1990, and it improved to 13.6 percent in 2000. The upstate poverty rate worsened from 10.4 percent to 11 percent over the same period, according to the Brookings Institution.
In Appalachia, unemployment was 5.8 percent in 2003, up from 5.0 percent in 2001. Upstate New York's unemployment rate was 4.3 percent in 2001 and rose to 5.4 percent in 2003, according to the state Labor Department. Statewide, New York's unemployment rate was 4.9 percent in 2001 and 6.3 percent in 2003.
Appalachia's population increased by 9.1 percent from 1990 to 2000, while upstate grew by just 1 percent.
Even among its fellow Appalachians, New York's counties included in the region can be worse than the region as a whole.
For example, New York's portion of Appalachia was the only state among the 13 to lose population in the 1990s -- a 1.4 percent drop. And the per capita income in New York's portion of Appalachia was $24,080, lower than seven other Appalachian states.
"The reason to drive this point home with a vivid and frank comparison is many New Yorkers are still not confronting the reality of how serious our crisis is," Spitzer said Wednesday. "It was an exhortation to face reality."
Spitzer's critics note that the worst pockets of Appalachia remain in more severe straits than upstate communities: Poverty rates of 32.5 percent in Kentucky's Harlan County and 37.7 percent in West Virginia's McDowell County, among them.
"You don't have to knock people down in order to lift them up," said Randy Daniels, GOP candidate for governor, former representative to the Appalachian commission and former CBS correspondent who covered Appalachia. "[Spitzer] was describing upstate. He sees it as Appalachia, and from his privileged perch, born with a silver spoon in his mouth, never knowing what it is to want or need, that may seem like the gut-wrenching poverty I saw in the hollows of Kentucky."
>Images of poverty
But numbers tell only half the story of the reaction to Spitzer's comment. It's the word that scares many the most.
Appalachia: Code for the stifling, visceral poverty that conjures sepia-toned images of despair.
The word evokes "Kids with rickets and missing teeth," said GOP gubernatorial candidate William Weld.
"Appalachia, as in Kentucky?" Jeffrey Morrow asked from his Niagara Falls bookstore, The Book Corner, which has been in business 79 years. "I've been to Kentucky Appalachia, and I can tell you, this is nothing like Kentucky Appalachia."
"My vision of Appalachia is back country, very rustic. . . . This is a viable city -- even though a lot of it is boarded up," he said.
But viable businesses like Morrow's are far outnumbered by vacant storefronts on Main Street in this former tourist magnet that is struggling to revive its economy.
As a few patrons worked on afternoon pitchers of beer in Cocktail Bob's, bar owner Bob Wilson summed up Niagara Falls' economy as "recessed, broke."
"Damn near depressed," interjected Sandra Scott, 47, as she sat at the bar. She said she has been looking for a cashier's job for three years.
In Canaseraga, Don VanSkiver welcomes Spitzer's effort. The 59- year-old Republican village trustee hopes Canaseraga's first sewer system will lure businesses.
"It don't matter what his party is," he said. "If they're going to be raising the issues that seem to be affecting New York, I'm all for it. A lot of these towns all the way up through here all look the same -- there's a lot of run-down, dilapidated old buildings, very few business still left. I don't know what they can do to improve it a whole lot."

yeah, upstate would be majorly fucked if NYC suceeded. other than NYC, rochester is the only other city (if i recall) that gave more than it got back from the state government.

Indeed it is; and they also got the least financial aid from the state per capita. Duffy got the city more; but it's still far less per capita than Buffalo and Syracuse get. But that doesn't matter; because according to Susie/jerome and Donbuy; Rochester is a poor broke ass city where everyone drives burnt out pintos and either lives paycheck to paycheck or doesn't work at all!

Ah, but something we missed; Albany is also pushed into Massachusetts! Now the real Upstate can prospour beyond it's wildest dreams!
While I don't particularly care for Massachusetts, I would never wish that on them. Not even on my worst enemy.

I'd send the plagues of locusts, pestilence, and the 40-day flood before doing that.

The fact remains, sure, Albany has fucked over all of Upstate, in particular the North Country. Repeatedly. You just don't hear about it, well, because it's the most sparsely populated region of the state. But the real truth, is that yeah, Upstate would improve with a better Albany, but so would Downstate & NYC. Maybe even by the same margin. And with all the influence they have, it's hard to believe there's never been a significant push for reform from down yonder...

There's a reason NYS has fallen from grace, starting probably in the 70s. Since then, we've been the poster boy for state-wide decline. Oh, so NYC and Downstate are gaining population. Big deal. We're all losing national representation.

I think we need to find another nickname. This is Empire Lost, not the Empire State.

This being said, Tom Suozzi is GOD. I've been seeing alot of support for him around here lately, maybe because Spitzer's already forgotten us (at least Pataki had the decency to wait until he was elected). Still don't know what good it's going to do (probably none), and I can't vote for him in the primary because I abstinately refuse to declare a party (I find our partisan duopoly to be the single greatest threat to our country).

yeah, upstate would be majorly fucked if NYC suceeded. other than NYC, rochester is the only other city (if i recall) that gave more than it got back from the state government.
it's seceded! and you call yourself a college graduate, jman? :P
j/k of course ;)

its a love/hate relationship.

prospour??? do you perhaps mean prosper? also, there is quite a difference between succeed and secede. is there such a word as abstinately?

it's seceded! and you call yourself a college graduate, jman? :P
j/k of course ;)

year...speling aynt my forte.

^^ thar's "mie fortay" ! ! !
:)

There's a reason NYS has fallen from grace, starting probably in the 70s. Since then, we've been the poster boy for state-wide decline. Oh, so NYC and Downstate are gaining population. Big deal. We're all losing national representation.
This being said, Tom Suozzi is GOD.

True, NY State is losing national representation. But that’s because the decline of much of upstate is offsetting the growth downstate. Look, the idea that statewide politicians can really change the fundamental underlying demographic & economic trends that have driven the two parts of NY State apart is simply a pipedream. Democratic Senator Hilary Clinton won on a platform that focused on the revival of upstate NY. Republican Governor George Pataki too was elected & re-elected with promises to revive upstate NY. Just look at Buffalo, Niagara Falls, or Binghamton to see the results for yourself!

Just a bit of background. While NYC has always been the state’s biggest city by far, historically downstate & upstate NY grew in tandem from the time the Erie Canal was dug in the early 19th century thru the 1960s. That’s because many of the Irish, German, Polish, Italian immigrants that came thru Ellis Island followed the path of the canal & the later railroads to build the upstate cities. Later, they were joined by modest numbers of southern African Americans who kept the upstate factories humming & the upstate cities growing during & after the two world wars.

In fact, a 1966 Syracuse University study about the future of NY State projected that NYC would stagnate while upstate would continue to grow! Had that study proved correct, Buffalo Niagara would by now have roughly 2 million people! While the other upstate metros would have larger populations than Buffalo Niagara has today. But of course as it turned out, Buffalo Niagara has less people now than it did then.

What really happened? Well, that study completely overlooked the impact of the just passed 1965 Immigration Reform bill, which opened the doors to the biggest wave of immigration ever. Across the US, the immigrant population rose from ten million to over 31 million. During the 1990s alone, 13 million new immigrants settled across the US.

NY State is still the second-largest gateway after California, as the state’s immigrant population grew to 3.9 million. However, 95% settled downstate. The NYC consolidated metro has attracted 5.2 million immigrants, many of whom have spilled into NJ & CT. By contrast, in Buffalo the second-largest metro, the foreign-born population has dwindled to just 51,000, largely the aging remnants of the earlier immigration

Truth is, generally, upstate has simply fallen off the map of today’s immigrants. While 408,000 first-generation Dominicans comprise the largest immigrant group statewide, just 486 Dominicans have come to Buffalo, upstate’s largest metro. Mexicans, the largest immigrant group nationally, whose numbers have jumped from half a million to over 9 million, have a rapidly growing presence across the Northeast. But of 161,000 Mexicans in NY State, only 451 have settled around Buffalo! Of 354,000 Chinese in NY State, just 2,472 have settled around Buffalo! Of 264,000 Jamaicans in NY State, a mere 827 have settled around Buffalo! Other upstate metro also have attracted similarly tiny shares of the new immigrants.

Particularly now that we are in a post-industrial age, services & consumption account for nearly 70% of the economy. Two-thirds of employment growth is being generated by small, primarily locally-based businesses. Many of these are being established by immigrants. So even in upstate cities with few immigrants, many of the new stores & restaurants are being opened by immigrants. It’s just that there aren’t enough immigrants to offset all those boarded up storefronts.

Local metropolitan economies are basically a function of people being in place. When people arrive, the demand & tax revenues for everything from teachers and planners to “sales assistants”, grows. When people leave, the demand & revenues decreases. So jobs have been following people, and with all NY State’s net growth being driven by immigration, the economies are driven by immigration even more than when the Erie Canal was being built. What have changed are the sources & the faces of the immigrants.

As NYC's Republican Mayor Mike Bloomberg testified before a congressional committee a couple of weeks ago, without the 3 million immigrants, including half a million illegal ones, living within his city limits, NYC’s economy would collapse. Sadly, the best proof of this very rare refreshing piece of political candor has been the long slow collapse of upstate, which has become the unwitting “control” or “null” case in the analysis of the pro & cons of immigration.

In contrast to when that SU study was written, the impact of the new immigration is now well known. So why continue to ignore the demographic & economic implications? Really, the numbers speak for themselves. The NYC consolidated metro added 3.8 million between 1960 & 2000, expanding into NJ, CT, & a small chunk of PA. Meanwhile, Buffalo Niagara, the largest upstate metro lost 137,000 during the same period! NYC has regrown to a record 8 million & downstate has grown to 12 million. So surprise, surprise! Upstate, 7 million population & roughly stagnant has lost clout!

And so that in a nutshell is why downstate has grown, while upstate has declined. So what can be done, aside from coming up with a miracle cure to bring the dead back to life?

Why not take the initiative to ensure that upstate attracts a fair share of the immigrants coming to NY State? As has been posted above here, Utica has made itself a destination for refugees & the inflow seems to be adding new vitality to what had been a dying city. And there’s also a glimmer of hope in the old General Electric city profiled in that posted article. In late 1990s, Al Jurezynski, the Republican mayor of Schenectady began personally marketing his city, which lies in view of the Empire State Plaza Towers, to immigrants from NYC & Guyana.

Now that's a rare example of a local upstate NY politician taking positive, practical hands-on action, working to halt decline by thinking globally, acting locally. Not waiting for any directives from Albany! It won’t happen overnight. It took a few decades before a “critical mass” of immigrants helped turn NYC around. But if “Little Guyana” in Queens, once depressed, now thriving, is any example, I’d be willing to bet that over the next couple of decades, those thousands of new immigrants will help Schenectady to turn the corner.

It's getting rather late in the game. But perhaps Buffalo & the other declining upstate major metros borrow a page or two from these smaller cities, maybe this emerging North Coast Appalachia can be turned around. I've said it before, but it bears repeating. Whatever the next governor of NY State, GOD or not, when you start to see more Mexican, Jamaican, Dominican, Vietnamese, Ethiopian, etc. resturants/groceries, etc. sprouting around Buffalo, than that's the best sign that upstate is on it's way back!

Great photo thread. I thought this was a bashing thread. The Supreme Court (?) in Albany is gorgeous! A lot of pics reminded me of Toronto actually.

Bayviews; your reasoning is good; but distorted. The relatively few number of immigrants is a SIGN of a bad economy, but it is not a REASON. PEOPLE follow JOBS, not vice versa. The only time the jobs follow people is when you are talking about a town being founded. There aren't a lack of jobs in Buffalo because there are a lack of immigrants; there are a lack of new immigrants because there is a lack of new jobs. Yes, in general, a city attracting immigrants is a SIGN of a strong economy. BUT, having a ton of immigrants, especially poorer ones, is definitely not a boon to a struggling economy; rather, it's a strain. You have poor people who can't find work and need more tax funded assistance. Your thinking about it is backwards.

^^ I've already argued the cause-and-effect nature of it. It's no use.

Bayviews; your reasoning is good; but distorted. The relatively few number of immigrants is a SIGN of a bad economy, but it is not a REASON. PEOPLE follow JOBS, not vice versa. The only time the jobs follow people is when you are talking about a town being founded. There aren't a lack of jobs in Buffalo because there are a lack of immigrants; there are a lack of new immigrants because there is a lack of new jobs. Yes, in general, a city attracting immigrants is a SIGN of a strong economy. BUT, having a ton of immigrants, especially poorer ones, is definitely not a boon to a struggling economy; rather, it's a strain. You have poor people who can't find work and need more tax funded assistance. Your thinking about it is backwards.

Roch, I think I’ve explained this before, but while it certainly works both ways, that jobs follow people over the long-run is certainly not my theory! Rather it's what most (not all) of the leading economists, who've been studying this for decades have concluded. I’ve been sorting out how metropolitan regions really work. It takes longer than you can imagine to dig beneath the myths to figure out how it all comes together. Or as in the case of upstate, how it slowly unravels!

Incidentally, very good article in the NY Times about the economics of immigration a few weeks back. It's not just jobs following immigrants. It's just that virtually all the net growth in states like NY is now coming from immigration. So, while there’s not a lot of honesty about it, immigration is driving the economy.

For a guy in high school you're learning quite a bit about Rochester's economy. Gee, when did Kodak start to lose its way? But I'm curious, have you read up a lot on the history that the different immigrant, ethnic, minority groups have played in terms of developing Rochester's economy, not just "top-down", but also "bottom-up?"

Not just the WASP elites that gets written up as "business". But the Irish, Germans, Polish, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Italians, Greeks, African Americans, & now Latinos, Caribbeans, Asians etc. All of these groups & even smaller ones have played an economic role. Start by reading those articles in the Roch D-C, it’s one of the best upstate papers. Once you've read their histories, you'll understand who really built Rochester, & why jobs do follow people. Both in & now out!

And while their demographics & thus economic results differ, that equation works pretty much the same for all North American cities. But many metros are experiencing their biggest immigration ever, so what happened upstate is still very much a work in progress elsewhere.

OK, you’re heart may be in Rochester, but your really in North Carolina. Well a lot of upstate NYers have moved down there to find jobs that they couldn’t get in Buffalo, Rochester etc. There’s a limited or shrinking demand for teachers, police, planners, bus drivers, & all kinds of public as well as private sector functions in places with static or declining populations. But a growing demand where the population is growing. So guess why these jobs are opening in NC rather than upstate?

Here’s just one example of how it all works. Let’s say somebody from Rochester moves to Raleigh because they get a job as an ESL teacher. True, they are following that job to Raleigh. But that ESL job has followed 20 immigrant students to Raleigh, where the Latino enrollment, as you know, is jumping much faster than in Rochester. And those immigrant students have followed lots of laborers & dishwashers, so there’s a whole chain. ESL teachers may realize that connection. But so many of those who get jobs that have followed people, immigrants or migrants, to North Carolina don’t.

When was the last time you heard any upstate NY transplants moving south acknowledge that they are getting jobs that have followed, say immigrants, to Atlanta or the Carolinas? How often do you see Mexicans being arrested for working construction in the Triangle as is standard practice around Buffalo? And when was the last time that you’ve heard any factory owners or contractors say that they’ve moved south so they could access immigrant workers, including illegal workers? When it’s just so much easier (& more legal) to say that they left upstate because the taxes are too high!

You see businesses are just like too many people in that what they say & what they really do are not the same. But that's the way the real world works. That's why I think its refreshing that there's finally a discussion about the role that immigration plays in driving economics, particularly in the different parts of NY State.

Agree that having too many immigrants, particularly unskilled ones, can change a plus into a minus. That's why I'd like to see immigration more evenly spread around, to save billions by utilizing surplus infrastructure, rather than building billions of new infrastructure.

But even in metros like LA & Miami that are attracting huge numbers of unskilled immigrants from a limited number of sending generally poor nations, on the whole, these places are doing a lot better than the places that haven't been attracting enough. Obviously, there are "quality" of life issues, but certainly not "quantity" issues.

It's amazing to see how much more vitality there is in Miami, which has filled up with immigrants from Caribbean countries as poor as Haiti, than in Buffalo, which is unfilling itself of lifelong natives!

And there's not a single city in upstate NY which is even coming close to attracting even a minimum number of immigrants to offset decline!

What you may be talking about that exists in Buffalo, Rochester & other upstate cities are that when in-migration/migration ends, than the process of upward mobility freezes. So the last group that arrived in significant numbers gets trapped at the bottom.

In most of the larger upstate NY cities, generally that’s African Americans & to lesser degree, Puerto Ricans. In some of the smaller cities, particularly along upstate’s southern tier, it’s mostly whites. In these towns the economies stagnated much earlier, as they fell early off the beaten track of the major migrations.

Just like in an organization, tough to move up unless you have a replacement! So an underclass develops. But in NYC, immigration has pushed more African Americans and Puerto Ricans up from poverty & welfare into the solid working-class & middle-class. True, it’s also pushed some that have the least skills. For better or worse, the more globalization, the more competitive metropolitan economies have gotten.

As more immigrants come in, there's more demand for public as well as private services & so jobs and tax revenues to pay for them. More African Americans, over 100,000, are employed by the city of NYC than live in the city of Buffalo! And that doesn’t include those employed by the MTA or the Board of Education. Of course, many more native minorities are employed in the NYC region corporate & private sectors. But the public sector has provided the most opportunities & stability.

There’s plenty of demand for transit workers & school teachers because immigrants packing aboard buses & subways & crowding classrooms. Again, another way that jobs follow people. You may not care whether or not minorities move up. But that’s the real reason why crime has dropped so much in NYC. Even as it has stayed so high in upstate cities Buffalo & Rochester where the exact the opposite trends are work.

Anyway, I hope this gives you a bit of snapshot beyond what you may read in the media or hear on these discussions as to some of the other reasons why some places, including the different parts of NY state, are more successful than others.

^^ I've already argued the cause-and-effect nature of it. It's no use.

Ditto see just above.

Hey, Buffalo's got potential...

Toronto is just 90 miles up...

I DO realie that immigrants EXPAND an economy. But that is when it is already STRONG. When an economy is sluggish, the people already there have to improve it first, THEN, when it starts to get better; immigrants will come, open businesses, and do all sorts of good.. I get that and that is how Buffalo and Rochester proceeded as boomtowns. BUT they began as boomtowns (well, Rochester at least did it this way) by Ameican citiens building flower mills AND American citieznes deciding to build the Erie Canal. It was then that the Germains, Italians (bot of which I have ancestry from), Irish all came and built the city up, opened up their businesses (Henry Baucsh was a fresh German immigrant when he teamed up with Lomb to create Baucsh&Lomb), and helped the economy GROW and EXPAND, from an already relatively stable pace to an even faster one. BUT, in the case of Buffalo and Rochester right now, where the cities are trying to kickstart their economies from recession, it takes that action, done by those already there, to get it started. Then waves of immigrants coming into the city and EXPANDING the economy would be a great asset the the community. Buffalo and Rochester aren't xenophobic areas where they don't want anyone to come over and are keeping them out; you've posted yourself several of the special articles that the D&C have every month celebrating a diffent cultural group. It's that the immigrants aren't attracted to the areas as much because the job markets there aren't good.

Hey, Buffalo's got potential...

Toronto is just 90 miles up...

That’s an excellent point you bring up about Toronto, which before WW II & the huge waves of European & global immigration, was believe it or not, roughly the same size as Buffalo!

It’s really mystified two generations of economists as to why Buffalo hasn’t been able to catch that rising wave from Toronto.

And it’s actually a function both of Buffalo border location as well as the different immigration & asylum policies of the US & Canada.

The different policies keep nearly all of Toronto’s immigrants from branching down to Buffalo. If they go thru the hassles of re-immigrating again, this time to the US, they are not going to Buffalo!

More than a few of the West Indians do get tired of Toronto’s weather. But naturally they gravitate down toward South Florida.

On the other hand, over the past few decades, upwards of 75,000 or more refugees, from Central America, Africa, & South America have passed right thru Buffalo on their way to Toronto & other parts of Canada. While very few of those fleeing regimes backed by the US gained refugee status in Buffalo, many were able get asylum in Toronto.

Actually, Somalis are actually about the only one of those refugee groups that has established a small presence in Buffalo. Probably because Somalis gained refugee status after the US went into Mogadishu back in the early 1990s.

There was a bit of stir about Buffalo’s first Somali restaurant that finally opened up. Nope, it’s not the Blue Star!

But generally, along with Buffalo’s border location has come a large & overbearing ICE (immigration & customs enforcement) infrastructure that has discouraged immigrants from settling in Buffalo.

And so the local unions & police have ended becoming eyes & ears for the ICE, & there’s a lot more zenopophia & racism directed toward immigrants than in most other areas.

That’s why Buffalo has attracted so few Mexican & other Latino immigrants in particular, who are the most likely to lack legal status.

The border has blocked the type of outward dispersion of immigrants that has occurred in the Northeast, pulling from NYC, or those in the Midwest pulling from Chicago.

So in a nutshell, that’s a significant part of why Buffalo hasn’t gained any of demographic or economic overspill from Toronto. Sure, just 90 miles away, but a world of differance. From the very "global" to the very "local"

Would be great for a declining area like Buffalo to be able to change those dynamics!

It’s really mystified two generations of economists as to why Buffalo hasn’t been able to catch that rising wave from Toronto.

toronto is canada's main city where as buffalo was only number two in NY and further down the list in the great lakes region; chicago, detroit, cleveland, milwaukee, etc. at it's peak, buffalo was #15 in the US.

also, buffalo was a major industrial center where as toronto was far more diversified. also...in canada, there arn't cheap southern states with mild climates for residents and businesses to flee to.

not to nitpick jman, but buffalo, at buffalo's peak population(1950) was indeed 15th. however, in 1910, buffalo was the 8th largest city in the country.

It’s really mystified two generations of economists as to why Buffalo hasn’t been able to catch that rising wave from Toronto.

Apparently the economists haven't been thinking very much because the answer is so obvious...two different countries with different laws/taxes/politics/wealth/etc., economies literally end and begin at the border. I don't understand why its such a difficult concept. Same thing holds true with the USA-Mexico border. Million dollar houses on the USA side, and shanty towns on the Mexico side.

Alabama

not to nitpick jman, but buffalo, at buffalo's peak population(1950) was indeed 15th. however, in 1910, buffalo was the 8th largest city in the country.
Yes, but today's America resembles 1950 much more closely than it does 1910. Back in 1910 the west was still barely touched... Arizona wasn't even a state yet.

It's almost like baseball stats, it was a different game. We don't compare records today (steroids or not lol) to those of the late 1800s - early 1900s.

And back in 1910, Buffalo had barely begun to boom. So that itself can't be the reason, things didn't truly sour until as late as the 70s.

Buffalo and Rochester aren't xenophobic areas where they don't want anyone to come over and are keeping them out; you've posted yourself several of the special articles that the D&C have every month celebrating a diffent cultural group.


While both upstate metros attract just a fraction of NYC’s per capital immigrant flow, Rochester leads Buffalo & has been increasing that lead over Buffalo each decade. While I haven’t seen any public efforts to attract more immigrants to Rochester, it’s more open to newcomers than Buffalo. That’s also reflected in the media reporting. The Democrat Chronicle has does a pretty good job of covering Rochester’s diverse racial & immigrant communities, as reflected in those posted articles, that was an outgrowth of an earlier outreach they had done to the area's minority & immigrant communities. I think the D-C is still part of Gannett, which has set good, consisent standards for reporting on local communities.

By contrast, I’ve never seen the Buffalo News run any series on growing & newer immigrant groups. There is very little diversity on the reporting & editorial staff, & the News is out of touch with that area’s minority communities. That lack of media information contributes to their being more ignorance on issues like immigration & diversity generally around Buffalo than in Rochester. Generally, people around Rochester seem more informed about the presence & contributions of Latino, Asian, Caribbean, & African immigrants than in Buffalo.

So even within upstate NY, there are considerable differences in attitudes that are partly shapped by what is & isn't reported in the local media.

Not to mention that a look at the demographic's of many of Buffalo's suburbs come out as "98% white", so whatever immigrants and minorities are there don't seem to have much mobility.

youse should come to Utica, talk about diversity. Theres sections in the Observer Dispatch designated for Bosnian subscribers, and Spanish. At the high school, theyre pushing to include Bosnian and Vietnamese among taught languages (alongside French, Spanish and Italian).

youse should come to Utica, talk about diversity. Theres sections in the Observer Dispatch designated for Bosnian subscribers, and Spanish. At the high school, theyre pushing to include Bosnian and Vietnamese among taught languages (alongside French, Spanish and Italian).


Completly true about Utica, which I've mentioned above in this thread along with Schenectady as the two upstate cities that have actively recruited immigrants/refugees.

Probably no surprise to you that Utica attracts more immigrants than any other upstate metro, although Rochester has largest total inflow. While Utica lacks the locational advantages of Niagara Falls NY, a similarly sized city, it's become much more vibrant thanks to the Bosnian, Russian, Vietnamese, & Latino influx, while the Falls, which has been desperatly trying to attract tourists with limited success rather than immigrants, continues to decay nonwithstanding the infusion of casino gambling.

So sure, Utica & Schenectady make good practical models for the repopulation of other upstate cities.

Not to mention that a look at the demographic's of many of Buffalo's suburbs come out as "98% white", so whatever immigrants and minorities are there don't seem to have much mobility.

So true about Buffalo, which presents some of the starkest contrasts with NYC of any of the larger upstate metros.

Among the major metros Buffalo attracted the least number of new immigrants during the 1990s, & was the only one where the foreign-born immigrant population actually declined during the biggest immigration decade ever!

Even as Mike Bloomberg lauds the contributions of immigrants to NYC, Joel Giambra, who’s headed up Erie County that includes Buffalo & most of its suburbs, has gone so far as to declare a “zero tolerance policy” targeted primarily at Latino immigrants. Latino immigrants who show up at construction sites & other work places around Buffalo are routinely profiled by local unions, arrested by local police, county sheriffs, & the large contingent of locally-based federal immigration agents. Who would no doubt be much more effective if redeployed to rapidly-growing areas in the Sunbelt that really do suffer from too much illegal immigration.

It’s also the case that without newcomers to help re-invigorate Buffalo’s stagnant economy, those at the bottom gotten stuck there. So the second-largest metro in NY state, rather than any other Midwest or southern metro, now has the poorest African American and other minority populations of any major metro. Buffalo’s also one of the most hyper-segregated metros, with one of the least diverse suburban rings. Yeah, of the 150 localities with ten thousand or more residents across the US, with the highest share of non-Hispanic white residents, fully ten are Buffalo’s “Sundown” suburbs. Kinda like of place that got stuck between the 1950s & the 1970s.

If there’s any hope for Buffalo’s future, it’s that Giambra’s now a lame duck, & hopefully the city’s new mayor, Byron Brown, himself a Queens native, grandson of Caribbean immigrants, will break with the past & take initiatives that will really change Buffalo’s downward cycle. So no question that when it comes to attracting immigrants & generally using diversity to bring some of that prosperity that’s been in equally short supply, Buffalo could really take a page or two from Queens, or upstate cities like Rochester, Schenectady or Utica.