The Bills are 2-0 and Buffalo is a Great Place to Live

The Bills are 2-0 and it was a beautiful sunny Sunday in Buffalo. These are types of days when people of Buffalo walk around saying… why would you want to live anywhere else?

Just as the Bills 2-0 start serves as a balm to Buffalo’s problems, Get Real Buffalo  is like Jack Nicholson from a Few Good Men shouting a the top of his lungs…”You can’t handle the truth" ...about the region’s economic problems, lack of innovation and resistance to fighting the status quo.  

However, in respect for the euphoria everyone in the city is experiencing we thought we would strike a more positive constructive tone in this month’s post.

The idea this month is about immigration.  To drive economic growth in dying rust belt cities like Buffalo, Detroit, and Cleveland why not encourage and incent immigrants to live in these cities.  We have the infrastructure to handle them, we need their work ethic and entrepreneurial passion to drive growth. Mayor Bloomberg brought this idea up last month with respect to Detroit.

Below is an article from the NY Post talking about his ideas:

Mayor Bloomberg has a fix for the nation's immigration debate: Send 'em to Detroit.

"If I were the federal government," Bloomberg told David Gregory on NBC's Meet the Press Sunday morning. "Assuming you could wave a magic wand and pull everybody together, you pass a law letting immigrants come in as long as they agree to go to Detroit and live there for five or ten years."Detroit has suffered a devastating population loss in recent decades, losing 25% of its citizens since the last census. Meanwhile, immigrants are clamoring to enter the United States.Bloomberg says he can fix both at once.The immigrants would arrive in Detroit, "start businesses, take jobs whatever," Bloomberg said. "You would populate Detroit over night because half the world wants to come here ... You can use something like immigration policy - at no cost to the federal government - to fix a lot of the problems that we have."

Sounds like a crazy idea?  These are types of ideas Buffalo needs to break out of its slump.  Look at the West Side now, teaming with Burmese refugee’s trying to start their own American dream. They are turning parts of the West side back into attractive city blocks. Let’s encourage more immigration to our city, provide them affordable housing, give them education and the capital to start businesses.  Some people may say why not give these opportunities to our current Buffalo citizen’s who are struggling. To which we would reply sorry, you had your chance and you blew it. As immigrants drive growth there will be more opportunities for the citizen’s of Buffalo to find work. It is time for new blood, who want to work hard, build businesses and who are not married to the past or anchored by a sense of entitlements. 

The Bill’s maybe 2-0 but Buffalo as a city hasn’t had a winning economic year in terms of real private sector growth in over 50 years. Time to shake things up and bring a new team into town. Bring on the immigrants!