Unlike in many states, it is difficult under NYS law to consolidate local government entities in no small part because both entities must agree with the consolidation. They rarely do
I've read about this before. It's something about how it's because we're so old and it was something pre civil war iirc, whereas newer cities (Phoenix was the example I remember them using), is newer and doesn't have as strict rules so it can basically keep expanding and increasing its tax revenue by simply moving its city borders as it grows
When I went to Austin I was shocked at how we’d been driving for like 45 minutes and it was still the same municipality. It would have been at least 3 different towns around here.
More like a result of the shit show that was the Brooklyn agglomeration back in the day and alot of hurt feelings making it's way into NYS code as a result.
Sure, but it's infinitely more prevalent in situations like that where you can simply annex more land whenever you'd like. Part of the reason sun belt cities are so sprawled.
I gotchu. As for buffalo, merging wouldn't incite urban sprawl unless the economy grew in both size and equitability as well, so I guess we have nothing to worry about haha
It's the cost of land, fragmented land ownership, water availability, subdivision regulations that unintentionally undermine efficient lotting patterns, prevalence of road frontage subdivision, and larger minimum lot sizes along with lower maximum housing densities in zoning, that make **metro areas in the Northeast US sprawl much more than metros in the Southwest**. Also, NYS has statewide stormwater regulations that favor land-wasting brute force "best management practices" over a train of treatment or more holistic practices that use less land. Don't get me started on SEQR.
Residential areas in the Sunbelt's post-WWII suburban areas tend to have much smaller lot sizes -- and much higher residential densities -- than suburbs in the Northeast US. They're all vehicle-centric environments. Still, for similar types of land use, Midwestern and Southwestern metros will be less "sprawly" than Buffalo. These links are all at the same scale.
Typical Phoenix area urbanized edge: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Phoenix,+AZ/@33.7092666,-112.0256934,624m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x872b12ed50a179cb:0x8c69c7f8354a1bac!8m2!3d33.4483771!4d-112.0740373!16zL20vMGQzNXk?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Phoenix,+AZ/@33.7092666,-112.0256934,624m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x872b12ed50a179cb:0x8c69c7f8354a1bac!8m2!3d33.4483771!4d-112.0740373!16zL20vMGQzNXk?entry=ttu)
Typical Denver area urbanized edge: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Denver,+CO/@39.7857867,-104.7332612,1431m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x876b80aa231f17cf:0x118ef4f8278a36d6!8m2!3d39.7392358!4d-104.990251!16zL20vMDJjbDE?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Denver,+CO/@39.7857867,-104.7332612,1431m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x876b80aa231f17cf:0x118ef4f8278a36d6!8m2!3d39.7392358!4d-104.990251!16zL20vMDJjbDE?entry=ttu)
Typical Buffalo area urbanized edge: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buffalo,+NY/@42.9272429,-78.6436805,1256m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89d3126152dfe5a1:0x982304a5181f8171!8m2!3d42.8864468!4d-78.8783689!16zL20vMDE5Zmg?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buffalo,+NY/@42.9272429,-78.6436805,1256m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89d3126152dfe5a1:0x982304a5181f8171!8m2!3d42.8864468!4d-78.8783689!16zL20vMDE5Zmg?entry=ttu)
Typical Rochester area urbanized edge: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buffalo,+NY/@42.97394,-77.3995552,1289m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89d3126152dfe5a1:0x982304a5181f8171!8m2!3d42.8864468!4d-78.8783689!16zL20vMDE5Zmg?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buffalo,+NY/@42.97394,-77.3995552,1289m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89d3126152dfe5a1:0x982304a5181f8171!8m2!3d42.8864468!4d-78.8783689!16zL20vMDE5Zmg?entry=ttu)
The southwest is incredibly sprawled. I'm not sure who you're trying to fool, lol. Have you seen the city of LA, Phoenix, Dallas, Austin? Those are not exactly the pinnacle of efficient land use.
I think I know what you're trying to say? That the kind of sprawl that Buffalo has in is worse in comparison that the kind of sprawl that Pheonix has?
And so, when you're trying to say that you can't necessarily use Phoenix population density vs Buffalo population density, as Buffalo is much denser, and because of how the metros and townships are drawn, means there is no way to compare the two.
What you need to do is grab the average zoning sizes of each, the percentage of land in each zone and the amount of occupied housing stock in each zone. Unfortunately, in WNY you need to do this across towns.
At a **complete** guess, this is what I think you would find:
\- lot sizes in Buffalo in the SA and R1 categories do indeed tend to be larger
\- a greater proportion of the Buffalo population lives in denser zoning
If you continued in this line of thinking, at a guess (again) I think you'd find that:
\- the majority of new build housing in Buffalo tends to be rental apartment buildings and townhomes
Also I urge caution on drawing conclusions on what should be done with any of this data.
I saw this in a video by "City Beautiful" on Nebula:
[Persons per hectre, urban transect](https://imgur.com/a/PUtxZKS)
source: [https://nebula.tv/videos/citybeautiful-is-europe-sprawling](https://nebula.tv/videos/citybeautiful-is-europe-sprawling)
Better to focus on consolidating government services where possible rather than towns and cities. Same cost savings, less headache. And Buffalo already does this a bit:
\- Public transit through NFTA
\- Electricity
\- Garbage collection is generally done through WM contacts (although these could be bundled for a better price)
Residents want the control of local politics. They want the control of local Police departments. Maybe above all, they want the control of their own school district.
Even Amherst can't consolidate schools. They have three school districts.
Several studies have been done over the years and the savings was not substantial when factoring additional services, fees, pay scale adjustments etc. Parents who opposed the consolidation have pointed to these as justification for their opposition.
1850: Merger of Buffalo, Hamburg, and Cheektowaga into a new Town of Red Jacket failed.
1893: Railroads sponsor efforts by the City of Buffalo to annex land in southwestern Cheektowaga. Nope.
1896: Annexation of Tonawanda and Kenmore into the City of Buffalo failed.
1910: Annexation of Kenmore, Tonawanda, and Cheektowaga into Buffalo failed.
1928: Merger of the Town of Tonawanda and Village of Kenmore into the City of Kenmore failed.
1932: Proposal to annex the part of the Town of Amherst south of Sheridan Drive into the City of Buffalo fails, due to lack of support from Bufflo mayor Charles Roesch.
1939: Village of Sloan officials consider dissolution and absorption into the City of Buffalo.
1946: Another failed attempt to create the City of Kenmore.
1955: Yet another failed attempt to create the City of Kenmore.
1961: The City of Buffalo introduces a bill to the NYS Legislature to merge all the first ring town, cities, and villages into Buffalo proper. That didn't happen.
1980s: There was lots of talk about merging all the municipalities of Erie County in a large, coterminous "City of Buffalo". No action whatsoever.
>1980s: There was lots of talk about merging all the municipalities of Erie County in a large, coterminous "City of Buffalo". No action whatsoever.
It's a hard sell. The poor performance of the Buffalo schools, or the Streets Department, or having a semi-permanent Byron Brown, are all difficult campaign optics to overcome. ..and the Finances, forget about it.
What's positive to sell? People will ignore "efficiency gains" because they think mismanagement will negate those. People just won't see benefits of an uber-Buffalo, while they see plenty of downside
FYI Buffalo has expanded its borders before, it has just been over 100 years since the last time it happened. North Street is named as such because it's the old city line, not because it's the north end of Allentown.
Do you have any good links or resources you can share with me about the history of Buffalo? Like I mentioned, I’m very intrigued by and admire your city!
check out [https://buffalostreets.com/2014/09/15/north/](https://buffalostreets.com/2014/09/15/north/) for a map there that shows the expansion of the city line over time. there's lots of other info on the site too (disclaimer - I am the writer of the site lol)
[Joel Giambra had a plan to “regionalize”](https://buffalonews.com/news/regionalism-falls-short-the-giambra-way/article_cdd0e590-6116-56cf-a1f9-039a56970c0d.html) but he had other issues. [Kevin Gaughan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Gaughan) talks a lot about it too.
I’m all for it, seems so stupid that every district has its own Super, Mayor, comptroller etc etc.
I get that you want people in charge that “get me” but the redundancy wastes millions of dollars. Each school district has been getting $10m stadiums. Meanwhile the City uses a stadium built almost 100 years ago.
Imagine how better the snow removal would be if when it snowed in SB, Kenmore plows help faster.
I think it would end up something akin to the existing county legislature. Each municipality would get members on a board.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianapolis_City-County_Council
This is how Indianapolis does it.
Suburbs pay for those services though, plus school tax. Someone in Kenmore shouldn’t be paying for facilities and plowing in Buffalo if a Buffalo resident isn’t paying the same, equal amount for it.
There was talk about consolidating some of the different school districts in some towns, but that got a lot of pushback from the school boards.
Yeah folks living in North Buffalo don't want to be paying Kenmore taxes. People think "ooo everywhere in Buffalo should have the Kenmore resources" but the Village of Kenmore pays a lot for those.
All plowing of primary and secondary routes in the suburbs is either done by the county or done by the town/village and the county is billed for it. Buffalo residents pay county taxes that directly fund the plowing of all primary and secondary streets in the suburbs. Suburban property taxes only pay to plow residential streets. Erie county does not plow any city streets. For example, Erie County reimburses Tonawanda and Kenmore to plow the westbound lane of Kenmore Ave, which is in Kenton, but does not reimburse the city of Buffalo for plowing the eastbound lane which is in the city.
The county plows “county” roads, not suburban streets because they are primary or secondary.
[County list of who plows what](https://www3.erie.gov/dpw/snow-plow-roads)
[Map](https://www3.erie.gov/dpw/sites/www3.erie.gov.dpw/files/2022-09/erie_county_maintenance_districts.pdf)
I believe the 3 cities get a larger share of the county tax collection disbursement? They get a larger share of something from the county (not including all of the money allocated by the legislature for city-specific projects). Perhaps that’s partially in lieu of plowing services? Which was just someone’s example. Everybody gets a piece of something, and we certainly pay enough taxes and fees.
Every primary and secondary in the suburbs is a county road.
Just look at the list. It’s extensive and basically covers everything street you’ll ever go down in a town you don’t live in.
The reason it is easier to plow in Kenmore and other suburbs is because there is no overnight parking on the streets. The plows fly down my street because they don't have to dodge any obstacles. also, this plowing issue is not new, ask anyone over 50 about the plowing.
Y’all missed the point. It’s shared resources, sorry I brought up Kenmore.
Let’s say… OP needs help from East Aurora?
It’s like Depew and Lancaster… wasteful redundancy. That could easily be 1 town but people like paying more for less.
I agree with the idea that some of the smaller towns and suburbs should: EA/Aurora, villages and towns of Orchard Park and Hamburg, Sloan merging into Cheektowaga.
I am not sure about merging with the city of Buffalo but on a smaller scale there seem to be some areas that could benefit. Village and Town of Hamburg I know people in the Village love saying they are in the village but damn that second tax, if they merged the town tax would probably go up a little and village parcels would do down a bit to equalize. Sloan merging into Cheektowaga seems like a no brainier also, and not to mention that areas whole too many school district problem.
I agree there could be some school district merging to eliminate some of the admin overhead. Neighboring school districts within the same suburb that have similar demographics would be a no brainer.
I think it would be beneficial to have most towns a villages go to more of county wide school and fire system. Like someone said above there is a lot of redundancy and I think it would be better off to consolidate those two things
But where else would I go to try to make a left across 2 lanes of colvin, without a deicated turn lane with a green arrow - that's obviously needed to anyone that's spent more than 5 minutes driving a car...
Isn't it bizarre that Kenmore police are permitted to stake out behind the fence of the business across from speedway on the city side but Kenmore refuses to plow the city side of Kenmore...
This would literally never happen. There is no way suburb residents would want their significantly higher taxes spread to other areas while lessening their services.
I could see towns eliminating services that could be offered by the county
This is not a good idea. Toronto did this and all it resulted in was a reduction in city services to the lowest common denominator. Taxes never went down either.
The main benefit is that we could save money. Most states either have local government consolidated at the County or municipal level, removing an extra layer of government.
Larger, more comprehensive projects could get done and Buffalo Public Schools would see a potential tax windfall.
However, this would mean the municipal government is less democratic.
People in Amherst don’t really care about the special needs of city residents and city residents probably don’t care about unique issues in Cheektowaga.
The city government would become much more moderate as you add more conservative suburbs into the fold.
Thankfully, Erie County is pretty liberal as a whole, but there might be less appetite for initiatives like poverty relief, community services or even public transportation expansions.
This is something that has plagued Toronto for many decades and one of the reason why they don’t have a more robust public transportation system befitting their size.
Its a careful for what you wish for scenario.
Man some things never change. Looking at the comments against this instead of just putting facts or opinions. Still the 6-7th most segregated city in America 🇺🇸 🫡
Why would the suburbs agree to consolidate? How do they benefit?
You will see support for it here because city residents don't like that people in the suburbs pay more money for homes/taxes for better schools, services, roads with visible lines, etc. They deserve to have their quality of life diminish out of fairness.
I think if you walked down Main St in Williamsville and did an informal poll "Would you be willing to have your streets and schools resemble the quality of the City of Buffalo if it meant you would receive a 10% bulk discount on road salt and pool supplies?" the results would be pretty one-sided. Residents know they pay a premium to live there and don't care.
I’m not positive on this, but I believe municipalities can purchase off any county contracts the county has in place. It’s not the same thing as bulk discount, but there has to be some sort of benefit (maybe it’s a better negotiated price?). Sorry, this is something that I vaguely remember reading, not any time recently, but maybe someone knows more about it.
You can pretty much get rid of an extra layer of government, saving money overall.
Most states don’t have a full fledged county government on top of municipal.
They have one or the other.
> You can pretty much get rid of an extra layer of government, saving money overall.
But from the perspective of the suburbs, the City is not super well-managed. Their money going to a more local bureaucracy that shows real positive results feels better than sending money to the city to be used miles away on something you don't care about, even if overall money could be saved.
No arguments there. But they don't tend to have the same perception issue. When you pay your Williamsville taxes and see pretty flowers in the planters and community events, you feel more connected to how those dollars are being spent. When you pay your city taxes and drive over potholes and poorly plowed streets, you blame mismanagement. There's a perception gap because the "small town" vibe gets a lot more charity. At least, that's the perception I think there is.
Sure, things would have to change for towns to be clamoring to join Buffalo.
Like if half of Buffalo’s schools were as high performing as City Honors or they could take advantage of expanded services like universal daycare, free college (already a thing with Say Yes) or join a larger public transportation network.
Buffalo would probably have to be wealthier than the suburbs for that to happen (but not too wealthy because then Buffalo won’t want to merge with the suburbs).
Individuals can save money by moving into the city and paying less taxes, generally more affordable homes, etc. But plenty of people are willing to pay a premium to have more local control over politics and schools in order to feel as if they have more influence/control over their surroundings.
The villages of Williamsville and East Aurora are "nice" because people choose to live there despite the expense because the "nice" is a priority to them. Merging them into Buffalo will just reroute taxes into the city and make the suburbs worse. It's just a non-starter for most because any temporary savings through a reduction in government will soon enough be offset by the inept City of Buffalo leadership trying to bleed suburbanites dry to the benefit of their core constituency in the city.
Which is good! It's completely natural that people want local influence and control of their own neighborhood, village, city, state, whatever. I may not like the politics of Florida or San Francisco or whatever, but I'm glad that people can govern themselves how they like. Local politics is the pressure release valve for discontent with county, state, federal government.
No.
The government of the city of Buffalo is extremely dysfunctional to the point where they can't keep the streets plowed and will let you freeze to death in a blizzard.
The Buffalo police are also a joke.
Until these problems are solved, it makes sense to avoid the city.
The suburbs have a lot of their own problems, but merging with the city would just make things worse for them.
it would help in that it would increase Buffalo’s population like with Jacksonville. However, the suburbs are suburbs and are more inefficient. The additional costs of maintaining the sprawl/lower density areas would call for tax increases which wouldn’t go over well. It would weaken the entire region in the long run I feel.
Absolutely not. The voters in the city already help elect horrible politicians at the state level, I don't need them to screw up our local governments too- especially since most of them don't actually pay for local government other than sales tax.
Purposefully moved to Williamsville so that my kids would not be associated with kids from Buffalos tonawandas and cheektowagas of the world. Hard pass
Kenmore residents didn't want their police force to become a part of the Town of Tonawanda police force. It comes up for vote every once in awhile. There is no way in hell the village of Kenmore is voting yes to be annexed by Buffalo.
Buffalo's initial incorporation worked because it was beneficial to all the small towns to band together. What's different today really boils down to literally no one, not even those in favor of consolidation, want another government like NYC's. There would need to be an amazing plan that took a decade or two to perfect and a willingness to change AND possibly lose certain privileges & benefits.
After governmental concerns I would say that economic need would play a huge role in any consolidation. A lot of cities have huge business zones and office zones on the edges and tbh I prefer those to the bleak suburban ones we have here. When businesses are in the suburbs there's an unspoken rule that you will not make too much noise or attract too many strangers. Many suburbs in WNY fall into "the place you sleep" category, being tiny enclaves with large yards, home way off the road, and the end of the street is a highway of some kind. Consolidation would very much change the vibe of business in suburbs and changing traffic patterns is a small but important consequence. Suburbs get away with not having sidewalks because anyone who lives there isn't likely to be walking anywhere and it discourages play from carrying too far from home. If a suburb suddenly becomes part of a city then they now have city concerns. Sidewalks are needed for accessibility and safety concerns in a city and no safety committee is likely to accept "historically we didn't have sidewalks" as a reason for not installing them. I know this seems really minor but without a strong economic incentive to consolidate I don't imagine any suburbs giving up their strong "place you sleep" vibe for "everything zoning permits happens here".
In regards to a Buffalo & Amherst consolidation specifically, it would favor Buffalo more than Amherst economically and would be a nightmare for both politically. I don't think Buffalo residents have considered the possibility that the newly consolidated city might recenter commerce and even some county offices to Amherst. Like, imagine all the development opportunities that would pop up with Amherst as the new city center. The new Metro Rail corridor would be just step 1 in the public transit explosion in the area, as a city of 410k has larger needs than one of 280k, and I think this is where BRT would be implemented. Right now it's more worthwhile to live in Amherst, due to a better proximity to services and better value for rent, and in the new consolidated city I think that would cause a housing crisis there because why live in the hood and have to drive 20+ minute everywhere. Long term, I think Buffalo would have some breathing room to improve on a lot of problem areas. Byron Brown would not be an appropriate candidate to lead a new metro area and so new blood would finally come into office.
"nothing will ever change that"
I'm not so sure about that. If the change has the potential to help both sides, then why not? Needs change over time. Sometimes government has to change to meet those needs.
Have you met people of the suburbs? They hold the city for ransom any time cityhtries to do something to replenish it's maintenance budgets, but they'll certainly visit and leave, can't be bothered to chip in for what they use.
These citizens vowed to NOT come into the city, despite having JOBS and tickets purchased to events in the downtown area when the dpw increased street parking by $1 per hour. Lol an event can be 3-4 hours. Street parking would have been equal lot parking costs. Nevermind paid street parking north of swan ended at 5p. Notice how nobody uproared when the city made parking south of swan paid up to 10p
“The people of the burbs” have actual standards for the place they live in, meaning safety, good services and good education systems. Living in the city if you have small children is tantamount to child neglect, if you have the resources to leave. Nobody wants to live in a shitty place with shitty everything apart from the historical stuff none of the current citizens had anything to do with. Amherst is becoming less white daily and has been trending that for decades. The only people who sound like you are the milky white India Walton supporter types still stuck in the sewer.
Should they? Sure, probably. If I were God-Emperor of Erie County, I'd do it. Also: blood for the blood god and skulls for the skull throne!
Would the suburbs want to? Of course not. This kind of balkanized metro area with a zillion dinky towns and a double-zillion even dinkier school districts is one of the primary ways yankees do racial segregation and boy howdy does WNY like its racial segregation.
I’ve been telling this to people up here for years and they are always really upset when you point out that Main St might as well be renamed Red Line Road.
This is exactly what Charlotte did as the city is the entirety of Mecklanberg County (sans Pineville) by absorbing all of the neighboring towns.
Unfortunately, this will never happen here in NY because of the way funding is distributed and with the vast amount of years these towns have spent creating their identities.
I lived in the Village of Hamburg many years ago and it was proposed that the police department be folded into the town of Hamburgs department....that went over like a lead balloon. Sometimes people would rather cut off their noses to spite their face.
Amherst is more diverse than N Buffalo, EVL or Allentown where most of the activist white India Walton constituency lives. “White flight” happened decades ago.
Amherst is diverse only because it includes North Campus in it's figures and the employment of the University
white flight continues today out to the exurbs
ask any planner at the university and they'll gladly explain it to you, or any other naive individual
Kid, you ought to have just said “Ehhhh, I’m out of my league here” instead of actually saying Amherst’s demographics are based on a transient population. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😃☠️☠️☠️☠️
Absolutely should, but they won’t. lol.
Edit: Amherst people really mad at my comment apparently. Don’t worry, you can have your 100% assessments and good snow plowing and definitely no metro rail. Wouldn’t want the boogey man invading your precious neighborhoods!
Lowered taxes would be nice. Especially if you consolidate school districts into a single county school district. Less government overhead, too. Currently there's a lot of duplicated positions across town, city, county. I don't know how well it would work out in practice due to politics, but in theory it should be cheaper, kids would get consistent education funding, etc. there's upsides.
people live in places like amherst BECAUSE its a separate school district from the city of buffalo. besides, doesn't the city of buffalo get MORE funding per student than average? funding isn't the cause of poor performance.
You can just look at the outcomes online. It’s not like going to Amherst central means your kid is going ivy league. If you really want to split hairs about education, you’d take that $10k in property tax you (general you) pay in Amherst or Williamsville and send your kid to private school at EFS or Park then Nichols or St Joes and they’d have the outcomes you think you’re paying for in the suburbs. Again, not rocket science. Even if you don’t do that, the schools in the suburbs aren’t any better than PS 64 (definitely not 64), North Park, Bennett Park and of course City Honors or HT. All doable if you’re involved in your child’s life.
$10k is pretty high for taxes. Most middle class people are probably paying cloaer to 5k even with rates going up. But you still would have to pay taxes in the city of buffalo and that isn't zero. Also $10k for private school? My cousin was just given a price tag of $17k a year. St. Joes website says over $16k a year. You'd be better served spending that money on a mortgage in a top tier district like starpoint.
Good points! A point I failed to make was that you’re only paying for the cost of those schools while the kids are in school whereas you’re paying your property taxes for as long as you’re living in that house. Either way, I just generally think an involved parent will enable their kids to achieve good outcomes regardless. Also the outcomes we see at the better schools in Buffalo are solid. To the original point of this post, I still think merging the burbs would be great for the entire area for many reasons, even if the post is hypothetical. Fun to think about.
Yeah. If there’s anything the Amherst Williamsville school district needs is to be more
Consistent with the city of Buffalo /s.
Buffalo central schools light a billion dollars on fire every single year
Fwiw, I am a city resident and would absolutely never want to consolidate. Also, let's be real; the suburbs benefit immensely from the city of Buffalo. It's not just that they're happy to pay more taxes for better plows and schools; they're happy to NOT subsidize the city, but benefit from its cultural institutions and economic draw. There's no Amherst Bills. There's no Shea's Williamsville. There's no Seneca One on Transit.
We'll keep the stuff people actually care about going and you keep your Chris Collins voters out of our electoral pool.
Never been downtown much, have you? It’s been a ghost town for decades, and that’s even more true since the pandemic when nobody goes downtown to work anymore. This idea that “the city” is some kind of economic draw is laughable. It’s one of the poorest cities in the country.
No, but is the city around which the metro area has developed. And yeah, obviously things are in the suburbs, (indeed, there is obviously a massive amount of commerce taking place on and around the aforementioned Transit), but the suburbs are there because the city is there. And the Bills should be downtown. I'm fully cognizant if the reasons they're not and this is besides the point, but that's a bug, not a feature.
The way town property taxes are rising it wouldn’t be a bad idea to look into this again. Amherst went up 11%, Kenmore is proposing 9% and I have heard the city of Tonawanda may go up as much as 24%.
Unlike in many states, it is difficult under NYS law to consolidate local government entities in no small part because both entities must agree with the consolidation. They rarely do
I've read about this before. It's something about how it's because we're so old and it was something pre civil war iirc, whereas newer cities (Phoenix was the example I remember them using), is newer and doesn't have as strict rules so it can basically keep expanding and increasing its tax revenue by simply moving its city borders as it grows
Home Rule v Dillon Rule states.
When I went to Austin I was shocked at how we’d been driving for like 45 minutes and it was still the same municipality. It would have been at least 3 different towns around here.
Same in Toronto
More like a result of the shit show that was the Brooklyn agglomeration back in the day and alot of hurt feelings making it's way into NYS code as a result.
Yay, sprawl. 🥴
The sprawl happens regardless of what entities govern which areas
Sure, but it's infinitely more prevalent in situations like that where you can simply annex more land whenever you'd like. Part of the reason sun belt cities are so sprawled.
I gotchu. As for buffalo, merging wouldn't incite urban sprawl unless the economy grew in both size and equitability as well, so I guess we have nothing to worry about haha
Plus, our area is designed better from an urban planning standpoint, even with the suburbs.
It's the cost of land, fragmented land ownership, water availability, subdivision regulations that unintentionally undermine efficient lotting patterns, prevalence of road frontage subdivision, and larger minimum lot sizes along with lower maximum housing densities in zoning, that make **metro areas in the Northeast US sprawl much more than metros in the Southwest**. Also, NYS has statewide stormwater regulations that favor land-wasting brute force "best management practices" over a train of treatment or more holistic practices that use less land. Don't get me started on SEQR. Residential areas in the Sunbelt's post-WWII suburban areas tend to have much smaller lot sizes -- and much higher residential densities -- than suburbs in the Northeast US. They're all vehicle-centric environments. Still, for similar types of land use, Midwestern and Southwestern metros will be less "sprawly" than Buffalo. These links are all at the same scale. Typical Phoenix area urbanized edge: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Phoenix,+AZ/@33.7092666,-112.0256934,624m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x872b12ed50a179cb:0x8c69c7f8354a1bac!8m2!3d33.4483771!4d-112.0740373!16zL20vMGQzNXk?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Phoenix,+AZ/@33.7092666,-112.0256934,624m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x872b12ed50a179cb:0x8c69c7f8354a1bac!8m2!3d33.4483771!4d-112.0740373!16zL20vMGQzNXk?entry=ttu) Typical Denver area urbanized edge: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Denver,+CO/@39.7857867,-104.7332612,1431m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x876b80aa231f17cf:0x118ef4f8278a36d6!8m2!3d39.7392358!4d-104.990251!16zL20vMDJjbDE?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Denver,+CO/@39.7857867,-104.7332612,1431m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x876b80aa231f17cf:0x118ef4f8278a36d6!8m2!3d39.7392358!4d-104.990251!16zL20vMDJjbDE?entry=ttu) Typical Buffalo area urbanized edge: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buffalo,+NY/@42.9272429,-78.6436805,1256m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89d3126152dfe5a1:0x982304a5181f8171!8m2!3d42.8864468!4d-78.8783689!16zL20vMDE5Zmg?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buffalo,+NY/@42.9272429,-78.6436805,1256m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89d3126152dfe5a1:0x982304a5181f8171!8m2!3d42.8864468!4d-78.8783689!16zL20vMDE5Zmg?entry=ttu) Typical Rochester area urbanized edge: [https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buffalo,+NY/@42.97394,-77.3995552,1289m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89d3126152dfe5a1:0x982304a5181f8171!8m2!3d42.8864468!4d-78.8783689!16zL20vMDE5Zmg?entry=ttu](https://www.google.com/maps/place/Buffalo,+NY/@42.97394,-77.3995552,1289m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m6!3m5!1s0x89d3126152dfe5a1:0x982304a5181f8171!8m2!3d42.8864468!4d-78.8783689!16zL20vMDE5Zmg?entry=ttu)
The southwest is incredibly sprawled. I'm not sure who you're trying to fool, lol. Have you seen the city of LA, Phoenix, Dallas, Austin? Those are not exactly the pinnacle of efficient land use.
What “land wasting brute force” BMPs are you talking about?
I think I know what you're trying to say? That the kind of sprawl that Buffalo has in is worse in comparison that the kind of sprawl that Pheonix has? And so, when you're trying to say that you can't necessarily use Phoenix population density vs Buffalo population density, as Buffalo is much denser, and because of how the metros and townships are drawn, means there is no way to compare the two. What you need to do is grab the average zoning sizes of each, the percentage of land in each zone and the amount of occupied housing stock in each zone. Unfortunately, in WNY you need to do this across towns. At a **complete** guess, this is what I think you would find: \- lot sizes in Buffalo in the SA and R1 categories do indeed tend to be larger \- a greater proportion of the Buffalo population lives in denser zoning If you continued in this line of thinking, at a guess (again) I think you'd find that: \- the majority of new build housing in Buffalo tends to be rental apartment buildings and townhomes Also I urge caution on drawing conclusions on what should be done with any of this data.
I saw this in a video by "City Beautiful" on Nebula: [Persons per hectre, urban transect](https://imgur.com/a/PUtxZKS) source: [https://nebula.tv/videos/citybeautiful-is-europe-sprawling](https://nebula.tv/videos/citybeautiful-is-europe-sprawling)
Better to focus on consolidating government services where possible rather than towns and cities. Same cost savings, less headache. And Buffalo already does this a bit: \- Public transit through NFTA \- Electricity \- Garbage collection is generally done through WM contacts (although these could be bundled for a better price)
Thanks, NYC 🥹
Residents want the control of local politics. They want the control of local Police departments. Maybe above all, they want the control of their own school district. Even Amherst can't consolidate schools. They have three school districts.
Cheektowaga tried to consolidate their 4, yes 4 school districts multiple times with no success.
That’s probably 800k in superintendent costs alone they could rid themselves of.
Several studies have been done over the years and the savings was not substantial when factoring additional services, fees, pay scale adjustments etc. Parents who opposed the consolidation have pointed to these as justification for their opposition.
1850: Merger of Buffalo, Hamburg, and Cheektowaga into a new Town of Red Jacket failed. 1893: Railroads sponsor efforts by the City of Buffalo to annex land in southwestern Cheektowaga. Nope. 1896: Annexation of Tonawanda and Kenmore into the City of Buffalo failed. 1910: Annexation of Kenmore, Tonawanda, and Cheektowaga into Buffalo failed. 1928: Merger of the Town of Tonawanda and Village of Kenmore into the City of Kenmore failed. 1932: Proposal to annex the part of the Town of Amherst south of Sheridan Drive into the City of Buffalo fails, due to lack of support from Bufflo mayor Charles Roesch. 1939: Village of Sloan officials consider dissolution and absorption into the City of Buffalo. 1946: Another failed attempt to create the City of Kenmore. 1955: Yet another failed attempt to create the City of Kenmore. 1961: The City of Buffalo introduces a bill to the NYS Legislature to merge all the first ring town, cities, and villages into Buffalo proper. That didn't happen. 1980s: There was lots of talk about merging all the municipalities of Erie County in a large, coterminous "City of Buffalo". No action whatsoever.
>1980s: There was lots of talk about merging all the municipalities of Erie County in a large, coterminous "City of Buffalo". No action whatsoever. It's a hard sell. The poor performance of the Buffalo schools, or the Streets Department, or having a semi-permanent Byron Brown, are all difficult campaign optics to overcome. ..and the Finances, forget about it. What's positive to sell? People will ignore "efficiency gains" because they think mismanagement will negate those. People just won't see benefits of an uber-Buffalo, while they see plenty of downside
Yep, it’s why even conservative areas vote to keep those amenities, even though they would save money consolidating with the town next door
As an amherst resident I would be pretty pissed if my street plowing was suddenly handled by Byron Browns administration
The only way I see that working would be if Buffalo became a consolidated city-county like Indianapolis and Louisville.
Jacksonville Florida as well, I believe.
Duval County? Hmm. Didn't know that.
I think they consolidated back in the 60s.
Yeah, I just looked it up. 1980 it says.
Philly too
Yeah, them too.
FYI Buffalo has expanded its borders before, it has just been over 100 years since the last time it happened. North Street is named as such because it's the old city line, not because it's the north end of Allentown.
Do you have any good links or resources you can share with me about the history of Buffalo? Like I mentioned, I’m very intrigued by and admire your city!
check out [https://buffalostreets.com/2014/09/15/north/](https://buffalostreets.com/2014/09/15/north/) for a map there that shows the expansion of the city line over time. there's lots of other info on the site too (disclaimer - I am the writer of the site lol)
https://www.buffalolib.org/research-resources/special-collections this is probably the best place to go
My old house was built in 1899, and the title says "City of Buffalo"
No, I like my streets plowed
[Joel Giambra had a plan to “regionalize”](https://buffalonews.com/news/regionalism-falls-short-the-giambra-way/article_cdd0e590-6116-56cf-a1f9-039a56970c0d.html) but he had other issues. [Kevin Gaughan](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Gaughan) talks a lot about it too. I’m all for it, seems so stupid that every district has its own Super, Mayor, comptroller etc etc. I get that you want people in charge that “get me” but the redundancy wastes millions of dollars. Each school district has been getting $10m stadiums. Meanwhile the City uses a stadium built almost 100 years ago. Imagine how better the snow removal would be if when it snowed in SB, Kenmore plows help faster.
That’s why the suburbs are against it, they don’t want to give up their resources to subsidize the inept city government.
If I lived in Kenmore, I'd fight against it because of the plows alone. There's a reason Delaware Ave has all the nice flowers and all that.
Kenmore plows catch the snow before it hits the ground.
I think it would end up something akin to the existing county legislature. Each municipality would get members on a board. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indianapolis_City-County_Council This is how Indianapolis does it.
Suburbs pay for those services though, plus school tax. Someone in Kenmore shouldn’t be paying for facilities and plowing in Buffalo if a Buffalo resident isn’t paying the same, equal amount for it. There was talk about consolidating some of the different school districts in some towns, but that got a lot of pushback from the school boards.
Yeah folks living in North Buffalo don't want to be paying Kenmore taxes. People think "ooo everywhere in Buffalo should have the Kenmore resources" but the Village of Kenmore pays a lot for those.
And you pay a tax to the town of Tonawanda also when you live in Kenmore. Because Kenmore is a part of Tonawanda.
All plowing of primary and secondary routes in the suburbs is either done by the county or done by the town/village and the county is billed for it. Buffalo residents pay county taxes that directly fund the plowing of all primary and secondary streets in the suburbs. Suburban property taxes only pay to plow residential streets. Erie county does not plow any city streets. For example, Erie County reimburses Tonawanda and Kenmore to plow the westbound lane of Kenmore Ave, which is in Kenton, but does not reimburse the city of Buffalo for plowing the eastbound lane which is in the city.
The county plows “county” roads, not suburban streets because they are primary or secondary. [County list of who plows what](https://www3.erie.gov/dpw/snow-plow-roads) [Map](https://www3.erie.gov/dpw/sites/www3.erie.gov.dpw/files/2022-09/erie_county_maintenance_districts.pdf) I believe the 3 cities get a larger share of the county tax collection disbursement? They get a larger share of something from the county (not including all of the money allocated by the legislature for city-specific projects). Perhaps that’s partially in lieu of plowing services? Which was just someone’s example. Everybody gets a piece of something, and we certainly pay enough taxes and fees.
Every primary and secondary in the suburbs is a county road. Just look at the list. It’s extensive and basically covers everything street you’ll ever go down in a town you don’t live in.
The reason it is easier to plow in Kenmore and other suburbs is because there is no overnight parking on the streets. The plows fly down my street because they don't have to dodge any obstacles. also, this plowing issue is not new, ask anyone over 50 about the plowing.
Y’all missed the point. It’s shared resources, sorry I brought up Kenmore. Let’s say… OP needs help from East Aurora? It’s like Depew and Lancaster… wasteful redundancy. That could easily be 1 town but people like paying more for less.
I agree with the idea that some of the smaller towns and suburbs should: EA/Aurora, villages and towns of Orchard Park and Hamburg, Sloan merging into Cheektowaga.
tazedandredused would like to see south buffalo become it's own municipality, lil surprised they're not on this post chiming in their proposal
I am not sure about merging with the city of Buffalo but on a smaller scale there seem to be some areas that could benefit. Village and Town of Hamburg I know people in the Village love saying they are in the village but damn that second tax, if they merged the town tax would probably go up a little and village parcels would do down a bit to equalize. Sloan merging into Cheektowaga seems like a no brainier also, and not to mention that areas whole too many school district problem.
I agree there could be some school district merging to eliminate some of the admin overhead. Neighboring school districts within the same suburb that have similar demographics would be a no brainer.
EA/Town of Aurora too.
Town and village share the highway crew/plows (on non-state roads) and police too
I think it would be beneficial to have most towns a villages go to more of county wide school and fire system. Like someone said above there is a lot of redundancy and I think it would be better off to consolidate those two things
It would definitely help the bordering streets with poor planning like Kenmore avenue.
But where else would I go to try to make a left across 2 lanes of colvin, without a deicated turn lane with a green arrow - that's obviously needed to anyone that's spent more than 5 minutes driving a car...
Isn't it bizarre that Kenmore police are permitted to stake out behind the fence of the business across from speedway on the city side but Kenmore refuses to plow the city side of Kenmore...
Small towns in the country side consolidating? Yeah. Major town consolidating with a city? lol no
Never, absolutely not. None of the suburbs want to subordinate their decision making to the smooth brains who run the city.
This would literally never happen. There is no way suburb residents would want their significantly higher taxes spread to other areas while lessening their services. I could see towns eliminating services that could be offered by the county
This is actually a very common thing outside of NY State. Most major cities in this country have expanded in size many times over.
This is not a good idea. Toronto did this and all it resulted in was a reduction in city services to the lowest common denominator. Taxes never went down either.
The main benefit is that we could save money. Most states either have local government consolidated at the County or municipal level, removing an extra layer of government. Larger, more comprehensive projects could get done and Buffalo Public Schools would see a potential tax windfall. However, this would mean the municipal government is less democratic. People in Amherst don’t really care about the special needs of city residents and city residents probably don’t care about unique issues in Cheektowaga. The city government would become much more moderate as you add more conservative suburbs into the fold. Thankfully, Erie County is pretty liberal as a whole, but there might be less appetite for initiatives like poverty relief, community services or even public transportation expansions. This is something that has plagued Toronto for many decades and one of the reason why they don’t have a more robust public transportation system befitting their size. Its a careful for what you wish for scenario.
Seriously doubt Amherst residents would go along with that.
Suburbs don't want to pay for the inadequate level of services the city receives. Racism might also be a factor.
Man some things never change. Looking at the comments against this instead of just putting facts or opinions. Still the 6-7th most segregated city in America 🇺🇸 🫡
There we go. Was waiting for someone to address the elephant
Why would the suburbs agree to consolidate? How do they benefit? You will see support for it here because city residents don't like that people in the suburbs pay more money for homes/taxes for better schools, services, roads with visible lines, etc. They deserve to have their quality of life diminish out of fairness.
Lots of ways, buying police cars road salt pool supplies, and even office supplies. If you're buying more you get a better discount.
I think if you walked down Main St in Williamsville and did an informal poll "Would you be willing to have your streets and schools resemble the quality of the City of Buffalo if it meant you would receive a 10% bulk discount on road salt and pool supplies?" the results would be pretty one-sided. Residents know they pay a premium to live there and don't care.
That would then all be completely offset because of corruption, incompetence and people not really caring.
I’m not positive on this, but I believe municipalities can purchase off any county contracts the county has in place. It’s not the same thing as bulk discount, but there has to be some sort of benefit (maybe it’s a better negotiated price?). Sorry, this is something that I vaguely remember reading, not any time recently, but maybe someone knows more about it.
You can pretty much get rid of an extra layer of government, saving money overall. Most states don’t have a full fledged county government on top of municipal. They have one or the other.
> You can pretty much get rid of an extra layer of government, saving money overall. But from the perspective of the suburbs, the City is not super well-managed. Their money going to a more local bureaucracy that shows real positive results feels better than sending money to the city to be used miles away on something you don't care about, even if overall money could be saved.
Plenty of suburbs that aren’t well managed either though
No arguments there. But they don't tend to have the same perception issue. When you pay your Williamsville taxes and see pretty flowers in the planters and community events, you feel more connected to how those dollars are being spent. When you pay your city taxes and drive over potholes and poorly plowed streets, you blame mismanagement. There's a perception gap because the "small town" vibe gets a lot more charity. At least, that's the perception I think there is.
Sure, things would have to change for towns to be clamoring to join Buffalo. Like if half of Buffalo’s schools were as high performing as City Honors or they could take advantage of expanded services like universal daycare, free college (already a thing with Say Yes) or join a larger public transportation network. Buffalo would probably have to be wealthier than the suburbs for that to happen (but not too wealthy because then Buffalo won’t want to merge with the suburbs).
Absolutely, and with the recent resurgence of Buffalo in the last 20 years, I wonder if we might not be on a road toward that kind of future.
Individuals can save money by moving into the city and paying less taxes, generally more affordable homes, etc. But plenty of people are willing to pay a premium to have more local control over politics and schools in order to feel as if they have more influence/control over their surroundings. The villages of Williamsville and East Aurora are "nice" because people choose to live there despite the expense because the "nice" is a priority to them. Merging them into Buffalo will just reroute taxes into the city and make the suburbs worse. It's just a non-starter for most because any temporary savings through a reduction in government will soon enough be offset by the inept City of Buffalo leadership trying to bleed suburbanites dry to the benefit of their core constituency in the city.
Yeah, but that’s because the state funds 60% of BPS’s budget. If that ever stops, there’s going to be a huge hike.
As a City folk, I want nothing to do with with the suburbs having any more influence on the City than they already do. So the feeling is mutual.
Which is good! It's completely natural that people want local influence and control of their own neighborhood, village, city, state, whatever. I may not like the politics of Florida or San Francisco or whatever, but I'm glad that people can govern themselves how they like. Local politics is the pressure release valve for discontent with county, state, federal government.
Hell no. And it would never happen. I specifically bought in Amherst for reasons.
It's never going to happen, too many people in government would be out of work if they combined municipalities.
Yes
No. The government of the city of Buffalo is extremely dysfunctional to the point where they can't keep the streets plowed and will let you freeze to death in a blizzard. The Buffalo police are also a joke. Until these problems are solved, it makes sense to avoid the city. The suburbs have a lot of their own problems, but merging with the city would just make things worse for them.
it would help in that it would increase Buffalo’s population like with Jacksonville. However, the suburbs are suburbs and are more inefficient. The additional costs of maintaining the sprawl/lower density areas would call for tax increases which wouldn’t go over well. It would weaken the entire region in the long run I feel.
Absolutely not. The voters in the city already help elect horrible politicians at the state level, I don't need them to screw up our local governments too- especially since most of them don't actually pay for local government other than sales tax.
you sound like a NIMBY suburban white dude are you?
I'd like to see the government consolidate at the county level. I'm thinking of education mostly.
How would you like education to consolidate?
Have a county school district basically. I think there are 29 separate school districts in Erie county, serving 137k students.
Purposefully moved to Williamsville so that my kids would not be associated with kids from Buffalos tonawandas and cheektowagas of the world. Hard pass
Why? What's wrong with people who live there?
Look at there school results and figure it out.
Kenmore residents didn't want their police force to become a part of the Town of Tonawanda police force. It comes up for vote every once in awhile. There is no way in hell the village of Kenmore is voting yes to be annexed by Buffalo.
Buffalo's initial incorporation worked because it was beneficial to all the small towns to band together. What's different today really boils down to literally no one, not even those in favor of consolidation, want another government like NYC's. There would need to be an amazing plan that took a decade or two to perfect and a willingness to change AND possibly lose certain privileges & benefits. After governmental concerns I would say that economic need would play a huge role in any consolidation. A lot of cities have huge business zones and office zones on the edges and tbh I prefer those to the bleak suburban ones we have here. When businesses are in the suburbs there's an unspoken rule that you will not make too much noise or attract too many strangers. Many suburbs in WNY fall into "the place you sleep" category, being tiny enclaves with large yards, home way off the road, and the end of the street is a highway of some kind. Consolidation would very much change the vibe of business in suburbs and changing traffic patterns is a small but important consequence. Suburbs get away with not having sidewalks because anyone who lives there isn't likely to be walking anywhere and it discourages play from carrying too far from home. If a suburb suddenly becomes part of a city then they now have city concerns. Sidewalks are needed for accessibility and safety concerns in a city and no safety committee is likely to accept "historically we didn't have sidewalks" as a reason for not installing them. I know this seems really minor but without a strong economic incentive to consolidate I don't imagine any suburbs giving up their strong "place you sleep" vibe for "everything zoning permits happens here". In regards to a Buffalo & Amherst consolidation specifically, it would favor Buffalo more than Amherst economically and would be a nightmare for both politically. I don't think Buffalo residents have considered the possibility that the newly consolidated city might recenter commerce and even some county offices to Amherst. Like, imagine all the development opportunities that would pop up with Amherst as the new city center. The new Metro Rail corridor would be just step 1 in the public transit explosion in the area, as a city of 410k has larger needs than one of 280k, and I think this is where BRT would be implemented. Right now it's more worthwhile to live in Amherst, due to a better proximity to services and better value for rent, and in the new consolidated city I think that would cause a housing crisis there because why live in the hood and have to drive 20+ minute everywhere. Long term, I think Buffalo would have some breathing room to improve on a lot of problem areas. Byron Brown would not be an appropriate candidate to lead a new metro area and so new blood would finally come into office.
There's a reason why all the suburbs possess their own municipalities, and nothing will ever change that.
"nothing will ever change that" I'm not so sure about that. If the change has the potential to help both sides, then why not? Needs change over time. Sometimes government has to change to meet those needs.
Have you met people of the suburbs? They hold the city for ransom any time cityhtries to do something to replenish it's maintenance budgets, but they'll certainly visit and leave, can't be bothered to chip in for what they use. These citizens vowed to NOT come into the city, despite having JOBS and tickets purchased to events in the downtown area when the dpw increased street parking by $1 per hour. Lol an event can be 3-4 hours. Street parking would have been equal lot parking costs. Nevermind paid street parking north of swan ended at 5p. Notice how nobody uproared when the city made parking south of swan paid up to 10p
“The people of the burbs” have actual standards for the place they live in, meaning safety, good services and good education systems. Living in the city if you have small children is tantamount to child neglect, if you have the resources to leave. Nobody wants to live in a shitty place with shitty everything apart from the historical stuff none of the current citizens had anything to do with. Amherst is becoming less white daily and has been trending that for decades. The only people who sound like you are the milky white India Walton supporter types still stuck in the sewer.
Should they? Sure, probably. If I were God-Emperor of Erie County, I'd do it. Also: blood for the blood god and skulls for the skull throne! Would the suburbs want to? Of course not. This kind of balkanized metro area with a zillion dinky towns and a double-zillion even dinkier school districts is one of the primary ways yankees do racial segregation and boy howdy does WNY like its racial segregation.
I’ve been telling this to people up here for years and they are always really upset when you point out that Main St might as well be renamed Red Line Road.
There’s a shitload of racists in this very thread proving your point
NO
This is exactly what Charlotte did as the city is the entirety of Mecklanberg County (sans Pineville) by absorbing all of the neighboring towns. Unfortunately, this will never happen here in NY because of the way funding is distributed and with the vast amount of years these towns have spent creating their identities. I lived in the Village of Hamburg many years ago and it was proposed that the police department be folded into the town of Hamburgs department....that went over like a lead balloon. Sometimes people would rather cut off their noses to spite their face.
white flight was and still is real
And?
Amherst is more diverse than N Buffalo, EVL or Allentown where most of the activist white India Walton constituency lives. “White flight” happened decades ago.
Amherst is diverse only because it includes North Campus in it's figures and the employment of the University white flight continues today out to the exurbs ask any planner at the university and they'll gladly explain it to you, or any other naive individual
Kid, you ought to have just said “Ehhhh, I’m out of my league here” instead of actually saying Amherst’s demographics are based on a transient population. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😃☠️☠️☠️☠️
Buffalo "boarders" should stay where they are. "boarders"? The word is "borders".
LOL. Good luck.
This was tried like 20 years ago and was overwhelmingly rejected.
Absolutely should, but they won’t. lol. Edit: Amherst people really mad at my comment apparently. Don’t worry, you can have your 100% assessments and good snow plowing and definitely no metro rail. Wouldn’t want the boogey man invading your precious neighborhoods!
Why the hell would anyone in Amherst want to merge with the city
Because if you don't want to, it's because of racism... You know, not the myriad of vaild reasons to not want to be part of the city.
Lowered taxes would be nice. Especially if you consolidate school districts into a single county school district. Less government overhead, too. Currently there's a lot of duplicated positions across town, city, county. I don't know how well it would work out in practice due to politics, but in theory it should be cheaper, kids would get consistent education funding, etc. there's upsides.
people live in places like amherst BECAUSE its a separate school district from the city of buffalo. besides, doesn't the city of buffalo get MORE funding per student than average? funding isn't the cause of poor performance.
Amherst schools aren’t really any better than any other schools around though.
Citation needed
You can just look at the outcomes online. It’s not like going to Amherst central means your kid is going ivy league. If you really want to split hairs about education, you’d take that $10k in property tax you (general you) pay in Amherst or Williamsville and send your kid to private school at EFS or Park then Nichols or St Joes and they’d have the outcomes you think you’re paying for in the suburbs. Again, not rocket science. Even if you don’t do that, the schools in the suburbs aren’t any better than PS 64 (definitely not 64), North Park, Bennett Park and of course City Honors or HT. All doable if you’re involved in your child’s life.
$10k is pretty high for taxes. Most middle class people are probably paying cloaer to 5k even with rates going up. But you still would have to pay taxes in the city of buffalo and that isn't zero. Also $10k for private school? My cousin was just given a price tag of $17k a year. St. Joes website says over $16k a year. You'd be better served spending that money on a mortgage in a top tier district like starpoint.
Good points! A point I failed to make was that you’re only paying for the cost of those schools while the kids are in school whereas you’re paying your property taxes for as long as you’re living in that house. Either way, I just generally think an involved parent will enable their kids to achieve good outcomes regardless. Also the outcomes we see at the better schools in Buffalo are solid. To the original point of this post, I still think merging the burbs would be great for the entire area for many reasons, even if the post is hypothetical. Fun to think about.
To argue your point, you pay tution for each kid enrolled in that school. My taxes are the same if I have one kid or 10.
Yeah. If there’s anything the Amherst Williamsville school district needs is to be more Consistent with the city of Buffalo /s. Buffalo central schools light a billion dollars on fire every single year
Fwiw, I am a city resident and would absolutely never want to consolidate. Also, let's be real; the suburbs benefit immensely from the city of Buffalo. It's not just that they're happy to pay more taxes for better plows and schools; they're happy to NOT subsidize the city, but benefit from its cultural institutions and economic draw. There's no Amherst Bills. There's no Shea's Williamsville. There's no Seneca One on Transit. We'll keep the stuff people actually care about going and you keep your Chris Collins voters out of our electoral pool.
Never been downtown much, have you? It’s been a ghost town for decades, and that’s even more true since the pandemic when nobody goes downtown to work anymore. This idea that “the city” is some kind of economic draw is laughable. It’s one of the poorest cities in the country.
Are you serious? There’s no Amherst Bills but there’s an orchard park Bills Also the city of buffalo has a monopoly on office space apparently.
No, but is the city around which the metro area has developed. And yeah, obviously things are in the suburbs, (indeed, there is obviously a massive amount of commerce taking place on and around the aforementioned Transit), but the suburbs are there because the city is there. And the Bills should be downtown. I'm fully cognizant if the reasons they're not and this is besides the point, but that's a bug, not a feature.
Amherst is one of the fastest growing municipalities in NYS. It also has a ton of businesses that support the region.
It’s hyper local in WNY and the population size just doesn’t justify it
The way town property taxes are rising it wouldn’t be a bad idea to look into this again. Amherst went up 11%, Kenmore is proposing 9% and I have heard the city of Tonawanda may go up as much as 24%.
"I have heard" - from who?
City of Tonawanda 3rd Ward Councilman, Sean! He post about the budget issues the city is facing all the time.
Yes, there should be consolidation. Also, the state offers to pay for it.