Buffalo - A Niche

Buffalo is like a niche product. It fills a gap that is missing in the United States. It can not be summed up in few words but I found out after traveling to cities from the likes of Shanghai, Tokyo, Milan, San Fransisco and Toronto, that finding a city that is so satisfying to live in are far and few.

Some words I can used to describe Buffalo, NY are; human, theater lover, music lover, festival enthusiast, architectural exhibitionist, food and kitchen obsessed, college students everywhere, ethnic diversity welcomed, a small business incubator and we have our share of competitive highschools.

Areas that we are lacking are: The city school system has many good and great schools but as a whole needs a lift. If you need an expensive home that cost more than one million dollars to sink the capital gains you just scored into then we are lacking. Public bus transportation can improve and our metro train is limited. The spring and fall can feel too short. The east side of Buffalo has many empty houses, 10,000 of them. They need to be rehabbed or taken down by Buffalo Reuse.

These are some facts and surveys done on Buffalo.

Population
Second largest city in NY state
Population as of 2005: 276,059
Diversity as of 2000: African American 39.3%, Latino 8.3%, Asian 1.8%
Median family income: 36,700
Median cost of home: 74,000

Schools
Student Teacher ratio in City schools 13 to 1
Schools: 78 Public, 47 private, Charter
Magnet (specialty) Public High School: 11, including specialties like art, finance, honors, bilingual, etc
University/College: 7 private, 2 state, one junior college (three campuses)
City Honors Public High School is ranked 8th in the nation.


Jobs - in private industry

Company.................................Industry.............................No. of Employed

Kaleida Health	Health Care	10,000
Catholic Health System	Health Care	8,400
HSBC Bank USA N.A.	Commercial Bank	5,848
Employer Services Corp.	Employment-related services	4,880
M&T Bank	Commercial Bank	4,820
Tops Markets LLC	Supermarket Retailer	4,673
Seneca Gaming Corp.	Entertainment	4,020
Catholic Diocese of Buffalo	Parishes, schools, and institutions	3,700
Wegmans Food Markets Inc.	Supermarket Retailer	3,288
Roswell Park Cancer Institute	Hospital	2,699

Art:
"Buffalo is home to over 50 private and public art galleries^[54] , most notably the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, home to a world-class collection of modern and contemporary art. The local art scene is also enhanced by the Burchfield-Penney Art Center, Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, CEPA, and many small galleries and studios.^[55][56]"

Theater
Buffalo has over 20 theaters including Shea's performing Arts Theater, Irish Classical Theater, and Alleyway Theater.

Water - Sailing / boating / Crew
"Buffalo is at the eastern end of Lake Erie, one of the Great Lakes, which boasts the greatest variety of freshwater sportfish in the country. The Lake serves as a playground for numerous personal yachts, sailboats, power boats and watercraft, and provides a short water route to excellent sand beaches on the nearby Ontario (Canada) shore. The city has an extensive breakwall system protecting its inner and outer Lake Erie harbors, which are maintained at commercial navigation depths for Great Lakes freighters."

Night Life
"Several distinct and thriving nightlife districts have grown around clusters of bars and nightclubs in the city. The most visible nightlife district is West Chippewa Street^[61], located between Main Street and South Elmwood Avenue. The area is home to high-energy dance clubs, crowded bars, trendy coffeehouses, and restaurants. Allentown, where bars are as numerous but the atmosphere is a bit more relaxed, is a several minute walk north to Allen Street. Allen Street near Main Street houses several gay bars, while Allen near Elmwood has many bars that feature live music. Continuing up Elmwood Avenue from Allentown is the Elmwood Strip, which runs about two miles to Buffalo State College. This strip has numerous small boutiques and restaurants, with few large corporate establishments. Crowds on this strip include everyone from college students to families to the elderly."

Ski Resorts
We have 13 ski resorts within a 100miles of the city.

Buffalo has had top ten rankings:

Forbes Magazine - First (1st) for The Perfect Commute
Half of the workers in the Buffalo metro spend that time or less getting to work, and drivers experience only 10 hours of annual delays, according to the Texas Transportation Institute. Of cities with over 500,000 commuters, fewer people spend an hour or more getting to work in Buffalo than anywhere else in the country.

Forbes Magazine - Fourth (4th) strongest housing market
Buffalo home owners are poised to not be hit hard by the housing downturn. Housing values rose during the bubble but at a marathoners spead rather then the sprinters pace the rest of the U.S. This is allowing Buffalo's housing values to stanbelize.

"The quarterly NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index (HOI) stated that nearly 90% of the new and existing homes sold in the metropolitan area during the second quarter were affordable to families making the area's median income of $57,000. The area median price of homes was $75,000."

Newsweek - National Public School Ranking

"The rigorous college preparatory curriculum at Buffalo's City Honors School has landed it at the head of the class in a Newsweek magazine ranking of the country's top high schools. Newsweek's 2006 list of "America's Best High Schools" ranks City Honors No. 4 on its list of the nation's 1,000 top schools. The high school rankings are the cover story of the publication's current issue"

Medical Jobs and Facilities

"Buffalo has increasingly become a center for bioinformatics and human genome research, including work by researchers at the University at Buffalo and the Roswell Park Cancer Institute. This consortium is known as the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus. It also includes: Buffalo Hearing & Speech Center, Buffalo Medical Group Foundation, Hauptman-Woodward Medical Research Institute, Kaleida Health, Olmsted Center for the Visually Impaired, Cleveland BioLabs and Upstate New York Transplant Services."

The American Planning Association - 3rd Best Neighborhood to Live - 2007
The Elmwoodvillage, a neigborhood in Buffalo, NY, was ranked the best place to live.

AmericanStyle - Art Destination
"Ranked Buffalo fourth (4th) in its list of America's top art destinations."

Air Quality - 86% of a year has good quality ! - 2008
For a medium to large city to have 86% of its days having good air quality is a big deal. This is a significant change in the last 3 years.

USA Today - 2001
Named Buffalo the winner of its "City with a Heart" contest, proclaiming it the nation's "friendliest city."

Reggio Emilia

For many who contemplate which teaching method is best for their child; Waldorf, Montessori, or Progressive Learning the process could not be harder. But I am tossing in another choice that may not be available yet in your area but to keep your eyes out for, Reggio Emilio which was developed in the municipal school system. "The town’s approach to early childhood education was born in the 1940s when a young journalist and psychologist named Loris Malaguzzi decided to rebuild the war-ravaged school system."

The NYTimes did a piece on the Garlanded School and the devout following of parents and teachers. It reminds me a bit of the Waldorf but the children are encourage to document their efforts with photos and text and are directed to learn how to stay focused on projects of their own choosing. There is also a "Atrium" central room (like in so many Italian homes) for the children to gather and exchange thoughts and ideas. They even have a separate room for a resident art teacher and the children's creations, photos, and other are prominently displayed throughout the rooms.

It is less structured and does not spend a lot of time on the testing requierments for many competitive kindergartens. You would have to make up that difference at home or with a tutor.

Buffalo Charter Schools

While at the park this past season I heard many parents conversing rather loudly and hoping their child would be excepted into Tapestry Charter School. Then later int he season the conversion changed to how happy they were to be excepted. I have heard this school is one of the better charter schools in the area but I could not fine any real ranking lists. Local schools are often ranked according to their enrollment and student/teacher ratio. Personally I think there are many things to judge a school on including if my child is happy there.

I have had three other people ask me what schools I liked. But I was not sure.

I looked around on the net to see if anyone did a comparison on something other then student/teacher ratios. I found 2 so far. I do not know how great the data is. It is based on test scores in different subjects and is adjust for reasons described below. Here is an example:

City-data.com

Tapestry Charter School

"City-data.com school rating (weighted overall 2006 test average compared to other schools in New York) from 0 (worst) to 100 (best) is 68.
(Our score takes into account sex and racial score differences and it is weighed according to the number of students taking the test)"

Putting them in order from 100 (best)-0 (worst):

68 Tapestry Charter School
58 Westminster Charter School
40 South Buffalo Charter School
29 Buffalo Academy of Science Charter School
27 Buffalo United Charter School
24 Oracle Charter School
21 Global Concepts Charter School
19 King Center Charter School
05 Kipp Sankofa Charter School
04 Pinnacle Charter School

Elmwood Village Charter School - There was no info

To give my readers a comparison.

City Honors, City of Buffalo, public, scored an 89. It is ranked # 4 in the nation.
Hutchinson Central Technical School, City of Buffalo, public, 62.
Orchard Park High School, small town suburb, public, had a score of 81 and is in the top 5% in the nation.

I didn't find any ranking for private schools on this site.

To give you a different raking with the same schools I found the School Digger list.

In order of ranked in all of the state and over all NYS assessment test.

1294 & 144.7 Tapestry Charter School
1488 & 135.7 Westminster Community Charter School
1796 & 116.0 King Center Charter School
1857 & 110.7 South Buffalo Charter School
1882 & 108.3 Global Concepts Charter School
2069 & 092.0 Buffalo United Charter School
2226 & 063.0 Stepping Stone Charter School

O.k. That is good enough. The rank is out of 2274 total school and the NYS assessment test is out of 200.

Either way Tapestry and Westminster are the winners for Buffalo charter schools.

I think this should be taken further and compare the charter schools to the Olmsted schools for gifted and talented. Olmsted is known to be a feeder school for City Honors. And that is more then good enough.

750 & 163.0 Fredrick Olmsted #64, public

I would like to point out that math and English language skills are not the only thing kids should be learning in school. Foreign languages, public speaking, music, art, physical/nutrition education, even how to balance a check book are all important skills. When I was in 5th grade my teacher showed us how to fill out a check. I took classes in Spanish, Latin, architecture, drafting/CAD, public speaking, advanced art, world literature, ecology, astronomy and even a Canadian Studies class in high school. Were these all important? I think so. I would not be successful and most of all happy with my life if it were not for my teachers.