The Buffalo News: Expect Buffalo’s resurgence, politics to provide headlines in the new year
Published:
Friday, January 1, 2016 - 08:00
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The fight over who will succeed President Obama will dominate the news for much of 2016. (Tribune News Service)[/caption]
This will be a watershed year in more than one way as America picks a new president and either learns to cope honorably with the threat of terrorism on our own soil, or continues down the dark road of fear that is the goal of those who prey on innocents. The choice may be revealed in whom the country chooses as its leader 10 months from now.
In Western New York, the most positive development in generations will begin to ramp up as SolarCity starts hiring and putting to work the first of an expected 1,460 employees at the giant solar panel factory at RiverBend. That project, the most significant aspect of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion commitment, will put Buffalo on the cutting edge of a 21st century industry that remains in its infancy.
There could hardly be a more hopeful development in a city that has struggled for decades. The decline is done. Growth is ahead and sprouting in so many places that its durability is plain, even to a city that has earned its skepticism the hard way.
Managing growth
The question is how well we will manage that growth. We need prosperity to spread throughout the city and to help those who may be shunted aside as change makes itself found. Property values and, thus, property taxes may begin to rise. It’s a natural outgrowth of economic resurgence, and while it is what the city needs, it can run down those it leaves behind.
We will also see evidence this year of how well Buffalo balances its growth with the need to make the city ever more friendly to those who already live here, those who may want to come to take part in its economic revival and the increasing numbers of those who come to visit.
Perhaps the most important evidence of that will be how Buffalo matches the opportunity to develop its long-neglected waterfront with the need to preserve the natural environment that makes Buffalo unique. It will be a back-and-forth process, and sometimes a contentious one, but the good news is that the conversation is underway and largely being conducted in a productive and respectful fashion.
