Today’s “urban scene of the week” brings us to Eagle Street. David Torke at Fix Buffalo captured this image during a guided tour of the Hydraulics this afternoon.
Plastic, suburban houses create the foreground for a massive factory complex. The houses seem to say: “See, aren’t you fooled? This isn’t the old Buffalo. This is just like suburbia. Don’t look at those smokestacks or the man behind the curtain!” The same scene can be eyed in neighborhoods all over Buffalo where dense, immigrant enclaves have given way to grassy fields and the occasional surviving house – or, as in this case, to new houses that seem to reflect a more rural or suburban character, opposite that of the historical city. The houses depicted here are fine houses, very well maintained by caring owners, but say much about a trajectory of urban planning that favors suburbanization of the city.
Buffalo is a hearty town, full of survivors, but there also seems to be an immense insecurity in local culture about how the city is perceived by the world. The above scene appears to mask over post-industrial realities, revealing an identity crisis in a city still hurting from the collapse of steel and grain. It indicates a city that is eager to become something it has never been. It also belies an increasing awareness of the economic and cultural value of the city’s traditional neighborhoods and industrial landscapes.
As industrial heritage assets only now begin to fuel economic development and heritage tourism in the city, the painfall fallout of the city’s deindustrialization appears to be wearing off. Artists, developers, apartment-seekers, office space hunters, all seem to celebrate this industrial legacy now. The suburban lifestyle is losing popularity, and in-town living is in vogue like never before… but as older building stock continues to be demolished and replaced with “vinyl victorians” in down-on-their-luck neighborhoods all over the city, one wonders when it will finally be okay for Buffalo to be itself again.
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February 3rd, 2010 at 10:03 am
Another major planning and redevelopment mistake has beset Buffalo again. The development of these suburban style, tacky, single family houses. These poorly built vinyl victorians are springing up all over large parts of Buffalo’s east side. This is wrong and the policies that promote this suburbanization of Buffalo’s east side need to be vanquished. I am well aware that much of the traditional old housing was badly deteriorated and well beyond economic repair. Many of the old houses had to be demolished. But redevelopment of these downtrodden neighborhoods should have been more urban in character meaning the design and construction of duplexes, townhouses, rowhouses, and on key intersections, mid rise apartment and condo towers. Instead of redeveloping the east side the right way, we settle for exact replicas of East Amherst and Clarence in the heart of our city. How tragically sad.