Well here is my first entry on my new blog... In this blog i plan to let my opinion be known on several different issues concerning our city. I feel as though Buffalo may very well be one of the greatest cities in the world however it is full of a lot of dumb ideas. So here are 4 examples of what i consider to be dumb.

1- People who oppose the proposed condo tower on the site of the Park Lane Restaurant.

2- People who ultimately played a role in the deterioration of the Savarino Services Construction Corp.hotel project at Forest and Elmwood.

3- The folks in the Old First Ward opposing the plans to build an ethanol plant on Ohio St.

4- The constant opposition that has been given to the Seneca Nation as they try to orchestrate the Buffalo Creek Casino.

People need to understand that any highly profitable metropolis with good paying jobs and that offer any sort of future for its youth comes at a price...whether that price involves giving up your precious friggin green space or maybe having a few extra cars use your streets. this along with many other things that you may have to sacrifice may be the difference in whether or not I get to enjoy my children past the age of 20 and get to play an integral part in the nurturing process of my future grandchildren. However to many people work so very hard at keeping that old school Buffalo attitude...you know the attitude that says Irish people should live in South Buffalo, Italians belong on the West Side and so forth and so on. But the reality is the old school attitude in a new school world will fail you every time. Old school things are things of the past and in an idealistic world we need to get past these things and practice a little thing called progression and face the facts that these things that we once relied on to keep our city and our economy afloat are gone now. We need to rebuild ourselves into a city that will appeal to others and will offer those same ammenities that can be found in other big thriving cities....like jobs, and eclectic housing options, a nightlife scene that will appeal to all ages, commercial strips throughout the city that offer restaurants, stores and services, and so on and so forth. BUT guess what its like Frank Sinatra said these things are all like love and marriage...."you can't have one without the other".
So has anyone ridden down South Park Ave. lately? You know the section near Louisiana St. errr um the Old First Ward? Well if you haven't I have and OMG what a sad decrepid excuse for a neighborhood there is a gas station on the corner of South Park and Louisiana that sold not only gas but sneakers, jeans, t-shirts, beer, oil, cd's, dvd's, and any other thing they could fit into the store. half the buildings on the South Park strip are not in use or if they are look like they should not be in use....... but hey when the residents of that neighborhood resisted plans and proposals to build a beautiful new zoo in their neighborhood they must have knew what they were doing because who knows the businesses and jobs that could have been made available to that area once the zoo was finished being built. And who knows how much the property value in that area could have increased and why would they have wanted to allow the city to create a potential spring board for the investments and development in the Buffalo waterfront....after all it is right around the corner. Instead the center of their commercial strip or business district is that frightful gas station/boutique/music store. Which by the way i have my own opinion on a single institution selling all different stuff like this. They should be required to purchase permits to sell all these things or should have to sell them out of different store fronts. Permits and the requirement to conduct business out of different storefronts would do much good for the city....it would create the opportunity for an independant clothing store to survive on a street other than Elmwood Ave. because they would not have to compete with the local Sunoco or give an independant video store a chance too..... more stores mean more jobs....more jobs mean more people....more people means more business to be had.....more business to be had means more stores...........see this is truly the the circle of life. I would love to touch more on the gas station issue but I must go to work now but I will touch on that again at another time. thanks for reading and please come back if you agree or disagree or have something interesting to share with me please email me