[Dr Nevergold]

^^The Buffalo-Niagara region isn't anything like Detroit, and the poverty here is nothing compared with what you find in South Chicago. So everything is relative. For the most part, the suburbs here are as wealthy as you find anywhere else in America, or more so. If you're not in Niagara Falls or Buffalo's east side the region is pretty average America and the city of Buffalo is actually quite nice (and very gentrified) in the older neighborhoods. Niagara Falls, however, has a lot of work to do.

Niagara Falls USA is a disaster for many reasons. The chemical corridor along the Robert Moses parkway is still there, it is as industrial today as it was 50 years ago.

Otherwise, Niagara Falls has another problem entirely: civic NIMBY groups keeping the city from progress whenever there is an investment to tear down a city block combined with a lack of money from the collapsed industrial base. It also seems as if when Niagara Falls USA gets a pot of money to do something, they completely waste it in projects that really don't enhance the city. For example, they are spending tens of millions of dollars to tear down the Robert Moses parkway and convert it into a more boulevard like setting. Sure, it sounds better on paper, but wouldn't just repaving the old parkway and razing some neighborhoods with the same funds and funding a program to have developers rebuild tourist centric buildings and hotels be a better idea?

With that having been said, there has been progress in Niagara Falls. The downtown on the US side has come a long, long way from what I remember it when I first came to this region 10 years ago. A matter of fact, the new business district between the falls and the Seneca Niagara casino is quite a charmful area now, and spans several city blocks. The entire old downtown core has been renovated, and for only 50,000 people its rather impressive.

As others have said, since Niagara Falls, Canada is such a resoundingly beautiful city its easy to just cross the border and forget the NY side exists for most tourists, so that factors in as well.