[NYguy]

^ I don't know what you mean. New York has always been undercounted, and always will be. Officials just expected a better job this time.


Someone wanted some Buffalo information...

http://online.wsj.com/article/AP3119...0834e21e6.html
Census shows Buffalo continuing population decline

March 25, 2011

The Rev. Darius Pridgen's True Bethel Baptist Church throws more community farewell parties than welcoming celebrations.

Count him among those who weren't at all surprised at census figures released this week showing Buffalo's population dropped by 10.7 percent — 31,338 people — over the past decade.

In fact, every census since 1960 has shown Buffalo losing people. The 2010 results — which put the population at 261,310, down from a 1950s peak of about 580,000 — are the second in a row showing losses nearing 11 percent.

"I'm almost surprised when someone does move in," said Pridgen, a city councilman whose district is flush with vacant houses and lots. "I always ask, 'What made you come here?'"

Ironically, Pridgen has seen his congregation grow from about 1,500 people a decade ago to about 4,000 now, an expansion he says comes when people are "looking for hope in a depressed situation."

The former industrial hub on the shore of a Great Lake, famed in song as a place to shuffle off to, now has less than half the number of people it had at in its 1950s peak, the result of a shifting economy that drained old industrial cities of jobs and the people who worked them.

In 2009, there were as many as 10,000 vacant, abandoned homes in Buffalo, where suburban sprawl and an aging population have combined with manufacturing's decline to create some of the emptiest neighborhoods in the nation, according to an analysis at the time by The Associated Press. Even banks sometimes walk away from vacant buildings, which can be ravaged by hard Lake Erie winters.

A migration from the Rust Belt to the Sun Belt isn't over, said Al Price, an associate professor of urban and regional planning at the University at Buffalo. In the latest census, Detroit saw its population plummet 25 percent over the past decade, Cleveland 17.1 percent and Pittsburgh 8.5 percent.

A study by the Buffalo Mayor's Office of Strategic Planning suggested the city's population may dip to 250,000 or lower before growth resumes.

Mayor Byron Brown said that New York's status as one of the highest-taxed states has eroded many cities' populations but that he believes property tax cuts he has advanced, along with changes pushed by Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, could help stem the losses in the next decade.

"Buffalo is still the second-largest city in New York," he said. "That's why I've focused such attention on making Buffalo competitive."

In the meantime, some see a silver lining in a city with infrastructure to accommodate many more than it now has.

"We actually could use this to advance a new perception of Buffalo," Pridgen said, "by showing that we're not overpopulated, that we have shorter commute times, we have more green space. ... We have to use it to our advantage to attract businesses."

No one expects Buffalo's population to bounce back to its peak; the region has long recognized that the steel plants won't reopen. But Price said city leaders deserve credit for efforts toward attracting new economic development.

He points to a mammoth federal courthouse under construction downtown, a burgeoning 120-acre medical campus where $500 million in construction is under way, and billionaire Terry Pegula's recent $189 million purchase of the Buffalo Sabres.

Then there is the dogged network of community activists determined to counter perceptions that Buffalo is a dying burg, by doing everything from reaching out to investors to planting trees and gardens where houses no longer stand.

"It's not as if nothing's going on," Price said.

The annual Citybration festival, scheduled for June, is meant to showcase the city's assets to attract new people and employers and retain those already here.

"We need to be very proactive in our promotion of the city and all of its true assets," Citybration organizer Marti Gorman said.

Perhaps now more than ever.

"When the census figures speak, they speak with a very clear, cold, analytical voice," Gorman said, "so I think we need to redouble our efforts in Buffalo to let people know how wonderful a place it is and what remarkable opportunities it presents."

—Copyright 2011 Associated Press