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WILL OUR NEIGHBORHOODS GIVE WAY TO THE SUBURBAN POOR?
Scene from the Tour de Neglect at the CNU22 Annual Conference in Buffalo, NY.
11 july 2014 | thecurrenthub.com
COMMUNITY
East Side was a thriving neighborhood with one of the largest Polish and I recently had the opportunity to German populations in the nation. attend CNU22, the annual conference Since the 1950s, the combination of for the Congress for the New economic stagnation and white flight Urbanism. This year it was in Buffalo, have reduced the population of what is NY. The common question when I told Buffalo’s largest neighborhood my friends that my geeky passion was geographically by almost 90%. The taking me to Buffalo was something racial makeup has gone from almost like ‘why Buffalo?’ Well, it has great 100% white to almost 100% Africanbones and lots of warts. It’s exactly the American. To say that 75 mostly white, kind of fixer-upper New Urbanists love. relatively well-off out-of-towners At the beginning of the 1900s, riding bicycles through this Buffalo was home to more millionaires neighborhood was awkward puts it per capita than any other city in the lightly. Thankfully, we had well country. Population peaked at around connected and well known guides. 580K in 1950 and has fallen by roughly This is the type of place that people 55% since, as the industries that made reading The CurrentHub would rarely it one of the richest cities in America end up. If they did, it’s likely the result died or moved away. At this point, you of a wrong turn or a volunteer may be wondering what Buffalo has to project. But, it made me wonder if the do with Roswell and North Fulton. northern suburbs of Atlanta face a simWell, it all comes back to a tour that I ilar fate? took while I was there. The fact is that suburban poverty is The controversially named Tour de rising at a significantly faster rate than Neglect took about 75 wonky planners, in the city core. According to the Brookings Institute study “Confronting architects, and urbanism enthusiasts Suburban Poverty in America,” Atlanta through the economically devastated had the 4th fastest increase in East Side neighborhood to showcase suburban poverty between 2000 and what happens when once vibrant 2010. In Cobb County, Continues on p12 places become slums. At one point, By Mike Hadden