East Side Vacancy

The East Side’s large scale urban vacancy presents a huge obstacle to conventional redevelopment in Buffalo.  With almost 20% of the Buffalo vacant and still emptying out, East Side neighborhoods and the city beyond struggle to maintain a footprint let alone attract the investment that will stop the exodus.  And although much of the empty land is concentrated in the East Side, its larger impact has been on the perception of Buffalo as a place of the past rather than the future.  Because of the East Side’s vacancy dilemma, rehabilitation of the landscape and establishment of the potential for tomorrow’s Buffalo has become difficult to envision physically, economically and conceptually.