Where the Urban Dream Is Going Cheap

Posted by Carol Coletta on September 01, 2008

New York is all about what could be -- the potential, the possibilities.  But trying to make it in New York is also expensive and frsutrating.  As Adam Sternbergh writes in New York mag, "New York requires of these dreamers that they puruse two simultaneous lives: the romantic, invigorating, spectacular life you imagine for yourself, and the expensive, often dispiriting, intermittently grueling day-to-day life you have to lead in order to keep that dream life alive.   This is exhilerating.  This is exhausting."

And with that in mind, Sternbergh profiled a Brooklyn couple that headed to Buffalo to live cheaper, in a much larger apartment overlooking a park.  It is not a story about defeat. It is a story about choices.

Sternbergh seems to make the case that Buffalo is so cheap, so abandoned and so derelict that it will attract the so-called creative class. Unfortunately, there is no evidence that the people in occupations defined as the creative class are, in fact, attracted to such places. 

But one part of the article stands out as relevant not only to Buffalo but to many other places attempting to re-start their development.  He profiles Newell Nussbaumer, a native of Buffalo who is also its "unofficial" mayor.  He is the publisher of Buffalo Rising, a free monthly magazine and Website.  He is responsible for, among other things, the city's beach and the moves to make Buffalo the most bike-friendly city in the nation.  Nussbaumer is what might be called a "local cosmopolitan," people who are fiercely dedicated to their local communities but who see its possibilities from the perspective of the broader world.

We need to figure out how to produce more local cosmopolitans.