The endless bullshittical sniping between suburbanites and city people is so tiresome and so yesterday. At least, it should be.
This Buffalo Rising post proposed a novel idea towards the city of Buffalo absorbing the inner-ring suburbs as “boroughs”, kind of like New York City. It would probably require a constitutional amendment to accomplish, but it’s that kind of thinking that I like to read about. Unfortunately, some of the comments devolve into sheer nonsense.
The most fascinating comment so far is one psychoanalyzing the myriad evil and semi-evil reasons why people would deign to live in a suburb.
A Buffalo Rising commenter calling himself “wizardofza” suggested that the reasons why people might opt to move to a suburb for the school district are racists or xenophobes.
I’d also love to see merged school districts as well, but face it, the majority of metro residents Buffalo are either racist or xenophobic. Their view of the city and its school district is that of a nasty cesspool that needs to be quarantined off from their happyland.
Sadly, racial/class-based fear is the #1 obstacle to regional consolidation.Most of the suburban municipalities are at least 96% white and the people there intend on keeping it that way.Segregation here is still a harsh reality. If we’re going to achieve baby steps toward regional consolidation, it’s best to leave out the powder-keg issues for now.
And then, perhaps coming to the realization that his comment was a gross exaggeration, amended it thusly:
The majority of residents in Buffalo area are either:
1. Racist- This is a very small percentage but still existing among older folks and some families in very working class pockets of the city and white ethnic inner-suburban areas.
2. Xenophobic – This would be the majority. They don’t hate (or see as inherently inferior) anyone based on their race or social upbringing, but want to live as far away from the perceived problem as they can. Xenophobes want a predictable living environment with neighbors just like them and their families.
Racism obviously exists, and unfortunately always will. The “xenophobe” criteria is somewhat sillier, since no one can ever guarantee in any way, shape, or form, a “predictable” living environment with neighbors “just like them.” There is more to diversity than just the color of one’s skin.
3. Those who are respectful of the city’s cultural heritage and feel pity for the city and its problems but don’t want their own families/children to have any part in it.
4. Those of us who put up with the annoyances of city life because, in the end, the perks and amenities of living in the city to us outweigh the negatives.
I suspect your friend who couldn’t take it anymore and bailed the city was teetering between #4 and #3. I doubt he moved out because of the stupid parking ticket blitz. In the end for that person the annoyances outweighed the amenities of city living.
It’s sad these days that city living has been relegated to a lifestyle choice. Though, when gas prices go up even further this will start to change.
Like gas prices going up to $3.40 have obliterated SUVs and pickups from our roadways?
I’m curious as to how many city people who are so quick to heap scorn, derision, and hatred on people who have the unmitigated gall to not share their choice of living within city limits actually have kids in school? And how many of those kids go to private or parochial schools? Seriously, these arguments and blanket accusations against people keep this region down just as viciously as high taxes, bad politics, and elevated highways.
You go to Chicago or New York or Boston, and do you think people have these endless, pointless bitchfests between city and suburban people? It’s so counterproductive and in a lot of cases hypocritical.
I wonder how many of the holier-than-thou set who heap scorn, derision, and hatred on suburban people live within a few blocks of the tony Elmwood Strip or boho magnet Allentown? And how many live in suburban-in-all-but-boundary North Buffalo? Seriously, if you’re in any of those neighborhoods, you have very little business indeed criticizing suburbanites for their alleged demands of homogeneity. (Note: the Amherst town supervisor is every bit a minority as the mayor of Buffalo).
I was once in my 20s and early 30s, living within the limits of a city and enjoying that lifestyle to the fullest. But when you have a kid, your primary focus in life is that kid / those kids. Those kids are not arbitrary statistics to their parents – they are the future and your flesh and blood, and you want the best for those kids. And if someone decides that those kids ought to be in a different school district, and you have the ability to make that move, you do it because you have little room for error.
Or if you choose to stay and have the wherewithal to send those kids to Elmwood-Franklin or a charter school or Nichols or St Joe’s, you do that. And if you choose to send them to Buffalo Public Schools, you do that too.
It’s nobody’s business but the parents’. Period.
Because those kids have one and only one shot at getting a good education, and you do whatever you can to ensure that they get it. Nowhere is perfect – not Clarence Schools, not Orchard Park Schools, not private schools, and not Buffalo public schools. But you take your best shot at what you think is best.
If people love living in the city, more power to them. If people choose to live in the suburbs, more power to them. The point is that they have made a very difficult choice indeed – choosing to stay in an economically backward and depressed area in the first place. The entire region is in shabolic condition economically, and we ought to be trying to do what we can to work together to move it forward, not taking potshots at each other to prove who’s got a more accurate moral compass based on their selection of home location.
There are just under 381,000 households in Erie County, therefore there are just under 381,000 different reasons why people choose to live where they do.
Maybe a little less inane finger-pointing and name-calling from both city and suburb at each other would do the region a whole lot of good.
(Photo from willvill.com)
Tags: News
