Planners, activists and officials imagine a ‘more equitable’ Buffalo post-pandemic

Caitlin Dewey | October 3, 2020

Western New York is still in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, with dozens of new cases surfacing daily and an unemployment rate hovering above 10%.

But for seven hours on Saturday afternoon, a group of nearly 90 local planners, neighborhood activists and government officials gathered online to take stock of the damage and strategize how the region – and the City of Buffalo, in particular – might build back stronger after the pandemic.

The Equitable Neighborhood Development Summit, convened by LISC Western New York, a non-profit community development group, was designed to reimagine how economic development could strengthen disinvested neighborhoods as the region recovers from Covid-19 and its accompanying recession. 

While the pandemic has taken a devastating toll on many sectors of the local economy, and on communities across Western New York, there’s little question the fallout has both exposed and widened existing inequities in low-income communities and communities of color.

New jobs data released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that, nationwide, only a third of Black workers laid off during the pandemic have since returned to work, compared to 60% of white workers.

In Western New York, meanwhile, statistical models developed by the data analysts Yair Ghitza and Mark Steitz, and published by the New York Times in August, suggest that pandemic unemployment rates may have spiked above 30 percent in parts of both Niagara Falls and Buffalo. Local economists and demographers widely believe that regional poverty will remain elevated for years after the current recession is over. 

Against this backdrop, said Julie Barrett O’Neill, the executive director of LISC WNY, it’s more important than ever that disinvested communities, and communities of color, be empowered to design their own futures.

“We’re in a very, very unique moment in time,” Barrett O’Neill told The Buffalo News in an interview before the event. “Enough things have shifted in what we do – in the perspectives being represented, and in the political pressure to really deliver in some of these spaces – that we do have a long-overdue opportunity for change.”

Much of Saturday’s discussion, which took place on Zoom, emphasized reorienting economic and real estate development projects to put residents first. Traditional development is “hierarchical” and oriented around outside professionals like planners, architects and engineers, said Lauren Hood, a Detroit-based community developer and equity facilitator who delivered the summit’s keynote. 

But that approach misses critical community needs, Hood said, and overlooks community culture, values and knowledge. Planners or big-money donors may parachute into a neighborhood to build a park, for instance, but do nothing to remediate the vacant lots around it. Or they may overlook basic quality of life issues, like access to transportation and over-policing, said Jalonda Hill, a community activist and the founder of Colored Girls Bike Too, a cycling advocacy group.

“I find that when people are angry in community meetings, they’re really not angry at what the development is, or the plan,” Hood said. “What they’re upset about is the way that they’re not being included in the process.”

Saturday’s attendees came from both camps: regular Buffalo residents and block club leaders, and the professionals who often direct and fund development.

Participants included officials with Buffalo and Erie County government; planners and advisers affiliated with the University at Buffalo School of Architecture and Planning, SUNY Buffalo State’s Small Business Development Center, and a number of private consulting firms; and representatives and executives of non-profit groups including Habitat for Humanity, the Community Action Organization of WNY, the Central Terminal Restoration Corporation and Preservation Buffalo Niagara.

Over several hours, the group proposed a range of priorities for building a more equitable Buffalo, from closing the digital divide to remediating pollution and environmental damage. There were proposals to invest more heavily in renewable energy, to extend micro-grants to homeowners newly stuck indoors, to build higher-quality affordable housing and to expand the reach of public transit.

Land trusts, which turn community ownership over to residents, earned frequent praise. The Kensington Expressway, on the other hand, was a target of repeat criticism. (“Robert Moses is a bad, bad name,” joked Oswaldo Mestre, Jr., Buffalo’s director of citizen services.) 

“We’re challenging everyone to think bold. To think about the past, but only to think about the past in relationship to what needs to be repaired,” said John Washington, a community activist and organizer with the Afro-futurist education group the Wakanda Alliance. “Think about what’s possible in the next 50 years in your neighborhood in Buffalo.”

Such bold thinking could prove challenging to operationalize in the current economic climate, Barrett O’Neill acknowledged. State and local budget shortfalls may jeopardize public funding for infrastructure and affordable housing projects. Many types of neighborhood investments have also become riskier, Barrett O’Neill said.

But advocates argue the next few months could also represent a turning point for local community development. Federal stimulus bills may include new funding for infrastructure and other investments: a plan recently proposed by the White House included $250 billion for state and local governments. And thanks to both the pandemic and this summer’s protest movement over police violence and racial inequality, there is also unprecedented momentum around racial justice.

More than ever, Hood said, “all kinds of people” have stepped “off the sidelines and into the movement,” eager to build more equitable communities and neighborhoods. 

“Yes, these are dark times,” said Rahwa Ghirmatzion, the executive director of PUSH Buffalo. “But is it the darkness of the tomb? Or is it the darkness of the womb? A doula always tells you, in these moments, to breathe and to push.”

Click here to read the article on The Buffalo News