Economists among others warn that the Trump administration’s policies—particularly high tariffs and draconian cuts in health and science research—threaten to throttle the U.S. economy and cede leadership in technology to the Chinese. If so, Seattle may be in for a major reversal of fortune, more than most other cities. I’m here to suggest that a long-term economic decline is possible and—hear me out—may not be entirely a bad thing for Seattle. Not if it can become more like Buffalo—the city in western New York, not the hoofed mammal with an imposing set of horns.
That’s a lot to unpack. Here goes.
Seattle’s relative proximity to major markets in Asia has long made our region heavily trade dependent. It’s said that 40 percent of jobs in Washington State are tied to trade, especially trade with China, which Trump seems intent on curtailing. Fewer dolls for Christmas, etc., would bode ill for Seattle’s economy, even more so because, even if tariffs succeed in repatriating jobs in manufacturing, those jobs assembling dolls and whatever are unlikely to grow in high-wage areas such as Seattle.
That is, not until local wage scales come down, which may happen eventually because of Trump’s initiatives in relation to the other major driver of Seattle’s rapid growth. Our population has risen by one-third in the past 25 years largely because of job growth in technology. We now have more men per capita than any other major U.S. city.
Good times. But some of our recently arrived tech bros may be replaced by artificial intelligence, which should free up space at local health clubs and stem area growth generally. And thanks to the Trumpinator, our bubble may be further deflated by a flagging pace of U.S. innovation flowing from his attacks on higher education (especially the exclusion of foreign students) as well as from his gutting of the National Science Foundation, et.al.
So far, Seattle continues to metastasize. New figures from the state Office of Financial Management estimate that the city’s population grew by more than two percent again during the past year, to 816,600. Anybody here remember Emmett Watson’s lesser Seattle? In a tribute to Watson, Knute Berger wrote, “The city we loved is being choked by gigantism. The small, livable, sensible, sustainable city we once purported to love is dead.” That was in 2006, when metro Seattle was 20 percent less crowded than it is today.
The area endured a bust before, in 1969 when Boeing, on which we were about as dependent as we are now on tech, nearly went bankrupt. It took some three decades for Seattle to regain the population it lost. Now, if trade drops off and technology expatriates, the downturn could last longer. Seattle may face a future like the past of many once-prosperous industrial cities in the Northeast and Upper Midwest. A long, slow decline. Moss Belt, meet Rust Belt.
At least, one can hope. I’d like to think our future could look something like the present in Buffalo, for example. My wife and I happened to spend a week there recently—don’t ask—and I came away charmed, wishing Seattle could be more like it. A bit stagnant. A shadow of its former self. It’s heresy to say so, but in certain circumstances such as Buffalo’s, doldrums offer advantages in terms of quality of life, at least for those who remain and can earn a living.
Bear with me here.
Buffalo was a small village until 1825 when it was chosen as the eastern western terminus of the Erie Canal, which enabled movement of goods between the East Coast and Midwest. Local inventors devised and built the first grain elevators, and Buffalo became the world’s largest grain port. Area flour mills were among the first to benefit from hydroelectricity generated by the nearby Niagara River. Steel mills followed, as did makers of chemicals, automotive parts—you name it.
The town boomed. Major companies grew up in and around Buffalo, not only manufacturers (Goodyear, Hormel) but also retailers (Woolworth) and financial-services firms (American Express and Wells Fargo, the latter co-founded by a Buffalo mayor). Great fortunes were amassed. Buffalo boasted of having more millionaires than any other U.S. city. This was 100 years ago when a million was a fortune and not just the price of a bungalow in Ballard.
As the 20th century dawned, Buffalo was the nation’s eighth largest city. Population peaked in 1950 at 580,132, almost one-quarter larger than Seattle at the time. But then de-industrialization and suburbanization set in, and folks began to shuffle off from Buffalo. Last year, population stood at 276,617, less than half what it was in 1950. Buffalo is still the state’s second largest city, but it’s only a little more than one-third the size of Seattle.
In other ways too, the Queen City (one of Buffalo’s several nicknames) comes up short in comparison with the Emerald one, whose median income is almost double, its poverty rate less than half of Buffalo’s. Those numbers don’t yet reflect the eventual impact of Trumponomics on the underpinnings of Seattle’s prosperity, but for now at least, Buffalo is outclassed economically. And then there’s the weather. Residents shrug it off, as you might expect.
So, what’s to like?
For starters, Buffalonians are heirs to a great legacy of civic ambitions and private philanthropy. The former is reflected in the city’s extensive network of Olmsted-designed parks and connecting parkways. Imagine Seattle adorned with not just one but several Ravenna Boulevards and Washington Park Arboretums (Arboreta?). Lining the parkways are historic mansions and Victorian-era family homes, plus a home designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, one of several in the area. The city’s west-side neighborhoods resemble those in Seattle’s north Capitol Hill and Madrona, except houses in Buffalo tend to be bigger and sell for less than half of anything comparable hereabouts. That’s what depopulation will do.
A Democratic Party stronghold, the Buffalo area has long been well represented in Albany, the state capital, by officials such as Kathy Hochul, New York’s first woman governor, who hails from a Buffalo suburb. Not coincidentally, the area is blessed with infrastructure to make a Seattleite weep. Buffalo’s broad streets and uncrowded highways—dwindling population helps there too—whisk you most anywhere in under 10 minutes. And the airport… compared to Sea-Tac? Buffalo Niagara International will get you to JFK or LaGuardia in under 90 minutes; what it lacks in its own global destinations, it more than makes up for in speedy, stress-free ease of ingress and egress.
Did I mention the Bills won their AFC division last year with a 13-4 record, vs. the Seahawks’ 10-7?
Culturally, Buffalo is amazingly rich and diverse for a city its size. Back in the day, its many millionaires competed to endow cultural institutions such as the 163-year-old Albright-Knox Gallery, now known as the Buffalo AKG Art Museum after a 2023 expansion that doubled its exhibition space. Much of its art was gifted by local magnates from their own, surprisingly sophisticated collections of early and mid-century moderns, including many well-known pieces by Gauguin, Rodin, Brancusi, Seurat, Frida Kahlo, Picasso, Warhol, and Lichtenstein.
The AKG is set in Olmsted-designed Delaware Park, clustered with the Buffalo History Museum, Burchfield Penney Art Center devoted to regional art, the grand Richardson Hotel in what was a 19th-century insane asylum, and the campus of Buffalo State University. The city has five colleges and universities, most notably the University at Buffalo, a flagship of the State University of New York system, with more than 32,000 students.
Across town is Kleinhans Music Hall, widely recognized for its acoustic excellence, to which I can attest. Designed in the late 1930s by Eliel and Eero Saarinen in the International Style, Kleinhans is home to the Buffalo Philharmonic, which has won multiple GRAMMY awards under the baton of music director JoAnn Falletta, the first woman to lead a major U.S. orchestra.
You get the idea. Buffalo’s high-culture offerings are those of a much larger city. But what makes it truly exceptional and most distinguishes it from Seattle is a vibe. The area was settled by successive waves of Germans, Irish, Poles, Italians and Jews. African-Americans first arrived on the Underground Railroad, and many more came later out of the South in the Great Migration. The city’s ethnic and racial mix contributes to a warmth, liveliness, and communal feeling that contrasts sharply with Seattle’s Scandinavian iciness, which an invasion of IT pros has done little if anything to defrost.
A further contrast is that, whereas a fast-growing city like Seattle is made up largely of relative newcomers, a depopulated city like Buffalo is made up largely of holdouts. They are loyal, and if they’re at all defensive about the city’s reduced circumstances or about their choice to stay put against the tide, the feeling bubbles up as defiant pride in and commitment to their town. Many are committed too because their families have been in Buffalo for generations. It’s too much to say that everyone in the city knows everyone else including their aunts, uncles, and cousins, but that’s not far from the truth. Thanks to depopulation, Buffalo is something of an urban village.
The attractions thereof may be helping the city to find a new equilibrium. The metro area population edged up in the past two years. There are signs that more local college grads are staying put and that other young people are moving to Buffalo, drawn by low housing costs and the relaxed lifestyle. Another attraction for the entrepreneurial is the availability and modest cost of commercial space. The main street of the trendy but unpretentious Elmwood neighborhood is lined with cafes, bars, more bars (this is a serious drinking town), and restaurants.
The dining scene is robust, well beyond local specialties like wings and beef on weck (which has its own Wikipedia entry, incidentally). We thoroughly enjoyed dinner at Quenelle, a French bistro downtown that opened this year. The food was as good as any we’ve had in Seattle and the experience better in that we could make a last-minute reservation, park easily nearby, and relax in a lively but uncrowded room staffed by crisply professional servers. Everywhere we dined, portions were larger than we’re used to, and prices were lower.
This did not help my waistline, so make of it what you will. In general, a visit to Buffalo may cause you to view Seattle with a more critical eye and wish for something—not Trump’s policies necessarily but something—to take at least a little of the boom out of our boom town.
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Very nice piece, Barry. Growth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, is it?
Especially if one already has money!
Thanks. I’m a proud ex-Buffalonian, having moved away in the late 1970s when times were especially tough. We visited a year ago to find the city you describe. A comfortable and beautiful city that has come to terms with having modest ambitions. The lack of mountains is, however, a drawback.
Brilliant missive.
It is very informative to hear how another city is doing compared to Seattle. Several decades ago Seattle was more like Buffalo, unpretentious and provincial in good ways. Life was simpler and more convenient, yet Seattle still offered just about everything we needed. It was small enough that local architects could defeat the downtown business establishment’s efforts to demolish the Market. Then came the promoters who wanted to make Seattle “world class.” We got south Lake Union and the tech economy, cruise ships, stadiums, and the population growth, traffic, and tourism that follow. Many of our dispersed and charming arts institutions were moved downtown to enhance commercial real estate projects. Most of the affordable, creative, low-key commercial areas where small businesses provided everyday services (Denny Regrade, SLU, Ballard, Fremont) were transformed in a decade into unrecognizable, generic, and expensive non-neighborhoods. It continues. Seattle just uniformly up-zoned all residential areas in the city to pack in more people, regardless of the unique location, geography, and character of different neighborhoods. Apparently we are not allowed to ask if or why Seattle must continue to grow, or expect to have any control of its future.
Well done Barry. My family was part of the exodus in the early 1960’s. Father left a declining Bell Aircraft for Boeing. His first job as young man was at the Pierce Arrow auto plant on Elmwood Ave, and that structure is still there today!
A fan.
I moved to Seattle just in time to see the famous “Will The Last Person To Leave Seattle Turn Out The Lights?” billboard (wonder where it is today). The three post Boeing bust decades were the best of times in Seattle. Call me a grumpy old fart but that’s the plain truth. Sure it was a little bit of a cowtown; yes there were bums hanging around the Market. But the downtown was clean, safe and walkable. There was virtually no graffiti. No homeless sleeping in doorways. Parking was $2 for two hours on the street and easy to find. Plenty of affordable restaurants. Concerts at the Paramount with first rank rock acts were usually either the start or the end of a tour – always exceptional. Tickets were affordable. When I had to commute from my affordable home in Wallingford, then Phinney Ridge, ultimately West Seattle the commute generally took about 10 – 15 minutes, rarely more. So yes, those were the best of times, and sadly they ain’t never coming back. Some may celebrate the coming demand for those $2 – $5 million dollar homes, but that won’t make the city great again. I’m not sure it’s fixable, but I left 15 years ago. Leaving Seattle seemed to be the way past all of its ongoing problems, and I’ve never regretted it.
Great perspective in this piece.
Another similarity that I remember reading about: As Barry noted, in 1900, there were more millionaires, per capita, in Buffalo than anywhere else. In 2000, at the height of the dot-com era, guess who had more millionaires, per capita, than anywhere?
One guess…maybe we are already more alike than we think.
Well, that was easy! No screams of protest, no “Detroit” …?
I’m with this, for sure. Seattle looked good in the ’90s, but at the front of a gold rush it’s the fun part of the party. Rapid growth takes a heavy toll, and a city that really wanted to look out for its citizens would do what it can to prevent it. If it’s slowed by circumstances, that’s about as good.
Don’t expect Buffalo, though. Buffalo happened in an era when our society was more affluent, and the culture reflects it. Architecture and urban amenities will be on a level we can’t match today. Today, when it’s brought to our attention we need more parks, the mayor will have a stretch of asphalt painted green; I’m not making this up.
Buffalo was the WESTERN terminus of the Erie Canal, not the eastern. Geez!
Ugh. Fixed it. Thanks!
As one era sunsets, another emerges. I anticipate the next wave of migrations to Seattle will be for climate resiliency and refuge from political policies in other states. If the latest Supreme Court rulings hold, it’s going to get a lot more patchwork governments amongst states and even cities.
Buffalo resembles many other midwestern cities in that the local wealth thought first about creating local institutions, whereas the tech wealth in Seattle went global, since their markets were global, and thought first about solving disease in Africa. Worse, Boeing moved its philanthropy to St. Louis after the merger with McDonell Douglas, and other mainstays like Safeco got bought out. In St. Louis, a local weatlhy person created a magnificent botanical garden and an art museum that is free.
I loved the three years I lived in Buffalo back in the early 1980s when I worked for the now-dead Courier-Express, Buffalo’s version of the now-dead Seattle P-I, where I also worked. (No, it wasn’t my writing, I promise.) Then, as today, the economy relied on two industries: higher education and healthcare. Manufacturing was mostly gone. But its legacy institutions, as the article said, survive.
Two that Barry didn’t mention are the downtown baseball stadium where the AAA Bisons play, and the Theodore Roosevelt Inaugural National Historical Site, which, although a National Park Service site, is run by an associated foundation that charges an entrance fee. Could that be the future of Seattle’s Alaska Gold Rush park, which has been on President Clown’s chopping block?
Sadly, Buffalo’s once-gorgeous art deco Central Terminal ceased to be a train station in 1979, and it’s future is uncertain.
Actually the Central Terminal has just announced a massive conversion to apartments and commercial that seems like it will actually happen. A local volunteer group has deftly and tenaciously guarded that complex from demolition.
Loyal Buffalonians (as noted, there is no other kind) scattered far and wide are reading this article with great appreciation. Personally, I was gratified to see Mr Mitzman’s mention of Kleinhans Music all, an architectural and design marvel and my favorite building in my native city. (Now, if only such local enterprises as Kleinhans clothing store were still with us, alas.) Also, Mr Mitzman would do well to learn that none of us would ever write “western New York”; the correct, and respectful, usage is “Western New York” (rather like Southern California, no?).
Mike, It’s cool to see you caught this article. Hope all is well!
This entire article creates an extremely skewed vision of Buffalo. Sure the nice parts are nice… but this city is extremely segregated and a lot of people are living in food deserts. We have a long way to go. Declining population is not a good thing. There are an insane amount of vacant storefronts and buildings. We need economic revenue and population growth in order to fund public resources and works. I’m happy you had a nice time visiting the nice parts of the city, but damn, please don’t make Buffalo seem perfect.
As a native of the 716 who moved away in 1976, what a great piece. Pretty spot-on, although Buffalo is growing again, thanks to immigrants from Myanmar and other nations (the Irish of this century).
The Central Terminal is being slowly restored and when it’s finished will be the crown jewel of the revived East Side. And yes, it’s Western New York, with a capital W. Don’t even try to say Upstate.
I’ve lived in Oregon since 1984 but treasure my visits back to my hometown of East Aurora. One a WNYer, always a WNYer, and Go Bills!
Just a couple additional facts about Buffalo. The steel industry was king until about 1955 when production started falling due to increased competition. (From Japan no less) The real dagger in the heart was the opening of the St Lawrence Seaway in 1959. This meant that all that grain that was moved via ship bypassed Buffalo and on to its markets.
Just a couple of pieces of clarification. While George Hormel was born in Buffalo, Hormel foods has never had any major operations in Western New York. Perhaps you meant General Mills? Buffalo is the one place remaining in the United States where Cheerios are made with the smell permeating the buffalo River waterfront while they are being baked.
Also, Buffalo does have a prominent family named Goodyear however they are not closely related to the founders of Goodyear tire which was based in Akron Ohio. The Buffalo family made their money in lumber. They built a beautiful mansion on Delaware Avenue that was recently turned into apartments and also had a gorgeous home on Bryant Street
Re the Goodyears. Correct. My family traces back to the Goodyears and their lumber business, back in the Gilded Age. No rubber in these veins.
I’m friends with Dan Kenefick.
I will reply privately to you by Linkedin, Andrew.
A. Conger Goodyear, the son of the Buffalo lumber magnate was a founder of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. He was also a director of the Albright Art Gallery in Buffalo that would become an acclaimed modern art gallery in its own rite, due primarily to Seymour Knox of Buffalo. Knox’s sons would bring NHL hockey to Buffalo in 1970 with the Sabres
Born in Buffalo-grew up in a small town on the Niagara River. Grad of SUNY Buffalo (but I STILL think of it as “UB”!)-Now we live in the north-eastern part of NY State. Buffalo is a special town-and the Bills-well-I will ALWAYS be a fan!
Just a few comments…and corrections
1.The Erie Canal meets the Niagara River about half way between the falks and Buffalo in a place called Tonawanda ( local tribal name just like many places in greater Seattle area). This makes the county line .
2. Historically the city was divided. North ( italisns), east( polish), south ( irish), west side/ immediate downtown area ( blacks). When suburbs occured there was a large migration out. In the 79s you had thr Steel industry die resulting in a big move out. Hispanics and immigrants replaced some of the black area. My dad was a city school teacher for 30 yrs in this part of town. His school went from majority black to majority Hispanic with Spanish the primary hall language. Hr also taught science to ESLs from around the world.
3. For scale reasons. You think of netro Seattle as bellingham-olympia. This is 75 miles each way. To compare apples to apples this is equivalent of hamilton, ontsrio- buffalo- rochester.the population in these areas are similar yo greater Seattle.
4. Like Seattle you have a large amount of agriculture/ farmers markets in the area growing similar crops in a similar climate
5. Buffalo has little tech areas. Its strong in healthcare ( UB is the state medical school , Roswell cancer institute is there) so it’s tech is in biomed areas.
4. Housing costs are much less. You can buy a 4 bed, 2 bath for $250K or under. In thr past 5 or so yrs it’s gone up.it started before covid. Covid accelerated it. The home i was born and raised in was sround $75K for 30+ yrs. Similar with homes in the local neighborhood. That neighborhood is now around $150K
I was born and raised in buffalo. I lived about 10 yrs on southern side metro seattle
I’ve never been to Buffalo nor do I have any ties. Nevertheless, this was a good article and I enjoyed it. I grew up in Indianapolis in the 1960s and 70s. Then I moved to San Francisco and Berkeley before winding up in Seattle in early 1984. I’ve been here since, 41 years. Working on 42. What Mr. Mitzman says of Buffalo sounds similar to the place I grew up in. Seattle, Buffalo, and Indianapolis are cities (proper) of similar size, though the Seattle Metro region is much larger than where I came of age. So, though I’ve never been to Buffalo, I felt a small connection to the topic and thrust of the article.
My only slim tie to Buffalo is extremely minor. Around 1972, someone gave me a book titled “Modern American Sports Heroes”, or similar. It was a single volume and covered all the major sports. One of the sports heroes covered was a Buffalo Bill from the old AFL days who had a name which, for whatever reason, stuck in my head. Actually, it was a pretty cool name. That’s the reason it stuck.
One day I had to stay an hour after school for detention period. No troublemaker, I probably was just late for first period. I used to hitchhike to and from high school downtown most days. A number of us hitchhiked and we usually did so in pairs for safety reasons. Occasionally you were on your own. It was a small all-boys Catholic-affiliated high school and drew kids in from all over the city. I was one of many north-siders who attended, as did many of our fathers. And in my case, my grandfather. But kids came from all over and Indianapolis is a large geographical city. The school was too small and low on cash to own a fleet of school buses and pay drivers to service the whole city. Think of Seattle’s O’Dea High School without actually being formally tied to the local archdiocese in those days. They were ready to shut the school down in 1972 for cost reasons until some alumni stepped in to save it.
Sometimes when hitchhiking you didn’t get a ride quickly. Or you were dropped off a mile or two short of school. Most of my fellow jailbirds that day were sophomores or juniors. I may have been the lone freshman. The teacher assigned that day to watch us reprobates was reading from a sports trivia paperback and quizzing us. He was also one of the school’s football and baseball coaches. After throwing a few floaters over the plate that were quickly hit out of the park, he said “Okay. Here we go. You guys will never get this one. GUARANTEED!!
“Who played for the Buffalo Bills and was the 1962(?) AFL MVP?”
Before he finished, I blurted out “Cookie Gilchrist!” I’m normally not a blurter, especially in those days.
The teacher slowly lifted his eyes to the ceiling. sighed, and placed the paperback open pages down on the desk. A few of the upperclassmen turned and gave me the stink eye “Cookie Gilchrist? Who?!!!” There was a lot of that who-ing going around the room. Finally a few shouted out, “Well who was it?”
The teacher said “He’s right. How’d you know that? Weren’t you like 2 y.o. then?”
Pleased, I shrugged, smiled, and said I guess I’m smart. I wasn’t, of course. Mid-70s era Artificial Intelligence. Big emphasis on the artificial part. I think the player’s unique name just stuck with me from that book. His was the only name I knew on the ’62 Bills – or any other Bills team other than O.J. and he was too young for the AFL days. If Cookie G. was in that book, who else could it have been?
Awesome story! Indianapolis is doing great these days….twice the size of Buffalo now.
This is late, but it’s important: it took many more people than architects, though some were involved, to save the Pike Place Market. Ordinary people participated and we, the people of Seattle, voted to preserve the market.
Thank you!
Thanks Carolyn, for that. I was part of the 1971 Save the Market campaign. Vic S. asked me to produce last minute TV ads for the campaign when he’d gotten a saintly Seattle banker to loan him the $$ to buy air time on local TV. Looking back, we should consider the Market’s re-creation as the defeat of downtown property and building owners of that day who wanted to fight “blight” with a dis-investment designed to lower the cost of snatching that fabulous viewpoint for a suburbanized shopping mall/business tower site.
Historic preservation is not always about elegant architecture. It can be an ensemble, as was the case with Pioneer Square, and then the Market’s jumble of home-built mercantile spaces that drew farmers, butcher shops, fishers, and small entrepreneurs when the city government secured it in the early 20th Century to bypass the “middle men.”
I was at the Market today and found it different but astoundingly full of potential as it was a half century ago – the very thing the Seattle downtown property owners of that day would have wanted for us: self-starter businesses, odd-ball ideas, plenty of customers, supported now by the city’s public safety resources.
Since Pike Place Market has come up in this discussion, I’ll try sending a few links to photographs of the market from Magnum photographer Paul Fusco which may be of interest. Both were taken in 1961:
https://images.app.goo.gl/vyXxwAzjDuxxaP8p8
https://images.app.goo.gl/2inMmNnCftSsTrvH9
I’ve seen others of the market on his estate’s Instagram feed, but these are the two which showed up on a quick search. I’ve followed his and other Magnum photographers’ feeds for years.
Reference account link: https://www.instagram.com/paulfuscoestate/reels/