MARKET BREAKDOWN
REGIONAL SPOTLIGHT: BUFFALO, NEW YORK
A CLOSER LOOK AT NIAGARA FALLS
W hen you see the words Niagara Falls, you probably think of the rushing onslaught of 168,000 cubic meters falling 165 feet every minute of the day. After that, maybe you think of the powerful hydroelectric stations that produce about 4.4 gigawatts of power, and after that, a tourist attraction that brings more than 28 million tourists to the area each year. It’s unlikely you think about the housing market at all, but you should. On the U.S. side, Niagara Falls is part of the Buffalo-Cheektowaga-Niagara Falls market, which gained 25.9 percent in value between Q1 2007 and Q1 2017, making it one of only 18 major metro markets officially labeled “bounced back” by the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) as of July 2017. Around the same time, the area was ranked fourth on the National Associa- tion of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Opportunity Index for markets with populations of less than 500,000 and 23rd on the overall list. Niagara specifically has made a number of headlines for its public-private affordable housing initiatives, which combine the use of public grants and tax incentives with private developers’ resources to create housing that meets the needs of a population that earns far less than the national median income de- spite rising home values in the area. The area also leverages what city council- man Andrew Touma refers to as “casino dollars” from local gaming establish- ments to incentivize businesses and other development in the area, including mixed-use mixed-income housing, commercial building, and job creation.
1800s when Joseph Ellicott, who also designed Washington D.C.’s grid street structure, created a radial street and grid system similar to that in the nation’s capital for the area, which he hoped to call “New Amsterdam.” The name never caught on, and “New Amsterdam” was burned by British forces during the War of 1812. By 1832, however, the area had been rebuilt and the Erie Canal resulted in such an influx of residents that Buffalo incorporated. From that point on, the area thrived, thanks in large part to being one of the first metropolitan areas to benefit from hydroelectric power generated by the Niagara River. Around this time, Buffalo was nicknamed “The City of Light” thanks to widespread public electric lighting and, like many other Rust Belt cities, benefited from the automotive revolution. Also as a result of heavy automotive
industry presence in the area, the city was heavily influenced by labor unions. During World War II, these unions brought manufacturing jobs to the area in huge supply, and the area benefitted from its long history in shipping and manufacturing. The population peaked in 1950 at more than 580,000 residents, making it the 15th-largest city in the country at that time. Buffalo, like most former industrial cities in the Great Lakes region, experienced its heyday in the 1950s and spent the following decades in a slow population decline as residents spread outward to the suburbs and then left entirely thanks to the opening of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1957. The Seaway rendered Buffalo far less critical as a shipping lane in the Great Lakes. The construction of a number of expressways through and around the city over the following years further
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