Buffalo is one of the few cities with in New York that is going through a major decline. As industry has left the area, Buffalo has found itself with a declining population and many neighborhoods starting to look more like ghost towns than viable suburban living areas.
One of those suburbs, called Cheektowaga, has been in decline for at least six or seven years. It used to be a thriving community, but then hard times hit and people started moving even further away from the town pulling them both further city of Buffalo or closer in to the city. This left Cheektowaga with many homes in decay, and neighborhoods that may only have two or three homes with residents in them.
In lieu of the situation the community decided it was time to do something about it. So what they did was create a process where they would take some homes and renovate them, take some others and knock them down, and build nice housing that was affordable to more people and help them attain the financing to move into these new homes. They even took an old firehouse, tore that down, cleared the property and build new housing on top of that.
What’s happening is that some neighborhoods in the area are not only starting to be populated with new homeowners, but those homeowners are working hard to beautify their neighborhoods and uplift the area. The communities in Cheektowaga is finding itself in a small period of regrowth, and they hope to continue receiving grants from the state so that they can repeat this process over and over.
The community also helps these homeowners, primarily first-time home buyers, in finding financing so that they can purchase these homes. They were one of the early communities to embrace the tax credits for housing which were established during the Bush Administration. It has worked out so well that there are already plans to demolish three abandoned houses and fix up six foreclosed property’s and turn them into low cost and affordable housing.
It would seem that when people decide they are ready to rebuild and improve their community, it works wonders. Getting rid of properties that are an eyesore and rebuilding better housing that people can afford change the direction of any community.
Mitch Mitchell is a consultant who writes and participates in many different fields, including real estate finance issues. 
It’s good to see a local government take charge and try to help fix their local housing problems. Unlike most who just wait for the fed to bail them out. More cities should follow Cheektowaga’s lead.
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I agree with you on this one, Matt. I’ve always felt that more city governments should invest in home revitalizing projects to help rebuild and improve their cities.
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I think, this is great! City governments should care more about this problem.
I wish we had more intervention in Manhattan. It has been a Gov’t hands off policy for years. That is why we have so many construction site accidents and lack of uniformity in development. Did anyone pay attention to the debacle a the Azure cooperative offering Upper East Side apartments for sale which was completely due to lack of Gov’t intervention.