Outside Erie

Sure, Erie cannot compare with Pittsburgh in terms of scale.
But a story today in the Cleveland Pain Dealer explores why Pittsburgh is seemingly more ready to weather the recession than other cities in the Rust Belt.
The keys, according to the story:

Regionalize
Develop and use the waterfront
Develop educational leadership
Cooperate (by this, the piece means that corporations and […]

One of the clear goals of this site is to help give more opportunities to those who want to live in Erie.
On a broader scale, that is also one of the goals of a regional group called the Great Lakes Urban Exchange, or GLUE.
The effort is backed by foundation money, writes the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:
Ms. […]

As Erie County, Pa., takes steps to boost its tourism and convention business, so, too, is Erie County, N.Y.
The Buffalo News reports today that Buffalo is seeing quite a healthy increase in tourism business this year.
The reasons are many — most notably the strong Canadian dollar, which is prompting more Canadians to cross the border […]

New York magazine has a great feature this month by Adam Sternbergh about Buffalo boomerangs — folks who left their Rust Belt hometown for the Big Apple, then came back.
The conclusion — Rust Belt cities offer a frontier that doesn’t exist in the city that never sleeps.
If you read the piece — and swap the […]

U.S. Rep. John Peterson of Pleasantville is quoted in the Buffalo News this morning saying that he supports drilling for oil and natural gas in Lake Erie.

A ban on drilling in the lakes “makes no public policy sense,” given that the Canadians are already doing it, said Peterson, a Republican from Pennsylvania.

Peterson has been pushing […]

I’m back after fighting a pretty nasty illness for the past few days. Let me say it’s nice to have some energy again.
One thing I had wanted to pass along recently was a link to a program in Buffalo called Buffalo ReUSE. The organization works to combat blight in Buffalo neighborhoods by carefully tearing down […]

Dale Hannah at What If? has some interesting thoughts on how the city can improve its snow removal operations during major storms.
His solution involves towing illegal parkers and working with churches and other community groups to open up their parking lots during emergencies.
It’s a point worth pondering.
And it should be noted that Erie is far […]

Our neighbors in Buffalo, N.Y., have come up with a clever way to try to connect with some of its brain-drain victims.
The community plays host to an annual event called Buffalo Homecoming Weekend.
According to The Buffalo News, “The event touts the region as a place to live and do business in a bid to keep […]

The groundswell of discussion concerning the future of Great Lakes cities such as Erie is rising pretty rapidly.
We’ve written in the past that there is a gathering of Rust Belt/Great Lakes bloggers planned in Erie in July to talk about ways to use our blogs to promote growth and change in our region.
But there is […]

We’ve received a whopping 50 comments thus far for our call for six-word mottoes for Erie.
Later this week, we’ll pick the top 10 and then ask for your votes on which one should be our unofficial motto.
In the meantime, our friends at Buffalo Pundit have come up with some clever submissions for Buffalo’s motto.
Among my […]