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City of Hidden Treasures

By Emma Sapong

October 16, 2011 

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When Dr. Joseph Skitzki won a three-year Roswell Park Cancer Institute fellowship, his wife was instantly reduced to tears.

Not tears of joy. The fellowship meant relocating to Buffalo -- that well-known snowy hick town. They were beyond crushed.

"We didn't want to live in Buffalo," Skitzki recalled. "We felt we'd be missing out on life. We were both sad about it, but she was really upset."

But Skitzki and his wife, Dr. Melissa Neal, reluctantly made the trip from Cleveland in 2006.

"I only came because he was my husband and I loved him," Neal said. "I was just supporting him."

Their plan: Do the three-year stint, pray it flew by, and then make a dash for a real city in 2009.

But something happened.

They became the poster children for the urban legend that when people move to Western New York, they never want to leave.

"We love it here; it's great," said Skitzki, 39. "We've put down roots. We are very happy."

He's now a surgeon on staff at Roswell Park. Neal, an ophthalmologist, has a practice and wellness center on Elmwood Avenue. Their oldest daughter is enrolled at a top charter school. And they live on the West Side, raising their two daughters in a house they bought.

So how did they fall so deeply in love with a city they had loathed? "Once you live here, you realize it has everything -- restaurants, theater, culture, concerts," Neal said. "It's a real city, you can do everything here."

Neal and her husband's change of heart is not uncommon.

"We get these stories all the time," said Thomas Kucharski, CEO of Buffalo Niagara Enterprise. "Walk the floor of Praxair, and you find engineers who have stayed rather than take opportunities elsewhere in the world. There have been Buffalo Bills reticent to come to Western New York, but when they get here, they feel they are a part of a greater whole that pulls together."

Aside from boosting residents' pride when the region is praised, the area's hidden attractiveness is an economic development opportunity waiting to be unleashed.

Quality of life has been a surprise deal-maker for many transplants to the region … cost of living, sense of community, shorter commute times and impressive cultural institutions have all played roles in winning them over.

"It's a region with so much to offer … the parks system, professional sports, the lakes," said Michael Anderson, a local architect who moved to Buffalo from Hawaii in 1997. Anderson, 39, initially despised living in Buffalo. A native of New Zealand, he'd been used to bustling metropolises, but after he completed his master's degree at the University at Buffalo, he slowly discovered the region's benefits and warmed up to the area.

"It's a place where you can live better than your means," he said.

The region offers big-city amenities, like two world-class art museums, and with Canada next door, international flavor is mixed in, all on the cheap. Kucharski said the affordability and unquantifiable small-town feel have sealed the deal for many newcomers.

"For me, the people are most important," said Cathy Walker, president and CEO of Seneca Gaming Corp., who came to the area in 2008 from Indiana. "I've lived in many cities, but the people here really care about each other and are proud of their community. Their support for the Bills and Sabres is unique. Everybody is behind the teams, and you can't help but join them. And that support goes back to that sense of community."

Those assets have won praise outside the region. Forbes magazine last week deemed Buffalo the "No. 1 best city for working mothers." Forbes also found the Buffalo-Niagara Region to be the second "most affordable" in the country; Kiplinger magazine named it the "fifth best city for commuters"; CNN.com/Money listed it among the "top turnaround towns"; and Brookings Institute called it one of the "top strongest performing metros" for the first quarter of 2011.

Buffalo also made Yahoo! Real Estate's "top five most underrated cities" tally in July.

The region's unemployment rate is lower than the national average, and 84 percent of its residents can afford to buy the average-priced home, a rate dramatically higher than the rest of the country, Kucharski said. With its developing medical corridor and tourism industries, the region is also redefining its economy.

But despite all it has going for it, the region continues to shed population and jobs. The city just can't seem to shake its unsophisticated image or snow capital title.

When Aliyah Schultz moved here last year, she made sure to get a downtown apartment so she could walk to work during blizzards.

"After living here, I felt I was misinformed about the area," said Schultz, a business analyst at M&T Bank who relocated from Massachusetts. "Buffalo gets a bad rap from people who have never even been here. They talked about the snow so much but it isn't that bad. It doesn't snow every day."

Newcomers, like Skitzki and Neal, typically relocate with low expectations, completely oblivious to the region's social, cultural, recreation and educational resources. In time, though, they gradually discover "Buffalo's secrets," as Neal puts it.

She and Skitzki knew nothing about the Allentown Arts Festival, Albright-Knox, Shakespeare in the Park or the city's Frederick Law Olmsted-designed parks.

"I thought it would be boondockish Ô not hip, not suave, not modern," said Neal, 37.

Kucharski said the region has been branded by unfortunate events from the past.

"The problem is we had a once-in-a-hundred-year storm in 1977 and a number of decades after that we didn't perform well economically," he said. Additionally, teamwork wasn't the approach, but now various segments of the region are at the table to improve its economy, he said.

"We're on a good little run," Kucharski said. "We're taking steps to create jobs and repopulate the area, but it's a tough economy to do that in."

The disconnect between the region's lauded assets and its disparaged image could be deterring promising professionals and businesses from relocating to the area, hindering its economic renaissance. The region's potential is somehow hiding in plain sight.

"Cities have to identify and understand their assets … what gives them a competitive edge," said Steven Pedigo, director of research and communities for the Creative Class Group, a consultant think tank aimed at job and wealth development. "When they have a good sense of what makes them unique, then they can can leverage those assets to create jobs and economic growth."

Communities should fully tap into their unique resources, he said. For example, the region could greatly strengthen its relationship with the University at Buffalo to attract research dollars, retain professors and encourage graduates to stay by offering mentorship and internship opportunities, he said. And cities also have to be vigilant about marketing their assets.

"The key is telling the story of your community," Pedigo said. "You have to promote those assets. Promotion plays a huge role not just nationally, but within the region too, making residents realize it's a great place to live."

One goal for any region is becoming attractive to the "creative class," white-collar workers, like doctors, engineers, artists and business professionals, who some social scientists and economists believe are key in resuscitating post-industrial cities, like Buffalo.

The creative class is an economic driving force, making up 30 percent of the workforce but earning 50 percent of wages, and it accounts for 70 percent of discretionary spending, Pedigo said. The group's workers also experienced lower unemployment rates compared to those who do manual work.

Skitzki, Neal, Anderson, Walker and Schultz all fall into the group. And the thinking is if they knew about the region's quality of life, they may have gotten here sooner.

But now that they're here, some have become cheerleaders of the city. While medical offices are popping up all over the suburbs, Neal purposely bought a building on Elmwood for Twenty 20 Eye Care and Aesthetic Medicine, to support the Elmwood business district.

Anderson could have moved to a bigger city for a bigger salary but he stayed. "I didn't want to be one of those graduates who took what he could from the community and left," he said. "I want to be a part of the solution."

Schultz, 23, is staying put, too, because even with a starting salary, she's able to live well in Buffalo and be independent.

Skitzki is optimistic, too. He sees hope and himself in the region's bio-tech future.

"It'll revitalize the area; things are looking up for downtown," he said.

esapong@buffnews.comnull