Buffalo Rules! (except for when it sucks)

Scott Secrest once again rips off an interesting blogging idea, this one ten things he loves and ten he hates about where he lives. (He lives in Dallas; that he was able to come up with nine - - I am granting food, on the basis of my one experience with Texas barbecue - - amazes me.) Ever one to swipe an idea for a post from some innocent bystanding blogger, here are ten things I love and ten things I hate about Buffalo.

Things I love:

:: Culture. For a city Buffalo's size, the cultural opportunities here are great. There is a very lively theater scene, the Buffalo Philharmonic is an outstanding ensemble, there are a number of art museums and galleries. Buffalo is also home to the Goo Goo Dolls and Ani DiFranco.

:: Architecture. Yeah, I could probably list this under "Art", but then again…Buffalo is a treasure house of fine architecture, much of it dating from the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

:: Food. Buffalo is a great food city. Hell, we'd deserve a great food rep on the basis of Buffalo-style chicken wings alone, but there are a lot of fine restaurants here. You can pretty much find anything here (with the increasingly annoying exception of dim sum).

:: Weather. Yes, you read that right. Buffalo does get a ton of snow, but we know how to deal with it. (We're not like those places that are completely shut down after an inch of snow, like, oh, Dallas.) In fall, we are treated to the best autumn leaves outside of Vermont. Our summers are wonderful - - we've never once hit a hundred degrees in all the years they've kept stats. The only downside is spring; it's short, cold and rainy.

:: The Buffalo and Erie County Public Library. I've sung the praises of this institution many times, but having access to a great metropolitan library system is amazing, truly amazing. Literacy is pretty high here.

:: The Bills. Need I say more? This is the best football town in the Sagittarius Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.

:: Proximity to the Great Lakes. Actually, I love the entire Great Lakes Region, and I don't think I ever want to live more than fifty miles or so from the Lakes.

:: Location, location, location. Buffalo is perfectly located for day-trips elsewhere. I know that sounds weird - - I love Buffalo because it's easy to go someplace else - - but it's true, really. Rochester, Syracuse, Erie, Toronto, Cleveland, Pittsburgh. Then Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, et cetera beyond that.

:: Canada. This could be filed under "Location", I suppose, but the fact that an international border lies ten miles away rules.

:: Natural splendor. In addition to being right on Lake Erie, Buffalo is thirty miles away from Lake Ontario. Niagara Falls is twenty-five miles away. The Southern Tier region, with its hills and ski resort towns, is forty miles south. The great Finger Lakes region is two hours away.

OK, time for the flip side. Things I hate about Buffalo.

:: City politics. Buffalo has a lot of problems, and the political machinery almost seems purposely created to keep things from getting fixed. It astounds me how bad things are, and yet last year Buffalo re-elected the Mayor who has presided over the disastrous slide to a third term over no opposition, and this year we're prepared to do the same with our County Executive.

:: Modern architecture. Buffalo's old buildings are astounding; Buffalo's new buildings are merely utilitarian and uninspiring.

:: Bad decisions. This could go under politics, but Buffalo has elevated bad decision making to an art form. A great natural waterfront? Naturally, we built a six-lane thruway right between downtown and the water. And so on. I could list these all day, but I won't. You get the idea.

:: Sports lore: Boston complains about Bucky Dent and Bill Buckner. Buffalo, though, has Super Bowls XXV, XXVI, XXVII, XXVIII; Homerun Throwback, Wide right; No goal; and more.

:: Tim Russert. Yeah, he's from Buffalo. Sorry, folks.

:: Chain bookstores. Not that they killed Buffalo's indy bookstores, because they didn't, not really. But I live in Orchard Park, one of Buffalo's "Southtowns" - - the collective local term for the southern suburbs. All of Buffalo's big bookstores - - including the indy's who are left - - are in the Northtowns. So I gotta drive all the way across town for books. (Given my current financial situation, this may be a good thing.)

:: The job market. There isn't one.

:: Being in a "Has-been" city. Buffalo is pretty much ignored by the national press, in terms of coverage of urban issues.

:: The local news stations. "If it bleeds it leads" is the rule here, and not a single story goes by without the anchor person reminding us that "You heard it here first". And the race to find a local connection to every story of national import is really annoying.

:: Timothy McVeigh. Yeah, he was from here too. Ugh.

So, how about all of your cities?