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AHC: Keep Buffalo in the big leagues

varyar

giver of existential dread
Patreon supporter
Published by SLP
Location
Western New York
Buffalo NY used to be one of the 20 largest cities in America, only dropping off that list after 1960. It's currently in 86th place.

So how can we prevent this dismaying decline? Or at least limit it?

One idea I've had is that Curtiss-Wright ends up the ATL analogue to Boeing somehow. I'm not sure how plausible this is, but it seems at least vaguely possible. Can it be done? (Alternatively, can the American automobile industry end up centered in Buffalo instead of Detroit?)
 
Not with Curtis-Wright. At least not without large scale changes. Unlike the other aviation companies, CW invested barely anything into developing new aircraft during WWII. This left them far behind the curve in the transition to jets. While they were able to license produce the Armstrong-Siddeley Sapphire as the J-65, and made several design improvements, the engine was phased out of service relatively quickly and was considered unsuitable for further development.

To keep CW alive and well, you need them to invest more in future design, instead of just derivates (for example, the P-60 was just a development of the decade+ older P-36). You also need to avoid Wright paying off inspectors to pass hundreds, if not thousands, of defective engines during WWII. That severely damaged their reputation with their primary customer, the USAAF.

To have CW also be the driver of keeping Buffalo a major city, they also need to stay there. Which means you need to change the business environment of New York State. And that's probably harder to do than saving CW.
 
One idea I've had is that Curtiss-Wright ends up the ATL analogue to Boeing somehow. I'm not sure how plausible this is, but it seems at least vaguely possible. Can it be done? (Alternatively, can the American automobile industry end up centered in Buffalo instead of Detroit?)

With everything that's happened with Detroit since the decline of the motor industry is that not a curse as much as a blessing in the short term?
 
(Alternatively, can the American automobile industry end up centered in Buffalo instead of Detroit?)

George Selden, the patent troll whose rights allowed him to exercise a lot of control over the early automobile industry, lived in Rochester; maybe if he'd actually been interested in producing cars, the area would have become an auto manufacturing center and Buffalo would have benefited as well. (And if Henry Ford loses his court case against Selden, maybe Detroit never takes off as sharply as it did IOTL.)
 
H'm. The deck seems very much stacked against the Queen City.

I think even if you beef it up during the boom periods in the northeast the eventual industrial decline will always see the population swing more to the south and west. Unless you can arrest that no matter how big it gets its perhaps doomed to decline.
 
I think even if you beef it up during the boom periods in the northeast the eventual industrial decline will always see the population swing more to the south and west. Unless you can arrest that no matter how big it gets its perhaps doomed to decline.

Yeah, it's going to take a lot of absurdities to shield it from the decline of the Rust Belt. And if there was an easy way to at least staunch the bleeding, someone would have come up with it in OTL. Hmf.
 
Yeah, it's going to take a lot of absurdities to shield it from the decline of the Rust Belt. And if there was an easy way to at least staunch the bleeding, someone would have come up with it in OTL. Hmf.

The best I can think of is to butterfly a few big employers that moved/failed IOTL into staying/surviving, but that just cushions the fall a little bit.
 
Yeah, it's going to take a lot of absurdities to shield it from the decline of the Rust Belt. And if there was an easy way to at least staunch the bleeding, someone would have come up with it in OTL. Hmf.

Not sure if this trend ever developed in the US but in the UK there was a trend where call centres would spring up in the former industrial belts across the North of England and the Central Belt of Scotland. In no way do they provide the same security as the businesses they replaced but it might help ease the transition to a service economy. There's no real way to avoid the industrial decline (it would take far more changes in history than Buffalo seeing continued growth to change that) but the seeds might be planted to adapt to it better than what was seen in other locations.
 
Not sure if this trend ever developed in the US but in the UK there was a trend where call centres would spring up in the former industrial belts across the North of England and the Central Belt of Scotland. In no way do they provide the same security as the businesses they replaced but it might help ease the transition to a service economy. There's no real way to avoid the industrial decline (it would take far more changes in history than Buffalo seeing continued growth to change that) but the seeds might be planted to adapt to it better than what was seen in other locations.
The problem is that call center companies seem IMO to prefer Southern and Sunbelt states with laxer labor laws. Maybe a Scott Walker type comes to power in NYS, to the chagrin of NYC?
 
The problem is that call center companies seem IMO to prefer Southern and Sunbelt states with laxer labor laws. Maybe a Scott Walker type comes to power in NYS, to the chagrin of NYC?
That would be really hard to pull off considering that NYC has a higher population than the rest of the state combined. What the City wants, it gets. On a personal note, my brother worked at a call center in NYS (North of Syracuse in Watertown, NY) doing tech support for Samsung, and they only payed minimum wage. So I don't see call centers viably replacing industrial/manufacturing jobs.
 
I know it's irrelevant in actual economic terms, but what if...

-the Bills win four straight Super Bowls?
-the basketball Braves stay in Buffalo instead of moving and becoming the Clippers, and they become an OTL Spurs-esque "dominating small market team".
 
I know it's irrelevant in actual economic terms, but what if...

-the Bills win four straight Super Bowls?
-the basketball Braves stay in Buffalo instead of moving and becoming the Clippers, and they become an OTL Spurs-esque "dominating small market team".
Idk if the Bills could pull off four straight (IIRC they got blown out by the 49ers) but two or three out of four seems realistic.
 
I know it's irrelevant in actual economic terms, but what if...

-the Bills win four straight Super Bowls?
-the basketball Braves stay in Buffalo instead of moving and becoming the Clippers, and they become an OTL Spurs-esque "dominating small market team".
Bills pulling have 2-3 wins wouldn’t save Buffalo and prevent a decline, but it honestly could honestly give the local economy a boost.
 
I dunno, Celtic and Rangers have won between them the past thirty-five Scottish football seasons and its not done Glasgow any good.

It's still the largest city in Scotland. As far as I can tell the question is simply about people living there in which case Glasgow would count as a success.

The causation of populous cities and dominant sports teams does of course run the other way around.
 
It's still the largest city in Scotland. As far as I can tell the question is simply about people living there in which case Glasgow would count as a success.

The causation of populous cities and dominant sports teams does of course run the other way around.

I just couldn't resist the joke.
 
I know it's irrelevant in actual economic terms, but what if...

-the Bills win four straight Super Bowls?
-the basketball Braves stay in Buffalo instead of moving and becoming the Clippers, and they become an OTL Spurs-esque "dominating small market team".

The Sabres winning the Stanley Cup in their 90s golden age would help there.

Any way to get the Bisons into MLB?
 
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