by Peter A. Lombardi, Intern, RPA
When Governor DeWitt Clinton poured a ceremonial bucket of Lake Erie water into New York Harbor in 1825, he did more than signal the completion of the era's greatest engineering feat. With the opening of the Erie Canal, the mass settlement and development of the nation's vast interior commenced with New York as its undisputed economic nerve center. Almost immediately, the riches of the Midwest came trickling across the Great Lakes, through the Erie Canal, and down the Hudson River to feed New York's ascendancy.
Besides spawning a continent-wide trading empire for New York, the Erie Canal launched an urban empire closer to home: a vast network of cities and villages stretching for hundreds of miles along the route of the Erie and numerous feeder canals across Upstate New York. Nourished by raw materials bound for the City and finished products destined for western markets, the towns quickly became important trading and manufacturing hubs in their own right.
Though the early growth of Upstate cities depended on Downstate taxpayers who shouldered debt to build the canals, the cities soon became vital contributors to the public and private investments that would continue to expand the entire state's infrastructure and economy. By 1880, ten of the nation's 100 largest cities were located in New York north of Putnam County. The largest of them, Buffalo, would grow to be the nation's eighth largest city by 1900, dwarfing the likes of San Francisco and Pittsburgh in both size and wealth. It and others, including Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Troy, and Binghamton became leading centers of industrial innovation, providing fertile ground for such 20th century behemoths as IBM, Kodak, Xerox, and General Electric.
For more than a century, Upstate and Downstate were linked by strong physical ties - canals, later eclipsed by railroads - and by close commercial ties. After World War II, however, these ties began to weaken. The steady decline of manufacturing undermined the economies of cities both Upstate and Downstate, while advances in transportation technology - namely the evolution of highways and trucking - diluted the geographic advantage of the Erie Canal corridor. The completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, while making the transport of goods from the Great Lakes to the City cheaper, hit the Canal corridor hard by rendering its transshipment function obsolete.
When New York City began to rebound in the 1980s as the hub of a rapidly globalizing service economy, it made sense to expect a similar rebound Upstate. Blessed with the nation's largest public university system, several prestigious private universities, and a legacy of industrial innovation, Upstate was primed to emerge from its manufacturing slump as a key player in the knowledge-based economy.
But halfway through the first decade of the new millennium, Upstate New York has yet to recover its economic strength. And rather than contributing to the well being of the entire state, it is in danger of becoming a serious burden on those further down the Hudson.
As the Brookings Institution outlined in a recent series pinpointing the maladies affecting Upstate's metropolitan areas (http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2003/08demographics_pendall.aspx) , the region lags far behind most of the country on a number of growth indicators. During the 1990s, Upstate's population grew more slowly than all states except North Dakota and West Virginia; personal income grew at less than half the national rate; and poverty - particularly concentrated poverty in urban areas - increased despite falling Downstate and nationwide. In addition, the Brookings series and a report from the New York Fed's Buffalo Branch have revealed a range of troublesome demographic trends, particularly the aging of the region's residents. The population of young adults Upstate declined by over 20 percent during the 1990s while the population of senior citizens grew by almost 5 percent. As a result, the region's population now has a smaller share of young adults than the rest of the country and a larger share of seniors, posing dilemmas to the Upstate labor market and the state's social services infrastructure.
How is it that, despite the growth enjoyed by much of the nation and Downstate during the 1990s, Upstate managed to remain in a decades-long slump? A number of factors have been held responsible, including Upstate's over-reliance on an ever-declining manufacturing sector; state and local taxes that far exceed those of Upstate's closest economic competitors - places like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania; and competition for increasingly footloose residents and businesses from places perceived as having greater amenities, such as the Sun Belt and cities like New York.
Whatever the reasons for Upstate stagnation, it is a matter that must be taken seriously by the Tri-State Region. Though the sprawling expanse from Lake Champlain to Lake Erie may appear to mean less to the health of today's globally-oriented New York City than it did fifty or one hundred years ago, the region cannot be regarded as a vestigial limb: atrophied and benign. In the coming years Upstate will either be a burden or an asset to Downstate.
It will be a burden if the region's economy continues to perform well-below that of its Northeastern and Midwestern neighbors and its seven million residents continue to experience lower income growth and higher poverty than the nation as a whole. The cost of keeping the increasingly poor and elderly region above water will certainly strain the state's ability to invest in necessary infrastructure and other improvements Downstate.
The region will not be a burden if it is recognized and utilized as a long-term strategic asset. As RPA and Lincoln Institute for Land Policy have observed, mega-regions like the Northeast are expected to drive the nation's growth over the next several decades and will continue to grow themselves, posing challenges to their ability to accommodate growth without sacrificing quality of life.
As these challenges confront the New York region, Upstate New York should be seen as a growth stabilizer: a place where development can be strategically funneled in a way that accommodates growth, adds to the fiscal well-being of New York State, and avoids overburdening Downstate and tri-state infrastructure while simultaneously generating the tax revenues to invest further in that infrastructure. Just as the Erie Canal spawned an empire of Upstate cities that ultimately strengthened the economic position of New York, efforts to revive that empire could do much the same in the 21st century.
Recent efforts to boost Upstate's economic prospects and its ties to New York have included the State-led development of high-tech research centers - such as photonics in Rochester and bioinformatics in Buffalo - and the introduction of low-cost flights between major Upstate airports and New York via JetBlue. While this is a start, Upstate revitalization will take much more in the way of resources and policy innovations from Albany to restore the region's competitiveness. And that will require a strong commitment from Downstate leaders, for whom there is much to be gained - or lost - in the future of Upstate.
Peter A. Lombardi, Regional Plan Association. Lombardi, an intern at RPA, is completing his master's degree in city planning at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
When Governor DeWitt Clinton poured a ceremonial bucket of Lake Erie water into New York Harbor in 1825, he did more than signal the completion of the era's greatest engineering feat. With the opening of the Erie Canal, the mass settlement and development of the nation's vast interior commenced with New York as its undisputed economic nerve center. Almost immediately, the riches of the Midwest came trickling across the Great Lakes, through the Erie Canal, and down the Hudson River to feed New York's ascendancy.
Besides spawning a continent-wide trading empire for New York, the Erie Canal launched an urban empire closer to home: a vast network of cities and villages stretching for hundreds of miles along the route of the Erie and numerous feeder canals across Upstate New York. Nourished by raw materials bound for the City and finished products destined for western markets, the towns quickly became important trading and manufacturing hubs in their own right.
Though the early growth of Upstate cities depended on Downstate taxpayers who shouldered debt to build the canals, the cities soon became vital contributors to the public and private investments that would continue to expand the entire state's infrastructure and economy. By 1880, ten of the nation's 100 largest cities were located in New York north of Putnam County. The largest of them, Buffalo, would grow to be the nation's eighth largest city by 1900, dwarfing the likes of San Francisco and Pittsburgh in both size and wealth. It and others, including Rochester, Syracuse, Utica, Troy, and Binghamton became leading centers of industrial innovation, providing fertile ground for such 20th century behemoths as IBM, Kodak, Xerox, and General Electric.
For more than a century, Upstate and Downstate were linked by strong physical ties - canals, later eclipsed by railroads - and by close commercial ties. After World War II, however, these ties began to weaken. The steady decline of manufacturing undermined the economies of cities both Upstate and Downstate, while advances in transportation technology - namely the evolution of highways and trucking - diluted the geographic advantage of the Erie Canal corridor. The completion of the St. Lawrence Seaway in 1959, while making the transport of goods from the Great Lakes to the City cheaper, hit the Canal corridor hard by rendering its transshipment function obsolete.
When New York City began to rebound in the 1980s as the hub of a rapidly globalizing service economy, it made sense to expect a similar rebound Upstate. Blessed with the nation's largest public university system, several prestigious private universities, and a legacy of industrial innovation, Upstate was primed to emerge from its manufacturing slump as a key player in the knowledge-based economy.
But halfway through the first decade of the new millennium, Upstate New York has yet to recover its economic strength. And rather than contributing to the well being of the entire state, it is in danger of becoming a serious burden on those further down the Hudson.
As the Brookings Institution outlined in a recent series pinpointing the maladies affecting Upstate's metropolitan areas (http://www.brookings.edu/reports/2003/08demographics_pendall.aspx) , the region lags far behind most of the country on a number of growth indicators. During the 1990s, Upstate's population grew more slowly than all states except North Dakota and West Virginia; personal income grew at less than half the national rate; and poverty - particularly concentrated poverty in urban areas - increased despite falling Downstate and nationwide. In addition, the Brookings series and a report from the New York Fed's Buffalo Branch have revealed a range of troublesome demographic trends, particularly the aging of the region's residents. The population of young adults Upstate declined by over 20 percent during the 1990s while the population of senior citizens grew by almost 5 percent. As a result, the region's population now has a smaller share of young adults than the rest of the country and a larger share of seniors, posing dilemmas to the Upstate labor market and the state's social services infrastructure.
How is it that, despite the growth enjoyed by much of the nation and Downstate during the 1990s, Upstate managed to remain in a decades-long slump? A number of factors have been held responsible, including Upstate's over-reliance on an ever-declining manufacturing sector; state and local taxes that far exceed those of Upstate's closest economic competitors - places like Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania; and competition for increasingly footloose residents and businesses from places perceived as having greater amenities, such as the Sun Belt and cities like New York.
Whatever the reasons for Upstate stagnation, it is a matter that must be taken seriously by the Tri-State Region. Though the sprawling expanse from Lake Champlain to Lake Erie may appear to mean less to the health of today's globally-oriented New York City than it did fifty or one hundred years ago, the region cannot be regarded as a vestigial limb: atrophied and benign. In the coming years Upstate will either be a burden or an asset to Downstate.
It will be a burden if the region's economy continues to perform well-below that of its Northeastern and Midwestern neighbors and its seven million residents continue to experience lower income growth and higher poverty than the nation as a whole. The cost of keeping the increasingly poor and elderly region above water will certainly strain the state's ability to invest in necessary infrastructure and other improvements Downstate.
The region will not be a burden if it is recognized and utilized as a long-term strategic asset. As RPA and Lincoln Institute for Land Policy have observed, mega-regions like the Northeast are expected to drive the nation's growth over the next several decades and will continue to grow themselves, posing challenges to their ability to accommodate growth without sacrificing quality of life.
As these challenges confront the New York region, Upstate New York should be seen as a growth stabilizer: a place where development can be strategically funneled in a way that accommodates growth, adds to the fiscal well-being of New York State, and avoids overburdening Downstate and tri-state infrastructure while simultaneously generating the tax revenues to invest further in that infrastructure. Just as the Erie Canal spawned an empire of Upstate cities that ultimately strengthened the economic position of New York, efforts to revive that empire could do much the same in the 21st century.
Recent efforts to boost Upstate's economic prospects and its ties to New York have included the State-led development of high-tech research centers - such as photonics in Rochester and bioinformatics in Buffalo - and the introduction of low-cost flights between major Upstate airports and New York via JetBlue. While this is a start, Upstate revitalization will take much more in the way of resources and policy innovations from Albany to restore the region's competitiveness. And that will require a strong commitment from Downstate leaders, for whom there is much to be gained - or lost - in the future of Upstate.
Peter A. Lombardi, Regional Plan Association. Lombardi, an intern at RPA, is completing his master's degree in city planning at Rutgers University in New Brunswick.
@RegionalPlan