Buffalo's Waterfront Renaissance: Citizen Activists, Ngos and the Canalside Project

Recounts how preservationists and environmentalists ultimately succeeded in persuading a powerful state agency to abandon its plans for privately developing Buffalo's waterfront and instead revitalize the city by enhancing opportunities for members of the public to use and enjoy that same space.

This book tells the remarkable story of howBuffalo's post-industrial waterfront was reclaimed for public use and enjoyment and pays tribute to the many local citizens and nongovernmental organizations that made the city's waterfront renaissance possible. After years of litigation, public controversy and debate, preservationists and environmentalists ultimately succeeded in persuading the state to abandon its contentious plans for privately developing Buffalo's waterfront. Gene Bunnell, an experienced urban planner, lays out the Buffalo waterfront's long and troubled history, from the torrent of shipping and commercial activity that was unleashed by the opening of the Erie Canal, to the contamination of the Buffalo River due to waterside industries, to how the Outer Harbor-the last portion of the waterfront to be industrially developed-was reshaped and contaminated by filling in low-lying areas with a toxic mix of waste materials. Drawing on interviews and articles, editorials, and op-eds from The Buffalo News, Bunnell provides the reader with a "real-time" sense of how the struggle over the future of Buffalo's waterfront unfolded and the ultimate victory by local activists to secure environmental cleanup, restored natural habitats, and expanded public waterfront access.

Gene Bunnell is Emeritus Professor of Geography and Urban Planning at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He is the author of Built to Last: A Handbook on Recycling Old Buildings and Making Places Special: Stories of Real Places Made Better by Planning.