University at Buffalo Center for Urban Studies

11/03/2026

The Purpose of Remembering: Why Memorials are Important

The 5/14 Memorial must be a constant reminder that only the transformation of the East Side into a great community for ordinary Black people can keep those who lost their lives at the Tops Murder did not die in vain. The Memorial be a symbol of the commitment of the City and private sector to provide the resources necessary transform the East Side into a healthy, prosperous and joyful community.

A memorial cannot, by itself, reverse neighborhood disinvestment, repair deteriorating housing, eliminate poverty, or overcome the structural forces that reproduce racial inequality. However, the memorial can be a constant reminder that there can be no peace without just, and the people must be resolved to fight until victory is won. The memorial must symbolize---No Justice, No Peace!

A truly transformed East Side would mean repaired homes, affordable rents, living-wage jobs, thriving schools, safe streets, and vacant lots transformed into homes, gardens, and places where children can play. It would mean longtime Black residents staying in their neighborhoods, building wealth, and controlling their community’s future. That is what “a new day” should look like.

Political accountability means moving beyond expressions of sympathy, commemorative ceremonies, and funding announcements to measurable commitments that improve everyday life for East Side's residents.

Honoring the ten Black people murdered on May 14, 2022, is essential. But even more important, the City and political leaders must change their top-down approach to developing the East Side. This approach requires a new type of partnership between the city and the neighborhood. In this approach, the City and politicians follows the leadership of neighborhoods in determine how and what to do in developing and transforming their neighborhoods into great places to live. This is not so much about political accountability but being about to put together the strategy that drives neighborhood transformation.

See the original article here: https://buffalonews.com/news/local/article_79501ab3-4e99-4a64-b014-a4575cd0ec2f.html

10/23/2026

Wealth Extraction is a form of Social Robbery

Black families are told that homeownership is their pathway to wealth and economic security. But it comes a price that is higher for Blacks than Whites. W***y Blackmore’s Buffalo Criterion article, exposes a cruel paradox: even after purchasing their homes, Black families face additional insurance costs because of where they live.

This is more than unequal pricing. It is wealth extraction, and a form of social robbery. This is another way that the racialized housing market operates---robbing the Black community under the guise of “neutral” business practices.

State insurance commissioners regulate insurance pricing, legislators write the laws, and mortgage lenders generally require homeowners to purchase coverage. Yet regulators continue to permit pricing systems that produce significant racial disparities, even after conventional risk factors are considered. Where are the investigations, mandatory pricing audits, restrictions on discriminatory geographic rating, and penalties for unlawful practices? When government has the authority to confront racial inequality but fails to act, regulatory inaction becomes part of the problem.

The bottom line: Redlining 2.0 is really Wealth Extraction 1.0. It demonstrates multiple ways that Black communities are exploited and intentionally underdeveloped. Wealth extraction is a form of social robbery.

Read the original article here: https://www.thebuffalocriterion.com/new-york-state-news/redlining-20-the-hidden-cost-of-owning-a-home-while-black

10/13/2026

𝐈𝐬 𝐌𝐚𝐤𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐁𝐮𝐢𝐥𝐝𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐇𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐬 𝐄𝐚𝐬𝐢𝐞𝐫 𝐚 𝐓𝐫𝐨𝐣𝐚𝐧 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐬𝐞 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐆𝐞𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐢𝐟𝐢𝐜𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧?

Is the UB “Buffalo-Ready-Homes” strategy a good idea, or a Trojan Horse for gentrification?

The road to hell is often paved with good intentions.

The UB School of Architecture and Planning’s Buffalo-Ready-Homes program, as currently designed, fits that description.

Buffalo-Ready-Homes uses “pre-approved housing designs” to facilitate owner-occupied construction on vacant lots on the East Side.

It supports the mayor’s ambition to attract 20,000–30,000 new residents, particularly young, upwardly mobile households [mostly White] to the city.

But this well-intentioned initiative has a sinister side: it could become a Trojan Horse for gentrification.

Between 2010 and 2020, the East Side’s Black population declined approximately 18%, while its share of residents fell from 77% to 60%. Meanwhile, the suburban share of Erie County’s Black population increased from 17% to 25%.

This loss of Black residents in central cities is part of a national trend. Everywhere, Blacks are being pushed out of the city.

Mass homeownership construction on vacant lots could accelerate the displacement of Blacks by driving up surrounding rents and property values, threatening cost-burdened renters and elderly homeowners living on fixed incomes.

Rising evictions could push even more Black residents out.
Buffalo-Ready-Homes is a good tool attached to a potentially destructive strategy.

Rather than imposing a one-size-fits-all housing program on the East Side, the “pre-approval housing design” strategy should be reimagined and retrofitted as a resident-driven program, with the “pre-approved designs” evolving from a neighborhood-specific housing strategy.

New owner-occupied housing can be built on the East Side, but it must be done within a "community-making" context, where housing design flow from the people, and their actually existing needs.

The East Side needs neighborhood transformation, not gentrification disguised as “homeownership as a tool for strengthening neighborhoods.”

Life is Good, but the Buffalo-Ready-Homes strategy needs work.

08/21/2026

Urban renewal was not a natural disaster. It was a set of decisions made by people who did not live in the neighborhoods they cut apart.

The people organizing to restore what was taken are the people who live there.

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A new initiative dedicated to restoring Buffalo’s historic vision as a connected city of parks, parkways, and thriving neighborhoods. The Buffalo City in a Park Collaborative was recently founded by Candace Moppins, Rev. Steve Lane, Jim Gordon, and Marcia Ladiana, former board members of East Side...

08/14/2026

People have a right to the neighborhood they live in. They do not have a right to exclude or keep people out, but they do have a right to drive their community’s growth and development. The residents in this community are exercising that right.

Every once in a while a neighborhood concept comes along that is almost too good to believe. For me, that’s the case with the Utica Fields project, which is being floated around by neighbors and villagers along Elmwood Avenue and West Utica. The idea is for the community to reclaim an abandoned st...

08/10/2026

This project is a disgrace to the City of Buffalo. The public sector is subsidizing an luxary apartment building for high income residents, while many East Side home owners cannot afford to repair their houses. Shameful.

The 252-unit apartment building under construction near Canalside in Buffalo will pay reduced property taxes for 30 years per a state deal.

08/10/2026

Frida's Rebel Garden Summer Camp is now in its 5th week, wrapping up on Friday August 21st! The kids have been having a great time learning about garden friends and foes, planting and caring for vegetables in the garden, taking walking field trips around the Fruit Belt, and attending the Afro Sankofa festival at the AKG. On a field trip to Pelion Community Garden we learned all about honey bees, how to use a bee smoker, and the important role that pollinators play in gardens. We also learned how to make quick pickles from produce from the garden and prepared a simple cucumber dish the kids loved. We also visited the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus to take a tour and play around in the surgical skills lab to practice using robotic and laparoscopic tools. At the Afro Sankofa festival, the kids got to meet wild and exotic animals and create their own masks. We are all looking forward to two more weeks of caring for the garden filled with important lessons around environmental stewardship, mutual respect for all living things, and the important role community gardens play in helping to combat food insecurity.

07/24/2026

07/24/2026

The Frida's Rebel Garden Summer Camp for 2026 is underway and is going great! Themed, "Green Growing - Cultivating Change," youth between the ages of 9-15 are learning lessons around community and food justice, cultural knowledge, leadership, environmental stewardship, and how to become change makers in their community. Lessons are based in Frida's Rebel Garden, teaching children how to be sacred keepers of the garden space and to take care of the plants, animals, and bugs they share the garden with, as well as how to learn from and respect each other. The kids are having a great time learning to water, w**d, and harvest produce, while also completing art projects to beautify the garden, journaling, learning breathwork techniques, engaging in movement, play, and social-emotional learning through our partnership with Say Yes Buffalo. We can't wait for what's in store for week 3!

Say Yes Buffalo

07/17/2026

The UB Center for Urban Studies team, volunteer W**d Warriors, and our youth summer camp participants have been hard at work getting Frida's Rebel Garden ready for the East Side Garden Walk this weekend - we hope you will come by to see all of our progress!

This Saturday and Sunday, July 18 and 19, the East Side Garden Walk opens over 100 gardens across Buffalo's East Side neighborhoods. The event is free, self-guided, and runs from 10 am to 4 pm both days.

Over 20 years ago, the Center for Urban Studies took a block of abandoned vacant lots on Carlton Street and turned it into a thriving community garden and outdoor classroom in partnership with Futures Academy. What was once written off became one of the most meaningful green spaces on the East Side — a place where students learn to grow food, understand their neighborhood, and connect to the land beneath their feet. This weekend, the garden is open to everyone, and we hope you will stop by to see what 20 years of community care looks like in full bloom.

📍 Frida's Rebel Garden — 155 Orange Street, Buffalo, NY 14204

Check out additional information about the garden walk this weekend:
📰 Frida's Rebel Garden — UBNow, July 14, 2026:
🔗https://www.grassrootsgardens.org/wp-content/uploads/BPS-37-Futures.jpg
📰 East Side Garden Walk — Buffalo Rising, July 2026:
🔗 buffalorising.com/2026/07/the-2026-buffalo-garden-fling/