From: dtasman@dante.nmsu.edu (Dan Tasman)
Subject: Cheektowaga (was Re: hello?)
Organization: New Mexico State University
Date: Fri, 4 Sep 1992 23:47:49 GMT

ccullen@ops-2.Naitc.Com (Carolyn Cullen) writes:

> Well, just the need to post to a newsgroup that doesnt seem to be
> getting any action.

> Come on folks, forget those limp-minded postings that sound like
> travelogs, how about the 'suburbs vs. city, dammit' or some such
> discussion.
> or SOME discussion at least.

> Personally, i live in the city (Chicago) and work in the burbs and
> could go on about such things, but not if no one is listening.

I'd rather live in the North Side or the Hyde Park section of Chicago than any  
of the split-level burbs they're always filming Molly Ringwald movies in.   
Maybe I could tolerate Evanston or Oak PArk, but I'd still take the Windy City  
over the inner suburbs.

I know this is generalizing, but in the 23 years I spent living in Buffalo,  
I've noticed that *everyone* (well, almost everyone) from Cheektowaga, New York  
(a suburb of Buffalo) ...

.. bowls
.. belongs to a volunteer fire department
.. has tacky lawn ornaments, many of which are religious
.. bowls
.. drives a Chrysler Motors product
.. drinks Genesee Cream Ale
.. bowls 
.. is afraid of "culert folk"
.. wears a Buffalo Bills/Sabres/Bisons shirt about 90% of the time
.. bowls 

For those of you who don't know, Cheektowaga is a totally unplanned, sprawling  
blue collar 'burb of some 120,000 residents adjacent to the east side of  
Buffalo.  In some areas, like the Walden/Thruway section, single family  
residential uses mixes with very intense retail (superregional shopping centers  
like the 220-store Walden Galleria, and heavy traffic stores like Toys 'R Us,  
Builders Square, Kmart, Wegmans, Chase Pitkin, Ikea in the near future, and so  
on) and heavy industrial uses.  Cheektowaga has the loosest sign ordinance of  
Buffalo's burbs, so it somewhat resembles Houston, Texas in the tackiness and  
clutter of its commercial areas.   Cheektowaga is the largest town in New York  
State without a planning department.

Because of the ethnic composition of the adjacent East Side, of Buffalo,  
Cheektowaga's population is predominantly Polish.  That in itself is not a  
negative factor, but the community seems to exclude those of other ethnic  
backgrounds from political and cultural activities.  Because Cheektowaga is  
Buffalo's most affordable suburb (the average home costs comething like $70,000  
there, as opposed to $130,000 in the Buffalo region) it is attracting some new  
minority residents who would not otherwise live in the suburbs (or many parts  
of the city, for that matter).  Traditionally, the Polish community in Buffalo  
has been very hostile towards the African-American community, and vice versa,  
partially because most city neighborhoods that have been "ghettoized" since the  
1950s were predominantly Polish.  

It'll be interesting to see what happens to this town over the next ten years  
..

--
   Dan Tasman                                       dtasman@dante.nmsu.edu
                                                     molson@rever.nmsu.edu
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   "I think that I shall never see a billboard lovely as a tree
    Indeed, unless the billboards fall, I'll never see a tree at all."
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