I went to Buffalo this weekend, but strangely Norfolk got all the snow.

No Pilot delivery Monday… (paper finally arived this morning, about an hour late.)

Buffalo vs. Norfolk

There’s a crater in Lackawana, a town just south of Buffalo, New York. Not an actual crater, but an economic black hole several miles in diameter where the two steel giants, Bethlehem and Republic Steel, used to have their mills. My grandfather, a good Irish Catholic and a father of nine children, supported his family as a shop foreman at Republic Steel. He worked there for 35 years, retiring in the nineteen eighties to live on the generous benefits package provided by that company.

He died in 1991, before the pension and the benefits ran out, before Republic and Bethlehem went bankrupt, began closing plants, shutting down operations and laying off the thousands of blue and white collar laborers who had prospered in Buffalo.

Today, the steel industry in the U.S. is a tiny fraction of what it once was. In 1951 Bethlehem Steel alone employed over 150,000 workers; today it is gone. And with the crash of the steel industry came the crash of Buffalo. That city has had to contend with three decades of job losses as the manufacturing sector cracked in the 1970s, declined in the 1980s and disintegrated in the 1990s. Having suffered the severe economic shock of the loss of its core, Buffalo was left to limp along and decay like the abandoned mills that dot its landscape.

Buffalo is a much-maligned city, but there’s a lot to admire. Downtown Buffalo was built at the turn of the century, during an industrial boom, powered by clean hydro-electricity from the Niagara river. It was constructed during the period, prior to World War II, when people actually cared about architecture, when even water pumping stations were constructed to look like gothic palaces. The rich built sprawling stone and brick mansions along Delaware Avenue, reminding any visitor now of the past glory of the city.

Bethlehem Steel Mill in Lackawana, NY. AKA, the crater.

I mention this because I was just visiting my family there. About half of my grandfather’s nine children stayed in the Buffalo area, in spite of the economic difficulty, and in defiance of the notorious weather. They are Buffalo boosters, most of them. They believe in the city. They appreciate its quirks, and they treasure its assets, including the architecture, the wonderland of Delaware Park, the sparks of culture that still burn and threaten even to spread and grow. Visiting Buffalo this Christmas, I looked at the city with a new eye, and I saw it not as a city in a slide toward collapse, but a city on the rebound, gathering about itself all its assets, and looking toward the future. For the first time I looked at my relatives and understood why they chose to make their lives there.

Norfolk is much smaller than Buffalo, and was never as grand. We have been lucky so far that our own core industry, the U.S. Navy, has been a stable economic engine for the region. Looking at the blasted dead zone in Lackawana, its possible to imagine what Naval Station Norfolk might look like if the Navy pulled out of our area–the scale of abandonment would be similar. It’s refreshing to me to visit a city like Buffalo and see it with my new eye. It’s an eye that I’ve developed here at AltDaily–an eye that sees potential, not rot, a worldview that looks to build up, restore and improve, not to abandon and tear down. I look at a city like Buffalo, which has sunk so far below its peak, but where people are fighting to hold on and rebuild and are succeeding, and I am renewed in my vigor to keep building and improving Norfolk, the place where I have decided to locate my own family.

That’s my New Years resolution: to keep working to make Norfolk a place where people want to stay. I look forward to another year of biking, writing and working in this city, to watching the light rail service commence, to new restaurants that will open, new venues for music and art, new outdoor events. This cultural revival we’re making is just getting started.

Even as I write this, I get a new dose of hope from Buffalo: the Bethlehem Steel site has been purchased for redevelopment.

And now, the news:

Here’s a first: Every story on the front page of the print edition is local. Glad to see the writers and editors having some fun with the weather. This is one of them:

Another slick dance on the roads, but big melt lies ahead

A little good news for the Bay

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation issues an annual report card for the Chesapeake Bay. The assessment measures the health of the Bay according to a number of key indicators. The overall grade improved to a 31 out of 100 this year, up from 29 last year. The largest improvement came from the blue crabs indicator. The population of blue crabs rebounded over the past year due to the imposition of strict catch limits and a ban on winter dredging in Virginia waters. The Bay needs to reach a score of 70 before it can be called “restored.”

Norfolk cop calls his tattoo business a success

After one year and 5,000 tattoos, Jason Armstrong is ready to declare Ocean Mystique’s Ink Gallery an “amazing” success.

George Allen isn’t conservative enough

According to most spokespeople for the Virginia Tea Party, George Allen is not conservative enough. But he’s still pretty conservative.

Coming soon: Kerouac Cafe

This is what I’m talking about: the scene is Norfolk is growing. Opening in January on 35th Street will be Philip Odango’s Kerouac Cafe. Philip is one of Norfolk’s treasures. He’s the creative director for Operation Smile, and a producer and director of shows at Norfolk’s Generic Theater. Now he and two friends have joined together to open a 24-hour cafe in one of the great neglected treasures of Norfolk. Phil looked at the boarded buildings of 35th Street and saw not decay, but potential.

“You can feel a spirit and a soulful voice on that street. It knows that it’s going to blossom and come out,” he says in the story. I completely agree. Let’s have a renaissance on that street. Let’s see it flourish.