https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/collins_newspapers/1034/thumbnail.jp

Collins, Catherine

English

Digital Commons at Buffalo State

State University of New York College at Buffalo - Buffalo State College Digital Commons at Buffalo State Newspapers The Dr. Catherine Collins Collection 1990 Newspapers; 1990-02-22; Families Key to Revivial of City Neighborhoods Catherine Collins Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/collins_newspapers  Part of the Education Commons, and the History Commons Recommended Citation "Newspapers; 1990-02-22; Families Key to Revivial of City Neighborhoods." Newspapers. Monroe Fordham Regional History Center. Archives & Special Collections Department, E. H. Butler Library, SUNY Buffalo State. https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/collins_newspapers/35 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the The Dr. Catherine Collins Collection at Digital Commons at Buffalo State. It has been accepted for inclusion in Newspapers by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons at Buffalo State. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@buffalostate.edu. \ Catherine Collins, with h~r son Clyde, feels loyalty to Buffalo. Families key to revival of city neighborhoods Stable middle class vital, study says By IRENE LIGUORI News Staff Reporter If Buffalo is to rebound from its smokestack days, the city must somehow hang on to families such as Clyde and Catherine Collins. Luckily, the Collins family feels a strong loyalty to Buffalo. "I' ll drive outside the city to work," said Mrs. Collins, assistant academic dean at Erie Community College's North Campus, "but I would never move out of the city." She has lived in Buffalo all her life, growing up in a lower East Side neighborhood where today the frames of attractive, city-subsidized, middle-class homes rise against the city skyline. Meanwhile, Mrs. Collins has watched talented childhood friends leave Buffalo and make good else-where. Job opportunities either did not exist for them here, or else the subtle forms of racism that keep black Buffalonians out of corporate boardrooms were at work, she says. Mrs. Collins also has watched young black professionals move into the Buffalo area from elsewhere. "There is an influx," she said, "but the real estate agents show them other sections of our county -not our city. They are never shown the beautiful sections of Buffalo we have. " That troubles Mrs. Collins, whose strong feelings about Buffalo are as much philosophical as they are sen-timental. If families like hers keep leaving the city, she says, who will be left? That was the same conclusion reached by University at Buffalo re-searcher Henry Louis Taylor Jr. , who released a major study on Buf-falo's black community Monday. Taylor's report said that unless Buffalo can maintain its middle-class black population while simulta-neously working to lessen poverty and joblessness among the under-class, the city will find itself plagued with super-ghettos like those found in Chicago and Detroit. The study pointed to the growing disaffection and crime rate among young blacks in Buffalo, the widen-ing gap between the black and white income, and a dropping black partic-ipation rate in the city's labor force. The Collins family does not fit into this grim picture. Mrs. Collins and her husband live with their 10-year-old son in the northeast quadrant of the city, an area where a smattering of other black professional families have mi-grated. A daughter teaches elementa-ry children in the Buffalo public schools. One of the strengths cited in Tay-lor's report is the vast variety of social and civic clubs and organiza-tions the black community main-tains in Buffalo. Because Mrs. Collins is very con-See Collins Page BS Hopes for East Side hinge on white attitudes, activist says By ANTHONY CARDINALE ff: 1 · · · · --- --"' St ·"R • Bu a o, Nash said: that the social cns1s of the black ghettos in such new a11 eporter "I h b y ·t· D · Chi ave to e. ou be- c11es as etro1t, cago and New York City will A major study released Monday on Buffalo's black community can only bear fruit if the white comn:iunity has made progress in accepting racial equality, says black civil riwts activist Jesse Nash lieve that it's_ wort~ it, be repeated soon in Buffalo unless the city's leaders and you do 1t. He s a mount an all-out assault to save the East Side. young man, and he needs Taylor recommends that the East Side where 84 a \ot of encouragement. I percent of Buffalo's 94 262 bl k ·ct' t 1· • 1... - I . • 1.. _ _ rr _ ...,_ L _ I. _ _ • > aC re SJ en S 1 Ve. 

Newspapers; 1990-02-22; Families Key to Revivial of City Neighborhoods

https://digitalcommons.buffalostate.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1034&context=collins_newspapers

Newspapers; 1990-02-22; Families Key to Revivial of City Neighborhoods

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Digital Commons at Buffalo State