Opinion

Census figures show that Cuomo’s ‘Buffalo Billion’ isn’t working

A full three-quarters of Western New York’s cities and towns are losing population, with Buffalo the biggest loser as it shrank by an average of 51 people a day since 2010.

Yes, that’s the Queen of the Great Lakes — which Gov. Cuomo will tell you is seeing a renaissance thanks to his Buffalo Billion spending. Oops.

The pop-drop figures come from the Buffalo-focused site Business First, which compared data from the 2010 Census with the Census Bureau’s new estimates for 2018.
The obvious reason is that new jobs are so rare outside New York City’s unique economic engine.

Cuomo’s policies sure haven’t helped: His fracking ban shut down the best hope for solid growth in much of the state.

Nor have his new casinos proved a boon for Upstate — indeed, most aren’t coming close to the profits they’d envisioned when they opened.

Cuomo’s Buffalo Billion plan, now working on its second billion in “economic development” spending, has created some temporary construction jobs and rewarded many of the gov’s donors — but failed to turn that city around.

And the population figures prove it.