Last week I met with consultants who came to Buffalo with a single purpose — to answer the question: “What is happening in downtown Buffalo?” I came to the meeting prepared with our industry-specific marketing brochures, our economic guide, tables and charts of data, but one map – Downtown Buffalo Development Projects – best captured the information they needed.
For this map we plotted three different “project types”: completed, under construction, or proposed. We then scaled the size of the points based on investment amount. Our mapping software also performs complex analysis. The hatched rings show the concentration and direction of each activity type weighted by investment.
For example, even though there are projects “under construction” throughout downtown, the Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus represents the most concentrated activity, weighted by dollar amount, but the ring is being pulled towards the large projects of Larkinville. We also shaded four areas that currently are seeing a high volume of activity or planned development. This exercise was limited to downtown projects and the hundreds of millions of dollars they represent. With the right data we may be able to open this up to the entire city.
BNE understands the effectiveness of providing data geographically and maps remain one of our most popular data delivery methods. We encourage you to look through the
maps section of our website and I look forward to any feedback.
When you meet up with family and friends this holiday season and they ask what’s going on in Buffalo, we hope this data helps.
Research Manager
Buffalo Niagara Enterprise Blog | Economic Development Discussions 