— Matt Cook

ALBANY—One of America’s leading experts on urban development blames antiquated state laws for the increasing economic disparity between upstate New York’s cities and suburbs. The laws, he says, spread power over 1,545 cities, towns, and villages without unified regional planning.
David Rusk, a former mayor of Albuquerque, N.M., who now works as an independent consultant on urban and suburban policy, has written a report called "Upstate New York: A House Divided." Rusk calls for an increase in county power, which he calls "big-box" government, over towns and villages, which he calls "small-box" government.
"A fragmented region can’t get at the whole assets of its region," Rusk said at a press conference in Albany last Thursday.

These days, Rusk said, people’s lives are not confined to one town or city. People work in one place, live somewhere else, shop somewhere else, and find entertainment and recreation somewhere else. Therefore, he said, upstate New York’s cities should not be looked at as municipalities with rigid borders, but as regions made up of cities and towns. Rusk called them the real cities of upstate New York.
"The way you lead your life is you cross municipal boundaries constantly," Rusk said.

The report
Rusk’s report charts growth in upstate New York’s four major metropolitan areas: Albany-Schenectady-Troy, Buffalo, Rochester, and Syracuse. In each area, growth has been minimal and mostly in suburban towns at the expense of central cities, Rusk said.

For example, while the Buffalo-Niagara Falls area saw a 20 percent growth in full value of taxable property between 1990 and 2004 (Rusk adjusted the figures for inflation), the cities of Buffalo and Niagara Falls dropped 18 and 17 percent, respectively. However, the towns in that area grew 36 percent in taxable value.

Rochester and Syracuse had similar declines.

The Capital Region fared a little better. Albany and Troy increased in value 4 percent and 7 percent, respectively, while Saratoga Springs, an anomaly compared to all other upstate cities, increased 86 percent in value.

However, Rusk said, growth in capital regions across the country has been good. Measured in job growth and personal-income growth in the last decade, the Albany area only beat out the capital regions of six states: Illinois, Delaware, Rhode Island, Kansas, Connecticut, and Hawaii.

As population pours out of cities and into the suburbs, it causes not only sprawl, but segregation, Rusk said.
"In ‘little box’ regions, I have found that the (generally) unspoken mission of most ‘little boxes’ town councils (and most ‘little boxes’ school boards) is ‘to keep our town (or our schools) just the way they are for people just like us,’" Rusk writes. "Jim Crow by income is steadily replacing Jim Crow by race."
He accused towns of practicing "exclusionary zoning," or zoning that prohibits certain people from moving to a town, by restricting apartment buildings or requiring large minimum lot sizes, for example.

Municipalities from around the country that cover the same area and population as upstate New York’s metropolitan areas have done much better economically than their fragmented counterparts. Rusk compared Buffalo to cities like Indianapolis and Memphis, Tenn.; and the Capital District to cities like Denver, Nashville, and Tuscon, Ariz.
"For all the self-satisfaction that the outer suburbs of Buffalo, Rochester, Albany-Schenectady-Troy, and Syracuse may feel, upstate New York regions are minor-leaguers compared with the competition," Rusk writes. "Indeed, they are not even ‘the competition’ in the others’ eyes."

The solution
Though it would be ideal, Rusk does not believe New York will ever allow its municipalities to merge. That’s not to say it never has. In 1897, Rusk writes in his report, the state merged New York City with Brooklyn, Bronx County, Queens County, and Richmond County, creating the country’s most prominent city.
"It is inconceivable that any legislator or governor would propose similar reforms today," Rusk writes.

Barring any major shift by the state government, the best way for upstate New York’s regions to act as single entities is to strengthen the power of county governments.
"To get out of this little-boxes trap, you’ve got to start turning to the only big-box local government you’ve got," Rusk said.
Among his recommendations, Rusk wrote, the state legislature should empower county governments to develop county-wide land-use plans and require municipalities to conform to those plans. Counties should be able to issue bonds for presevation and growth measures and, Rusk writes, "Institute a county-administered system of tax-base sharing so that all municipalities will share in the revenues generated by regional economic growth."
Rusk also called for counties to enforce "fair-share" housing, which would require municipalities to have a certain percentage of property to be affordable to people below a certain income level.
"Anybody who’s good enough to work in a community is good enough to live in a community," Rusk said.

If the legislature will not mandate such a system, Rusk writes, it should at least allow counties to implement it themselves through a referendum.
"Skeptics will say this will never happen in New York," Rusk said. "Well, never is a long time."

Active citizens’ groups, like the faith-based Gamaliel NY, which funded the report, are the best way to motivate governments to action, Rusk said.
"Faith really can move mountains," he said.