Well, after twenty years, I'm surprised at how familiar the place seemed. Some things have changed: a few new buildings downtown, and of course the light rail system. It had just opened last time I was there, but now its above-ground structures -- stations and, especially, the turn-around at the UB Main Street campus -- are complete, and change the streetscape.

And a few other changes. Allen Street, which was rundown/student when I was there, is now gentrified/bohemian. Went and saw the Victorian house, broken up into 4 apts., where I lived my first year. Being renovated, but still looking inviting. What an apartment that was: a big one-bedroom with an eat-in kitchen and a small balcony... for $75 a month. And speaking of gentrification: Chippewa Street! Little shops, coffee bars... Never in a million years could I have predicted that.

Downtown and Allentown between them have a couple of new small theaters, and Elmwood Ave. has some good new restaurants. And the old, beautiful architecture is still there -- the Guaranty Building; City Hall; a large number of gorgeous houses, large and small.

But it's still possible to jaywalk across the main downtown streets in the middle of the morning. There's a critical mass missing from Buffalo, and I think it will stay missing until Buffalo finds something to replace the railroad/Great Lakes transhipment that was the heart of the city's rise at the turn of the last century. It's a potentially beautiful place, but dispirited, it seemed to me. Maybe, as the price of gas keeps going up, rail and water shipping will come back. That would be great in many ways, and one of them would be the good it would do Buffalo.