Buffalo's East Side was a food desert. The shooting made things worse.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Route 33 tears through the heart of Buffalo's East Side, a scar in a segregated city that nearly demolished a Black community.

The highway devastated the economies of Black Buffalo's commercial centers and sucked value from historic real estate, spitting grime and grease onto the windows of neighboring homes.

The East Side, where the Black population here has concentrated for more than 70 years, is hemmed in by Main Street to the west and Eggert Road to the east. Route 33 cuts a gnarly gash between the two. The effect is a community stuck in what locals describe as a cycle of poverty and neglect.

Then the East Side was attacked.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/buffalos-east-side-food-desert-195253596.html

[IngridsLittleAngel]

1. True, sadly

I have a friend that lives in Buffalo. He in fact worked at that Tops many years ago. His cousin and her daughter were working there when the shooting happened. They, fortunately, heard the gunshots and immediately hid. They're safe and sound... at least physically. Time will tell what living through this will do to their mental health.

But he told me the same thing. East Buffalo is a food desert and that Tops is basically the only supermarket for that area of town. That it's been that way for a long time, and along with the carnage that took place that afternoon, he has concerns that this could lead to that store being closed, and things going from worse to even worse in East Buffalo.

Let's hope that doesn't happen.

But welcome to real terrorism, America. Not only designed to kill and maim and destroy, but to instill fear and terror. We saw the damage and loss of life a few weeks ago.. Now we have to see what kind of effect this has on creating fear in the future.

[Deminpenn]

2. This happened to many minority neighborhoods

during the well-intentioned urban renewal programs of the 1950s and 60s. The local Pittsburgh PBS station, WQED, did a fantastic documentary called "Remembering Wylie Avenue", the heart of a then thriving Hill District in Pittsburgh that was devasted when the Civic Arena was built. That cut the Hill off from the rest of Pittsburgh and only now are efforts ongoing to reconnect the Hill to the rest of the city.

Read "The Power Broker" about Robert Moses by Robert Caro for a better understanding of how all this came about.