Pessimism

Add to this page things you dislike about our city or things that make you feel pessimistic about its future

See also Optimism.

• This discussion.
  

• Hearing that "You went the wrong way" is commonplace for new residents of the city from other states.
  

• The Crescent of Poverty.
  

• Rochester has an automobile problem.
  

• We have plenty of excellent science and technology, but companies need more local venture capital. We also need to convince more UR and RIT students to work in Rochester after school.
  

• The weather sucks- really, really bad. Well-known for its consistent day-to-day variance.
  

• Everything is illegal in NY.
  

• It's close to Buffalo.
  

• A large portion of the population feels that the City and County Government cares very little about citizen input.
  

• Taxes are REALLY high. Insanely high compared to the rest of the US.
  

• Unfortunately self-referential: The tendency of locals to complain, complain, complain...
  

• Getting Around Town Just try to escape, just try...
  

• There's a sucker born every minute and we're it. Point 1: every major development project is spearheaded by greedy corporate developers — just check out Renaissance Square, the proposal for a casino, and the PaeTec Park soccer stadium, and perhaps even Brooks Landing Project (remains to be seen!). Point 2: CATS was a bunch of 30-somethings who had no idea how to run a ferry company, yet we bet the farm on them and they ran off with $30,000,000. How come we weren't dealing with Bay Ferries in the first place?¹
  

• The "Conservative Vibe" seems to be embedded in the dirt. Everyone I talk with about daring projects is very concerned about how conservative Rochester is. What gives? It isn't. ²
  

• As of 2002, Rochester had the fifth-highest rate of gonorrhea in the nation³
  

• 63 of 107 tracts in New York with the highest health-risk measures from industrial pollutants are in Rochester and surrounding Monroe County. We also have the single most polluted tract, near Eastman Kodak. (link)
  

• "Is Rochester the new poster city for upstate decline?" - At least we're not Fallujah. See also Fix Buffalo and Allentown - Billy Joel song applies???
  

• The local news goes out of its way to put a damp cloth on anything positive economically in the area. Seems that if everyone in the area got large amounts of money or success, and the news would find some reason why this would be bad.
  

• Only TWO methadone clinics and one needle exchange but we have a large IV drug user population.This is part of the reason for high rates of AIDs and HEP-c in the ROC
  

• The persistent gang problem keeps our police with steady employment
  

• The Rochester City Schools have a bad reputation because they really do suck or because everyone thinks so. They have sucked for years and don't seem to be getting better. This is adding to the decline of the City because everyone moves to the burbs when the kids are old enough to go to school...
  

• Crack and smack heads on Monroe Ave always trying to tell me jokes which are not funny :( :(
  

• Street walkers in Rochester rarely wear sexy outfits like in other major cities.
  

• Lonely Planet, a major travel guide does not even list Rochester or the Finger Lakes.
  

• Generally it seems that with Rochester, if you build it, they won't come.
  

• People who have lived in the Rochester area for over 20 years but are not familiar with many of its major landmarks, its history, or anything "downtown."
  

• The local media, especially the Democrat and Chronicle, are sloppy and amateurish when they're not just being lazy.
  

• Few Rochesterians will frequent a place if they have to park more than 25 feet from the front door. The idea of city life, where you walk for blocks, is a completely foreign concept to most of them, even the people who live in the actual city. I know this is a generally American phenomenon and not limited to Rochester, but it's frustrating when even "city dwellers" in Rochester expect convenient parking.
  

• The lack of a robust, energetic, grass-roots, bottom up, can-do community development mentality (with a few exceptions). Most neighborhoods I find are waiting for "the city" to come along and fix things. I credit this mentality to the long legacy of benign corporate paternalism from Kodak and fairly competent city management. Buffalo, by contrast, has a lot more of the "let's pull ourselves up" initiative since the municipal government there is so completely incompetent and corrupt people would rather it not get involved.