WHO RULES BUFFALO?

Our City Buffalo and Our City Action Buffalo present: Who Rules Buffalo? A Field Guide to the Local Power Structure. Who Rules Buffalo?, and our companion Who Rules Buffalo: A Field Guide for Organizers, is a comprehensive deep-dive into Buffalo’s power elite and how they wield their influence on our City.

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This report documents how Buffalo, like other US cities, has a dominant power structure, rooted in business and real estate interests, that wields an inordinate level of influence over the direction of the city. In Buffalo, this rich and powerful elite is organized around business advocacy vehicles like the Buffalo Niagara Partnership and social institutions like the Buffalo Club; controls key aspects of the local economy; exerts political power via campaign contributions and a number of other mechanisms; and wields special influence over the local narrative of the region.

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Our Field Guide for Organizers is intended to be a living, usable document for organizers and activists throughout the City to develop, implement and win strategic campaigns that target the true levers of power in Buffalo. The Guide takes the key points from the full report and breaks them down into easily sharable language and graphics, and includes tools for organizers to use in their current and future campaigns.