Buffalo’s efforts to revise its 60-year-old zoning and planning policy with a fit-and-trim document known as the Green Code is beginning to receive national attention. A recent appraisal of Buffalo economic goods penned by City Journal’s Aaron Renn held that despite Buffalo’s many well-known drawbacks, the Green Code could signify something of a light at the end of the tunnel for economic development. 

[R]eform may be at hand with Mayor Brown’s Buffalo Green Code—a complete rewrite of the city’s 60-year-old planning and zoning rules, along with a brand-new zoning map of the city—which has been in development for five years and will shortly go before the city council. Though its name implies environmental concerns, the focus is not on conservation but on simplicity. The new code runs only 350 pages, down from 1,500. It will make it vastly easier to build, open a business—or even put up a sign.

Today, City Journal released a podcast that Renn recorded with Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown (listen below), giving Renn another opportunity to wax effusive on the Green Code’s potential, calling it “one of the most important developments ongoing in major American cities right now.” To understand why this is, listen particularly to Brown’s discussion of Green Code starting around the 10:30 mark. 

In the interview, Mayor Brown discusses:

• 0:00 – Introduction to Buffalo
• 4:43 – Buffalo architecture and its City Hall building (the architectural bragging is legit)
• 7:18 – The Buffalo Billion
• 10:30 – The Buffalo Green Code
• 16:57 – The tax environment and tax cuts in Buffalo
• 20:13 – Crime and policing
• 26:58 – Millennials coming to Buffalo
• 28:50 – Income inequality and economic inclusion