As long as we have an italian market (or performing arts center/bus station or big shiny boat to Canada), the high taxes and crime don't seem so bad

Why do our elected representatives think that a single silver bullet solution can solve complex, regional, historical problems on a macroeconomic scale?

Our representatives seem to think that we're one crazy development project away from becoming the next Atlanta or Raleigh or Phoenix. After the abject failure of the fast ferry to solve all of our economic woes, the new plan is to turn mid-town into a high-end Italian market.

Let me save everyone a lot of time and money. People do not come to live in Rochester because it is a hip tourist attraction kind of place with a ferry that goes to Toronto and museum devoted to the Underground Railroad, Susan B. Anthony, the Erie Canal, and Teddy Geiger. Concomitantly, people do not decide to leave Rochester because it lacks a performing arts center/bus station.

I'll let everyone in on a little secret: people go to places where there are jobs. Rochester doesn't have that many new jobs. The reason for this is not that the High Falls district adventure was an unmitigated failure (the folks who headed up that plan obviously did not play much SimCity when they were young - or if they did, they were the types that repeatedly put in the codes to cause natural disasters).

The real reasons are as follows:

(1) High taxes: not only the state and local ones, but the astronomical property taxes which are some of the highest in the entire country;

(2) An incredibly costly workers compensation system: Every state has some form of workers comp system whereby workers are paid set amounts to compensate them for injuries suffered on the job and EVERY employer is responsible to insure itself for such costs. Somehow, New York's system costs more than Texas and California COMBINED and still manages to pay out some of the lowest benefits(how is that even possible?); and

(3) Extremely high energy costs: look at your electric bill...now imagine what it must cost to power an office building full of computers and printers and monkeys with laser pointers.

Unfortunately, our representatives seem to spend much more time lobbying Albany for crazy project money than for fixes for the ills that keep businesses away.