We lowered the import tariffs which resulted in off-shoring our manufacturing.
A lot of cities that depended on that manufacturing were devastated.
The welfare state looks out for the poor. To fund the welfare state, foreigners must purchase US debt. That means foreigners must have dollars. To obtain dollars, foreigners must sell lots of goods to the US. That hurts US employment, especially among the middle class.
Thus, looking out for the poor, screws the middle class.
That is a big part of it...too...the Free Trade Globalism. We replaced manufacturing with welfare.
Buffalo’s failure was inevitable because as the article stated that is was the center for a large industrial complex that was grain milling and steel. It was the end of the Great Lakes. You could not transport material further east on the Great Lakes, Niagara Falls prevented it.
Once the Welland Canal opened and with it the St. Lawrence Seaway (you could not get past the rapids at Messena from Lake Ontario) there was no longer a reason to stop in Buffalo. You could export your raw materials (grains and taconite) directly to the point of delivery for value added conversion there.
Bye bye, Ralston Purina, General Mills, & Pillsbury. And so too to Bethlehem Steel, Republic Steel, and Hanna Steel. Ford, GM (the famed Tonawanda Motors) Trico, Arco and Mobil Refineries. All lured to Western NY by the end of the Great Lakes, and inexpensive power from Niagara Falls Power stations.
And so the great end of the Great Lakes came to an a tragic death. The Buffalo of today is nothing even close to what I remember.