Shrinkage and urban fiscal governance in times of crisis: A case study of Buffalo, New York

Abstract

Research on shrinking cities has shown how long-term population and associated economic decline reshape urban governance and constrain fiscal capacity. Yet the budgetary practices through which shrinkage is governed remain relatively underexamined. This paper addresses this gap through a case study of Buffalo, New York, tracing fiscal governance across two major crises: the Global Financial Crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic. Drawing on a mixed-method research design, we examine how budgetary decisions were produced through interactions among state oversight, local political leadership, inherited fiscal commitments, and crisis-driven interventions. We show that fiscal governance in Buffalo does not follow directly from fiscal conditions such as shrinkage or fiscal stress. Instead, it emerges through the interaction of institutional arrangements, political agency, and long-term liabilities, particularly other post-employment benefits. While the Great Recession was mediated through technocratic state oversight and austerity, pandemic-era federal relief temporarily reconfigured the city’s fiscal position without resolving underlying constraints. These findings challenge deterministic accounts of shrinkage and recast fiscal governance as a dynamic, context-specific process, offering a framework for comparative analysis across diverse urban contexts.