I visited Buffalo in March on the tail-end of our Niagara Falls trip on the CA said (and went to a Sabres game and some great bars/restaurants). I really loved the feel of the neighborhoods around the city there. We live in St. Louis, in a similarly old house to what we saw in Buffalo (ours was built in 1906, they’re all brick here though). As you pointed out, there are houses on tree-lined streets here as well, and I’m within a mile’s walk of 5 or 6 large parks that often host free concerts and other events, I can walk to a fair amount of bars and restaurants, and plenty of other things. The only real thing holding it back where I live is how car-centric the construction has been. I could walk to the Soulard district easily (less than a mile) but in order to do so, I have to cross a 5-lane road called Gravois, which has bad visibility in both directions, and people tend to run red lights there often. There’s no protected pedestrian crossing and people get killed there every year by cars, so we usually just drive over there. The city is finally working on walk-ability and public transpo by extending the Metrolink commuter rail to go north/south, and by adding a protected bike lane on one of the main thoroughfares (Jefferson). We’re also seeing the construction of a lot more mixed use buildings (apartments on the upper levels, retail on the ground floor) and that has been a very welcome addition. I feel like we moved from the suburbs to the city at exactly the right time, as there’s additional (booming) growth in Midtown and Downtown West thanks to the addition of our MLS team and all the land they’ve revitalized, which has in turn attracted development to a previously fairly barren area.