About the Website

This website is the companion to the book, whose working title is, "Retrograde Currents: The Power City, 1962-1984".

I came to this topic as as voracious reader of business, innovation, and economics literature. Nearly every book I read had at least a paragraph generalizing some events in the 1970s which were the cause of the current problem. It was the problem that the book purported to solve but the cause went unanalyzed. How could I be certain that the solution resolved the cause?
Frankly, after the 20th occurrence, I started to research it myself.

The research started with numerous attributes of the country's largest cities in 1950 and, though a series of frameworks, luck, Al Gore's internet, favors from friends, and assiduous library professionals, the research unexpectedly concluded in my hometown. Astride the cataract of the Niagara, here was the definitive tableau of progress and decline.

Neither this website nor the book is a local history effort. There are reasonable resources on the region and deep web content of personal experiences interspersed with facts, biases, and opinions. I did not come to bash my hometown, which, of late, is revitalizing itself. My attempt at scholarship is to bring scholarly awareness of national events having a unique hub on the Niagara River.

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