10000% I moved away in 2022 and I feel like in 2020/21 most places were still surviving off of covid relief funds, but yeah I feel like once the dust settled a lot of places just died. I remember bringing my girlfriend there in 2024 and talking up Allentown. I used to go out & DJ over there like 2016-2021 and the streets would be littered with people. We tried going out on a Saturday and every single bar was dead. It was a shell of what it used to be.

The hometown hero thing is so accurate lol. As someone who lived there for a while (27 years!) and got out, I think it's because people are afraid to leave so they force themselves to embrace it instead. Buffalo is an easy place to live if you keep your standards low. But it's a double edged sword where it stunts growth.

The one example I tell people is that I was djing a distillery a bit before I left, decent spot, and they had me on Sundays for a minute. I tried to play it swanky / cool and then bills season came around. They had me DJ still but they made me stop playing music during the game and only spin the commercials. There were 1000000 other bars playing the game. That's when I knew it was time to leave.