Water, water everywhere

Each night, we give Autumn a bath. It's part of getting her ready for bed. It's a signal we send, to her, to get in the act of sleep. And it's working. for the last couple of weeks, we've stopped rocking her sleep. Now, after a bath, we place her softly in the crib, and exit stage left.

We get out of the room fast.

Anyway, in the bath, we read a bath book to her. She loves the book, and Rhona and I add our own flair to the experience. The book says this: "Water, water everywhere, water near and far. Let's use our hands and feet to count how many kinds there are."

It goes on from there. But the point is, here in the good old queen city, there is water, water everywhere. Buffalo sits on two great lakes. The great lakes are the largest source of fresh water in the world.

The Toronto Star noticed. And wrote this article. Here's the money quote under a picture of Buffalo:

Both Buffalo, above, and Cleveland have suffered population declines and stagnating local economies since the 1960s, a trend that drought in the American Southwest may help reverse.

Record heat in the southwest and record drought are causing record amounts of forest fire and a record demand for water. A demand that is currently being met, but can't be sustained. From the article:

At first glance, the crises of the rust belt and the Southwest would seem unrelated. They are, in fact, inexorably linked. Each has what the other does not. In Phoenix, tremendous affluence; in Cleveland, and in Detroit, Toledo, Youngstown, Buffalo, Rochester, Thunder Bay and Sault Ste. Marie, abundant, near-endless water – in the Great Lakes alone, as much as 25 per cent of the world's supply.

Sticking a straw in the Great Lakes is not a solution to Phoenix's water problems," says Robert Shibley, director of the Urban Design Project at the State University of New York at Buffalo. "Maybe it's time to really think about what constitutes need and stop spending money to build carrying capacity in places that don't have it by nature, and start investing in places that do.

Yes. Buffalo has wind. Water. A four seasons. And in a world that is fast becoming about online networks, where you can do most jobs from anywhere, that list could just be in demand.