Writing about the economic collapse and social unrest of her 1970s childhood in Buffalo, New York, Laura Pedersen was struck by how things were finally improving in her beloved hometown. As 2008 began, Buffalo was poised to become the thriving metropolis it had been a hundred years earlier?only instead of grain and steel, the booming industries now included health care and banking, education and technology. Folks who'd moved away due to lack of opportunity in the 1980s talked excitedly about returning home. They missed the small-town friendliness, and it wasn't nostalgia for a past that no longer existed?Buffalo has long held the well-deserved nickname the City of Good Neighbors. The diaspora has ended. Preservationists are winning out over demolition crews. The lights are back on in a city that's usually associated with blizzards and blight rather than its treasure trove of art, architecture, and culture. Buffalo Unbound is a humorous and heartfelt look at the rise, fall, and rebirth of the great Rust Belt city.

Laura Pedersen is the author of ten books, including Beginner's Luck and Buffalo Gal, which won Best Memoir from ForeWord Magazine and an honorable mention for the Eric Hoffer Award. Honored as one of Ten Outstanding Young Americans by President Clinton, Pedersen was the youngest person to have a seat on the American Stock Exchange. Pedersen currently lives in New York City and teaches at the Booker T. Washington Learning Center in East Harlem, but also maintains a place in Amherst.