Sep 24, 2026 · ~3 min read
There is one Niagara Falls but two sides to the Rainbow Bridge. There are two Niagara regions, one belonging to Ontario, the other belonging to New York, and in the eyes of the world there is pretty much just one big zone: the Niagara area. There are two nations, two lakes, two canals, one border, and when viewed from Tokyo, Austin or elsewhere, there does appear to be one continuous corridor spanning from Syracuse, New York to London, Ontario. Sitting in the middle is Buffalo and Fort Erie, sitting there like, well, a Buffalo and a field mouse, at each other’s side for a long, long journey.
On the Canadian side, our choice of the name “Niagara Assembly” has already raised eyebrows since there are already many competing and geographically delimited ideas about what is or isn’t “Niagara”. For us the focus was always, in Canadian terms, the Peninsula ie Isthmus as well as the communities that exist within a short drive like Brantford, Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and Guelph. On the US side you have Niagara Falls as well as Niagara County, along with a vast, interlinked countryside spanning from the Falls to Rochester. It’s no more straightforward in New York. In the end, there already exists many great, very important organizations, government programs, and business associations that lead with or build off of the ‘Niagara’ identity system.
We are not setting out to challenge those spaces of leadership and branded investment. We are simply acknowledging, through our name, that at the centre (center?) of this unique corridor lives a shared identity. It’s what links us as Canadian and American experts and owners of industry. With this shared, irreplaceable and irreducible brand in hand we can build up our inter-dependent industrial ecosystems in such ways that bring new investment and upliftment to both countrysides, as much as to urban areas where most of the focus is. Economic discussions can get pretty abstract sometimes, and with the ability of logistics to move goods very fast, it’s become too easy to overlook the most tried and true design for resilient and profitable systems of production — proximity.
In the end, we will not overcome our geography. Southwestern Ontario is isolated from the rest of Canada and Western New York is walled in by misty mountains and humongous hills. If the calls to “accelerate or die” are to mean anything day to day, it must be at the hourly and daily level where production audibles can be called, where quick forms of creation and cooperation can result in timely wins that keep up contracts and deliver success to investors and to the communities that cheer us on.
And while we all call these regions home, we can only thrive when goods, services and most importantly ideas from the wider world can find their way to us, and not just via ads or newsletters, but through public talks, workshops, shared product demos, and even impromptu forms of executive training that help transfer knowledge from Asia or Africa, etc. We need to physically come together with people from elsewhere. The global community of people passionate about industrial development, education, design, placemaking, management and so on would surprise many. In our Niagara neck of the North American woods, we’ve evolved a pretty humble, if not self-deprecating view of ourselves. To the rest of the world, we’re an old established and pretty accomplished industrial region who may be getting reborn and that’s a wonder they want to witness.
That’s a story that people want to hear about and it only has an amazing ending if we weave our plot lines together with the plot lines that are distant and fairly foreign to us. As just one example, humanity is only now embarking on the historical phase of glass-backed microchips (“glass wafers”) and it just so happens that Rochester has the longest legacy of premium glass production. There’s no telling what greatness is about to grow up in the fields of Lincoln, Chautauqua, Erie or Brant, no telling what gambles may fail or blast off but we’re sure this place — these places — are as good as any, if not better than most worldwide.
If we can enhance the economies on both sides of the Peace Bridge, if we can succeed in forming a long-term view beyond our borders, then there’s no limit to the cash flows circling around our fantastic Falls.
Go Bills!