First off, NYC is huge and has a healthy conservative population in Staten Island, some parts of Brooklyn, and lots of Queens. I wasn't around at the time, but I also understand that Bloomberg did a lot for this city and many people I know speak highly of him (though I don't necessarily agree with their praise).
Second off, Rochester (and many other upstate towns and cities), for all its flaws, is still a tight-knit community in a beautiful region. They deal with the same red/blue divide that lots of other cities across the country encounter, not to mention the fact that the industry that sustained the town (Kodak) basically went up and under a few years ago. Of course they're struggling, just like any other post-industrial city in this nation. That doesn't mean upstate isn't worth "saving," whatever that means.
Also, it's very fair to point out that New York's death toll is unnecessarily high regardless of capita, which could have been avoided had Cuomo and Bill de Blasio (who is also an idiot) not engaged one another in a dick swinging competition for the majority of March instead of just closing everything down and encouraging people to stay home. Lots of outlets have written about it, this is a good summary of the first few months: https://www.propublica.org/article/two-coasts-one-virus-how-new-york-suffered-nearly-10-times-the-number-of-deaths-as-california
Obviously, other governors fucked up royally, but they're being held up as examples whereas Cuomo is getting Emmys and becoming an establishment hero.
Ok, Rudy and Bloomberg make a little more sense when we bring in Staten Island.
And, i think you misread my comment about Buffalo/WNY... It wasn't if it is
worth saving but if it
can be saved. I don't know a billion dollars is enough to turn the city around as it is still losing population even with the big state investment.
I think Cuomo gets praise not for the first month or two of the pandemic but for his press conferences where he said this is going to suck but we'll make it through, which is what a lot of people needed to hear opposed to Trump conjecturing about injecting bleach.
And, to each their own, but Upstate is losing people like crazy and there is probably a reason fully renovated houses go for less than 100K in Binghamton. (Buffalo, Syracuse, Rochester, and Albany have their appeal), but sadly the small towns are decaying. I lived in one for a few years for work and it was not an enjoyable experience. I took a big pay cut to just get out of there.
The reason it was a bummer relates back to the key theme of our thread... I saw tons of confederate flags in rural NY (multiple apartments on main street hung the flag in their windows, it was on the pick up trucks that would drive around to protest the pride parade, etc.). I know black dudes who are afraid to leave their university campus since they believe the local population doesn't want them around. And, they weren't necessarily wrong, I remember being at a cafe trying to shoot the shit with locals and owner of the building told me, "This place was great before the Blacks and Mexicans moved in." The anti-immigrant sentiment was so strong that people would tell me and my ex how immigrants are all terrible people and the cause of all of the problems in society (just not my ex she was ok...she was white). The drug problem in the small town was of the charts as well, which creates problems attracting new residents or keeping residents (the company I worked for can't keep anyone around and even the local hospitals struggle to recruit doctors...no doctors = terrible healthcare and just another reason to flee). My ex would come home pissed after being harassed on her walk home by dudes in trucks and I almost got ran over multiple times by the same people. Not to mention during my brief tenure living a small rural NY town, my landlord grilled me about my religion (she would only rent to Christians) being baptized Catholic assuaged her fears, but she also reminded me that satan was coming back as a Catholic and she constantly tried to convert me. She believed vitamin c cured cancer but the gov wouldn't tell us, the military was poisoning us with chemtrails, and she had a little following among the locals who believed this nonsense.
Small town NY was honestly the angriest most hateful place I ever lived. Many of the characters I had to interact with were the people who would have fit right in at this riot.