Chattanooga, TN and its public utility, EPB, recently announced symmetrical 1 Gbit/s service to residential customers. This includes 170,000 customers, many spread out over a total of 600 square miles. That's a density of of only 283 customers per square mile, an expensive proposition. Syracuse has a density of 2,400 customers per square mile, much less expensive.
They have raised $330 million for the project, $100+ million from a federal grant for "smart grid" development, which will go a long way in paying for the rneeded FTTH network. Chattanooga has gained great advantage by having both public power and broadband utilities. Syracuse can gain similar advantages by using its existing option to buy the local power grid from National Gird, and build a community-owned FTTH broadband utility.