Milwaukee Makeover Project

It’s a good idea. I personally could use a consult with an interior designer for a kitchen rather than messing around with Sketchup myself.

It's 11 p.m., Clear The Street

No, Locust fest ends at 8pm. Same for the other Riverwest fests and Garfield Days.

City Announces New Downtown Plan

@ Nate — I wasn’t “baiting” Dave and Jeramey exactly. I think your point about Dave’s profile of Milwaukee for Urbanophile (http://www.urbanophile.com/2010/06/29/city-profile-milwaukee-by-urbanmilwaukee/) is the same as mine about the mentality behind planning and priorities in Milwaukee. Dave’s profile, UrbanMilwaukee itself to some extent, the Journal-Sentinel too–especially back in the late 90s–reads as if the authors think downtown is pretty much all that matters and the key to growth and success for the whole city.

My criticism is of this mentality which I believe is also represented in not the Downtown Plan per se but in the discrepancy between it and others. (E.g., it’s a good, serious plan, whereas Bronzeville is not, and much of the NE Side plan is already taking on the quality of a dead letter.) The limited range of vision in the downtown new urbanist movement is a related criticism, but it wouldn’t be as valid if there was also indication of serious planning for residential neighborhoods for middle and lower income families. The New Urban Optimism has relentlessly focused on condos and playgrounds for a demographic that seems unlikely to be replaced after it ages out.

I’ve watched a decade’s worth of benign neglect in areas that adjoin downtown — amid gains there have also been predictable and perhaps preventable losses to ownership and housing. There have been missed opportunities and bewilderingly big little failures like DPW’s streetscaping on Holton — a promised good residents had to badger the city into doing. It was done three years after it was funded, and then it was done horribly–a big F.U. to the area as far as residents are concerned. This type of thing says a lot–it says where the city will and will not have your back–and what type of person they want to attract and retain. It speaks to a myopia rather than a comprehensiveness of vision.

As far as the downtown new urbanism goes, it’s delivered very well. The increased tax base is welcome, but it does not seem to be going toward better schools and neighborhoods based around them. It does not seem to be going toward even a plan to deliver that type of progress elsewhere.

@Dave – I know you have a more comprehensive vision of the city than you expressed at Urbanophile, and I wish you’d share it more. I know you realize there are bigger problems or challenges than undeveloped land, brownfields, parking lots, a lack of rail transit and retail.

You did mention Bay View, Riverwest, Sherman Park, and Silver City as examples of “numerous great neighborhoods.” What do you think is great about them? Have you biked or walked around them all? Why do people choose to live in them? What kind of people? Are they areas where young families settle? Do they have populations and schools whose profiles defy the usual negative indicators? Where do we see residents trending toward being educated, diverse, and reasonably well off?

City Announces New Downtown Plan

@Jeramey: Agreed on the rest but a diverse apartment anecdote over against census tract data? Compare Chill on the Hill with Skyline Music in terms of crowd pigmentation. That is not a knock on Bay View, just an observation of a fact. Similarly, Riverwest’s diversity is not a laurel to rest on as long as it has high profile violent crime. I have friends and many acquaintances of all kinds who have more or less intentionally moved away from racially diverse areas because they couldn’t handle the stress of it anymore. Diversity in a city without a lot of middle class minorities is tough on the psyche of a good person who wants to do right to be engaged and protective of their community but not a prejudicial jerk. This is true no matter what box you check for “race.”

You’ve seen those numbers and maps that show ethnic distribution, right? It’s enough to look at the distribution of homicides on the map the JS has in the “data on demand” section. The big cluster of dead black males on the north side for instance–that’s the defacto prison away from prison that exists in the middle of Milwaukee. Trim it back, and support solid minority and mixed neighborhoods–that will change minds and bring people into the city. Support downtown, and support growth on KK — support it all is all I’m saying.

Neighborhoods that aren’t defined by the rules of the black/white tipping point are rare here, and I used to think the ones that exist were valued by the City for that reason and likely to be regarded as a model and goal. Over time I learned they’re not understood and devalued. They’re left to drift without a plan or protection from slumlords and speculators unless they get organized and fight for themselves. Some do, and that’s good, but it’s also shameful, backwards, and counterproductive. It means the diverse and affordable areas that attract recent college grads are not a leg up in Milwaukee but a kick in the butt out the door, especially if they are minorities.

Personally all the young black professionals I have known in Milwaukee well enough to have this conversation with have said the same thing. There is no place for them, meaning a place where they aren’t going to get treated with hostility and presumptive suspicion. There’s not much of a black middle class in Milwaukee, and this is why–those who would build it leave. The same goes for the middle class in general–more specifically, people with at least a college degree who stay here by choice, not because they’re bound by a residency requirement.

Let me challenge you to find ways to grow and get more coverage from west-of-the-river areas and ideas. Go for geographic diversity and you will get every other kind as well. SEED was indeed a great idea that died. Did you write about it 1/100th as much as you wrote about transit policy? You have 1 article on Brewers Hill, 0 on Harambee, 0 on Halyard Park, 0 on Hillside, 0 on Lower East Side vs 98 on East Side and 108 on East Town. 72 on Park East, which I realize is important, but nobody lives there. People in those 0 areas are virtually downtown and have a lot to do with downtown too. Attention and writing coverage is a zero sum game, just like it is with planning and funding. In both cases, broad diversity and distribution are good things to aim for.

City Announces New Downtown Plan

Relax, I’m not attacking the plan, just the sense of priorities it indicates about the city’s health and future due the the credibility gap between the downtown plan and other recent plans that are being violated daily because leadership, concern, priority, and money is indeed “zero sum.” If this was not so, the mayor of Milwaukee would not be campaigning by taking city votes for granted while indicating to the rest of the state he will not be sending us boatloads of cash if he’s elected. And as you well demonstrate, the “I just want my downtown back!” mentality resents all other competing attitudes of entitlement because it IS about limited resources and attention. “Crabs in the bucket” = people who don’t want to be the zero in your sum.

Let’s just accept social Darwinism as rather “natural” especially where efforts to mitigate it have been weakened or have actually made social divisions more pronounced and harder to navigate. Good areas tend to get more and better of everything, which they may do on a more or less equitable cost sharing deal with worse off areas. This is the only thing that really justifies unions and revolutions. I’m not suggesting it should be changed or could be otherwise, and I don’t want to moralize about “the rich” and “the poor.” I’m just reminding that poor distribution of value is a problem for the whole city if the imbalances go too far for too long.

Blaming MPS and the County doesn’t get the City (government) off the hook or make the problems go away. The city — as in the actual community — is deeply affected by all three. Sure the County and MPS are less accountable and more of a mess as a result — that’s part of my point. MPS is a huge problem even for people who don’t have kids in it. Billions in unfunded liabilities is no joke. For the massive number of kids who are in MPS, it’s critical, and they’re critical to the city’s future–far more so than the golden years boomers who may or may not create a vibrant condo market one day, for a little while. I have no doubt that if its constituency changed, MPS would change. That is not going to happen as long as MPS with too few exceptions is not replicating its successes. The successes have a lot to do with viable middle class neighborhoods, and they do owe something, sometimes, to smart, prioritized planning and development. Milwaukee does not seem to praise, support, or even see value where it does exist along these lines. If it’s not some big, sexy downtown or waterfront project with big private money behind it, nobody gets excited.

These are not simply emotional points made by a crab in the bucket, although let’s not say emotion is always a bad thing in communicating an idea, especially if motivating people is a goal. It’s often emotions of affection and loyalty that keep people in relationships (or places) that are not strictly logical or the most self-interested choice. Another emotional moment may make them change course completely. People take risks or endure hardships more for emotional reasons, but underneath the emotions we’re all still doing the math and paying the bills. Something on an emotional level keeps you going or proves to be the last straw.

There are people who are in Milwaukee because there is a residency requirement for their job, and there are those who choose to cross a line they draw in the sand. A lot of politics and policy is for or about the former group–not so much the latter. I think it’s because they are not vocally “crabby” enough. To me the persistent discrepancies–like good versus fake area plans–is the type of thing that should make people mad, because it is a logical basis to conclude the city does not have their backs.

If you have any factual basis to discount my apartheid reference I’d like to know what it is. The geographic, racial, and socioeconomic separation of top from bottom, edge from center and very little in between is a visceral fact that can only be denied by a very selective, insular set of associations and travel in this city not to mention a lack of historical awareness.

You don’t know me, but I’m riffing on a lot of ideas a mutual friend has helped me clarify because he has a great mind and is a good writer. Nate and I don’t agree or feel the same about everything, but if he chimes in maybe you’ll consider taking a more generous consideration of the crabs. In fact, in issues where consent and dissent in the order of a society is concerned, a majority of crabs in your bucket is a very serious problem that will not be treated sensibly by that good old Anglo-American bromide: “optimism.”

City Announces New Downtown Plan

And after 10-20 years, assisted living will be the next big thing? That won’t work downtown.

The skepticism about condos is the skepticism of the other 97% of the city, or at least those literate enough to read the spray paint on their walls. If the historic neighborhoods are being deprioritized while new, revanchist downtown areas are prioritized, it is as you can see implicit in your own comment–a choice between two models of community. If your neighborhood ethos is largely based on the equation children+schools=community with a future, downtown represents a rejection of that. It represents a rejection of the middle class as we have known it.

It’s not about not bungalow owners believing condo ownership is an inferior form of home ownership; it’s about parents not believing that an economy based on childlessness is good for them. Where’s the serious, credible emphasis on good jobs, livable neighborhoods, and functional schools? It’s about disbelief in leadership and planning that has no vision or drive for these things and a sense that the neighborhoods have been lied to and set up to take the biggest hits.

The jobs are still moving out of Milwaukee, especially good jobs. Commuter movement is in a long term trend outward. Educated people in particular move out of or never come into Milwaukee. Having (school age) children takes people out and keeps them out. Even if you can afford the costs of bypassing and compensating for the systems of sustained mediocrity and failure, the question “why?!”" faces you every day.

A friend suggested to me today that the residency requirement for public sector employees may be the city’s biggest fungible asset–the backbone of a closed loop of a poorly functioning economy that might collapse without it. After such a collapse you might see a thousand flowers bloom, but living through that collapse in the city neighborhoods would be …unpleasant.

Ultimately if you see Milwaukee’s problems as being as profound as they really are, and how embedded they are in social divisions based on location, income, and race–all of which tend to by interchangeable status symbols in an apartheid city–the real success of downtown is the success of the 2.5% over the 97.5%, and this to me is not sustainable. The math of simple self-interest points away from the city for the vast majority of people.

City Announces New Downtown Plan

This is a great plan–very specific and credible. You know it will be done. The Haymarket and brewery areas are key to growth and momentum connecting with the MLK area, Brewers Hill, Halyard Park, Riverwest, the Beerline and Lower East side.

Unfortunately all plans are not created equal, and the plans for these areas adjoining to the north pale in comparison to the downtown plan. Bronzeville was DOA, but we are still carrying this corpse in the Northeast Side plan alongside much other vague, wishful thinking and already compromised specifications:

* The North Ave. repaving that’s now underway and behind schedule shows no influence from the NE Side plan specs. The area where it intersects Holton is in a deplorable state, and prior streetscaping there may be simply ruined by the repaving. That prior streetscaping work was never completed either. DPW left poles and bases or simply holes for harp lights in several locations.

* An unwanted gas station with an expired construction permit that was granted by BOZA without a sitting alderperson is going in near the Center/Holton intersection to create a gas/c-store saturation from Capitol to North over against the objections of residents.

Strangest of all to me is the absence of any specific reference to the Reservoir/Holton/Brown/Glover area on the Holton bridgehead that overlooks downtown and connects 5 neighborhoods through the street grid, bike paths, and riverwalk. Yet the Brewers Hill stretch of Resrvoir is obstructed in its view of downtown by a jungle of weed trees that cover an unfinished trail. Simply sending over forestry services for a trim would change the economics of that intersection which nobody has ever seemed to notice. The NE Side plan simply says “There is potential for the development of commercial / mixed used nodes at Burleigh Street, Locust Street, Center Street, Brown Street, Keefe Avenue and North Avenue which would provide a more active commercial corridor.”

Now at Brown and Holton we’re to have WHEDA homes as the highest and best use? What’s the message here to residents north of downtown?

A Small MPS Reform Could Save Money, Add to the Tax Base, and Enhance Competition

Does MPS still have the Holton State Bank building on Center and Holton that has been vacant for years? It was used by Head Start and Maures Development was going to buy it, but I think that fell through. To the west is the vacant Malcolm X school, which takes up at least a full block.

Clearly no planning at all is happening over there.

Adjacent to the east of the old bank is a former Tim Brophy building (roof had fallen in) that’s been rehabbed and is for sale at a very good price — all good bones, historic structures on this corner. There is a stalled bar/restaurant/apartment project on the NW corner and to the north of it is a “barber” that reopened immediately after being boarded up. There is a stop-and-go carry-out kind of business there as well as the adjoining dirt lot. You can watch that action and also see a lot of people resembling college students biking and walking west of Holton, which used to be much more of a divider. The area’s recent history of dead students seems not to be deterring this movement, which can be good but needs some tending to or there will be further predictable “tragedies.”

The one new development on this stretch of Center is a gas station nobody wanted that was approved by BOZA without an alderman available–since he was in prison. The construction just started this year, with a lapsed permit, but BOZA said fine–over against the alderwoman and residents. Every major intersection along Holton will now have a gas station–at least this one is a little west of the intersection.

Note that this area is a quick walk or bike ride to Commerce, Water, and Brady. The complete lack of attention to the potential here boggles the mind.

A Brand for Milwaukee?

More leaders, more competence, less stoopid would be nice, yes.

Neighborhood Group Says No to Mercy Housing Lakefront's East Side Development

(oops, hit ‘submit’ too soon.) …Or can they just be bypassed by growing elsewhere? What does it take to get past this perpetual impasse?

A Brand for Milwaukee?

Is it still a foregone conclusion there is a big market for “water industries” and a possible “water hub” here? Did anyone ever respond to Marc Levine’s questioning of that bandwagon? If it’s all we’ve got, it’s all we’ve got, but if it’s an uphill battle to grow a water economy, that should be squarely faced.

Nate did some research earlier based on to 50 most populated cities + Madison and matched NAICS codes (North American Industry Classification System) from http://www.census.gov/eos/www/naics/ and attempted to isolate the ones that broadly relate to the “water industry” as defined by our bankster friends at Goldman Sachs. (See page 36: http://www.questwatersolutions.com/Quest%20Water%20Solutions%20Inc./Home_files/2008%20Goldman%20Sachs%20Water%20Primer-1.pdf ) This was the basis for a location quotient (LQ) analysis on all of the metro areas as the # of employees working in a water industry sector/total people working in the matro area)/(employees working in that sector in all metro areas combined/total people working in all metro areas). An LQ of 1 is average. The industry is considered strong if it’s 1.25 or better.

Milwaukee ranked 6 out of 51 in valves/automation (Badger Meter’s area). Milwaukee was outside the top 10 in all other water sector categories and came out at the middle to bottom depending on how loosely “water industry” was defined.

2009 Milwaukee: A Year in Review

I agree with you on that one–we should at least be open to considering the alternative. I like the Hoan experience and view to or from, but it’s hard to argue aesthetics against an good-looking replacement with a more visually and economically attractive use of space.

2009 Milwaukee: A Year in Review

Good stuff, but all very downtown. Maybe a New Year’s resolution to look a bit farther afield, or to solicit writing from people in other areas is in order? Interview some people about their work, poll developers, BID managers, CDC directors, aldermen, etc. about their top wishes and news.