Despite the economic slow down and the perception that all development in Milwaukee occurs on the East Side or in the Third Ward, other parts of the city have their share of activity.

As the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee looks to Wauwatosa for expansion, Marquette is continuing their connection within Milwaukee by building their law school’s new Eckstein Hall in downtown Milwaukee and has plans for new engineering facilities under development. Marquette has recently broken ground on Eckstein Hall which when completed in the summer of 2009 will include courtrooms, classrooms, offices, a conference center, a reading room and a 170-space underground parking garage.

The Ambassador Hotel, whose primary customers are parents of Marquette students and alumni, is undergoing a significant addition that will add meetings rooms, a banquet facility and a parking structure. This expansion unlike many of the hotel proposals in the Milwaukee is not looking for government assistance despite doing a significant multi-million dollar expansion during an economic downturn.

In contrast to the 3rd district where heated debate has revolved around the possible location of a new UWM dorm, in downtown the highly successful 2040 Lofts private dorms has proven that well done dorm facilities can be a benefit to the neighborhood. The Scion Groups’ 2040 Lofts $16.5 million expansion project has risen quickly and is fast approaching its topping off. This second building will be known as “The Signature Suites at 2040 Lofts,” and will add 240 beds of high-end managed student housing. Each unit will include stainless steel appliances, WI-FI, and hardwood-style floors.

Often times when discussing the economic value of immigration, people consider the impact of having immigrants accept low wages for jobs “ordinary” Americans wish not to do.

But what about the dream jobs we all wish for? I’m not talking about professional basketball player and former Milwaukee Buck Yi Jianlian (nor Australian Andrew Bogut). I’m talking about CEOs of growing and profitable companies. CEOs of technology companies.

According to Vivek Wadhwa’s research…

In over 25 percent of tech companies founded in the United States from 1995 to 2005, the chief executive or lead technologist was foreign-born. In 2005, these companies generated $52 billion in revenue and employed 450,000 workers. In some industries, such as semiconductors, the numbers were much higher—immigrants founded 35 percent of start-ups. In Silicon Valley, the percentage of immigrant-founded start-ups had increased to 52 percent.

When we looked into the backgrounds of these immigrant founders, we found that they tended to be highly educated—96 percent held bachelor’s degrees and 74 percent held a graduate or postgraduate degree. And 75 percent of these degrees were in fields related to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

The vast majority of these company founders didn’t come to the United States as entrepreneurs—52 percent came to study, 40 percent came to work, and 6 percent came for family reasons. Only 1.6 percent came to start companies in America. They found that the United States provided a fertile environment for entrepreneurship. Even though these founders didn’t come to the United States with the intent, they typically started their companies around 13 years after arriving in the country.

Most students and skilled temporary workers who come to the United States want to stay, as is evident from the backlog for permanent resident visas. Yet we’re leaving these potential immigrants little choice but to return home. “The New Immigrant Survey,” by Guillermina Jasso of New York University and other leading academics, found that approximately one in five new legal immigrants and about one in three employment principals either plan to leave the United States or are uncertain about remaining. These surveys were done in 2003, before the backlog increased so dramatically.

Clearly if the United States is to stay competitive we must continue to work to make it easier for immigrants to enter the country, get an education, and stay.

If Milwaukee aims to be a leader in the freshwater science field a key piece of the formula is simple. Make Milwaukee attractive and welcoming to immigrant students. Make them feel welcome while they’re here, and help them stay after they graduate.

It’s as easy as ensuring that you’re a pleasant passer-by on the street and as difficult as ensuring immigrants can get loans as easily as locals to start businesses in Milwaukee.

Making more permanent resident visas available, especially for those here already under H1B temporary work visas, is essential to continuing to fuel the US economy.

Regardless whether it is John McCain or Barack Obama end up in the White House, they need to ensure that more visas are available for immigrants to get here, and to stay.

Immigrants are merely creating jobs for themselves, they’re creating jobs for you and your neighbors.

Hat tip to Richard Florida for exposing Vivek’s work.

One of the often-overlooked rules for residences in Milwaukee is that no more than three unrelated persons may live together.

I’ve never heard a good reason for why the rule is in place or how one can get around the rule (outside of simply ignoring it like many landlords do).

DailyReporter.com finally gave me an answer to all of my questions.  It turns out that it’s mainly a financial issue for keeping the rule on the books.  Reducing the number of occupants per residence limits the potential income of a landlord and helps slow any burning desires they have to buy up the entire block with the income from packing 5 people (probably students) into a house, and turning the neighborhood into a slum lord’s paradise.

This rule has the greatest affect in the areas surrounding universities in the city, primarily UW-Milwaukee.

There is of course always the factor that 4 or 5 college students together in one residence can cause trouble, but the prevailing reason for the rule seems to be the financial factor.

To get around the rule you can simply claim someone you’re living with is your cousin, but Alderman D’Amato is leading the charge to tighten that loophole by requiring residents be first cousins, and not simply cousins to get around the requirement.

Information from the infosphere…

• Seattle mayor Greg Nickels is working on a plan that will encourage all city employees to use public transportation, by giving the free transit passes.  Milwaukee should get behind this.
• The Daily Reporter has a good look at the issues affecting the 27th Street ramp off of Interstate 94.
• Thrivent Financial for Lutherans has made a significant donation to promote the improvement of the Harambee neighborhood.  It would be great to see more companies jump on board to help the process along.
• Neal Peirce has a piece on the rebirth of rail as a well-traveled mode for inter-city movement.  He mentions how a leader is Frank Busalacchi, who ironically has been nothing but car happy in the past couple of years (failure of KRM funding source, expansion of I-94).
  • But state initiatives are also vital. Wisconsin Transportation Secretary Frank Busalacchi heads the "States for Passenger Rail Coalition" of 30 state transportation departments appealing for an 80-20 federal-state funding split to put some real steam behind rail expansion.
• The National Corridors Initiative is hosting a conference, "Carmichael Conference On The Future of American Transportation", in St. Louis discussing the promotion and expansion of inter-city rail travel in the United States.  I won’t be able to attend because of financial reasons (if you have $300 to pay for the conference and hotel, let me know), but look forward to seeing the results.  Inter-city transit is a huge boost for urban areas and Milwaukee could certainly use a boost with more linking with nearby Madison, Green Bay, Kenosha, and Racine.
• The Milwaukee Public Library system will no longer transfer movies, television shows, or music CDs around the system and to the suburban libraries in a move that will cut costs and allow the system to be open longer.  I would like to see the system only transfer the media within Milwaukee and not to the suburbs, as I think it gives more access for the people of Milwaukee, especially those that benefit from the free resources of the library most.  Unfortunately, the system has decided to go with an all or nothing route.  I am glad that they chose this route over closing the library earlier though, as I think libraries having longer hours are a great way to deter juvenile crime.
• An intelligent look at how individual route management might work in New York City and does work in Copenhagen.  MCTS could use something like this for areas of its system to improve service.  Bus design and management should certainly be different for routes that serve UWM and Marquette vs those that serve primarily the workforce.

Links from the Milwaukee-informationsphere

• Mary Louise Schumacher is yet another art person doesn’t think it’s a good idea to build a recognizable landmark that will increase pedestrian traffic in downtown Milwaukee.
• Hofbrauhaus Milwaukee, a proposed German beer hall and restaurant, is likely coming next The Brewery development at the old Pabst brewery in Blue Ribbon Hall after the settlement of a lawsuit involving Brew City Redevelopment LLC with the complex’s former owners, WisPark LLC. The article makes no mention of the existing Old German Beer Hall and how urban Milwaukee is delightfully reinventing itself more in the fashion of a city like Munich, Germany.
• Robert Kern, of Generac fame and fortune, is powering a change in the way the state handles engineering education through his foundation (Kern Family Foundation). Two urban Milwaukee schools are at the center of this in MSOE and Marquette, through the recruitment of Project Lead the Way students form high schools and their participation in KEEN (Kern Entrepreneurship Education Network). Urban Milwaukee would like to applaud the efforts of Robert Kern for his visionary leadership in truly investing in the future of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and the entire Fresh Coast economy and education system.
• The Journal Sentinel takes a look at how you can reduce your power consumption and what effects it will have. Absolutely worth your time to read.
• Dave Reid takes a look at the Kane Commons development and gives us a construction update of the Breakwater Condos and The Residences on Water.

Yield For Pedestrians ?
Originally uploaded by slowpokeiv

Public perception of Milwaukee’s university campuses is that they’re a step shy of being a war zone at night. Unfortunately for fear mongers everywhere, they’re not.  The latest shooting on the UWM campus has again brought about discussion about how dangerous Milwaukee’s urban college campuses are compared to the rest of the state.  Milwaukee undeniably has more crime than other cities in the state, however, it does not have to be that way.

What’s going on that creates random robberies on Milwaukee’s campuses?

The issue is two-fold. First, Milwaukee has a crisis level of unemployment when it comes to African-American males. This has the trickle down effect of creating a central city that has a crime problem. It’s hard for unemployed parents to be good parents. It’s also hard for those people to be good neighbors and members of society. It’s certainly not solely an African-American issue, as the issue affects everyone. It’s also not just a Milwaukee issue, it’s a Wisconsin and nationwide problem. Those without jobs are trapped within inner cities as they are even more rejected as members of society in smaller towns. It’s an issue that starts with one group of people and spills over to affect everyone. The Fourth Street Forum from two weeks ago touched on this. No one has a good solution to end it currently other than to end racism, which despite being the 21st century seems to be easier said than done for a large part of America.

So you need to understand that there is a structural problem that creates this mob of teens with a lack of true role models and a feeling that they’re trapped in a never ending situation. They instead turn to crime and prey on those that are the weakest, unsuspecting college students.

The second part of the issue is the lack of pedestrian density in many areas surrounding UWM, MSOE, MIAD, and Marquette. These campuses are populated with students who come from all over Wisconsin and the Midwest and have primarily grown up with a lifestyle of riding in "Lexus cages." They’re not sure what to look for when it comes to potential robbers and prefer to ride everywhere in automobiles. Students aren’t forced to deal with this change in scenery when they go to a college like UW-Whitewater and are accustomed with how to avoid bad situations.  It’s not that residents of Milwaukee are hostile towards college students and seek to rob them once the sun sets compared to boring (yes, I said it) "college towns" like Whitewater or Menomonee, it’s that those that struggle to get by in Wisconsin ultimately end up in Milwaukee where there are supposedly more jobs.  They don’t find that when they get here and ultimately contribute in some way, shape, or form to what is a higher crime rate.

How do we fight this problem?  First off, it’s crucial to acknowledge that it is not one problem of schools in Milwaukee being unsafe.  It is two separate problems that cross paths.  The first problem is crime caused by unemployment, which I won’t go into anymore in this article.  The second problem is to help students to be protected against predators.

The second problem has been traditionally  counteracted by the placement of security points around campus where students can push a button to call for help and the increased presence of police patrols. Both are band-aids for bullet wounds, which as of Monday night became a bit too literal of analogy for one student.  These stop-gap measures are ineffective for helping students when a robber assaults them with a gun on the sidewalk.  As I found out the hard way with a shotgun barrel to my head this summer, you can’t ask a robber to stop so you can call 911 or run for help.

What Milwaukee’s universities and colleges need to do is unite around the idea of pedestrian friendly campuses. The easiest way to accomplish this is to continue to increase density in the areas surrounding campus with the construction of larger apartment and university buildings. The city can and should get involved by promoting logical development of nearby commercial establishments. The creation of well-lit walking paths to and from these buildings is the crucial x-factor to the development of a safe, healthy neighborhood. Too often, especially by UWM, students must walk from a well-lit campus building into a dimly lit street that does not encourage night walking.

The important thing is that future development must encourage students not to drive, but to walk everywhere. Safety will only emerge from increasing the number of pedestrians on the street at night, not the number of police offers. Linking these emerging pedestrian neighborhoods by light-rail systems or properly marketed bus systems will further increase their development and safety.

Big cities and their respective university campuses do not create crime and can in fact prevent it and improve their residents quality of life by creating dense neighborhoods that rely on pedestrian transit.

Milwaukee’s campuses are not dangerous and you should feel safe walking on them. Students need to remember that if they’re walking alone at night to stay on well trafficked streets and to help their fellow peers by choosing to walk to other destinations in the area. Every time someone chooses to walk on campus at night they are helping make the campus safer by decreasing the chance a predator will find a lone student walking at night.

As former Milwaukee mayor John Norquist advocates in his book, the Wealth of Cities, the safest city streets are the ones with the most walkers at all times of the day. Let’s help Milwaukee become a safer place for people to live, work, and play.