Good news. The City of Milwaukee has been growing over the past decade, albeit slowly, but this recent trend is better than the decades long slide from a high point of 741,324 in 1960 to a recent low below 596,974 in 2000. Since 2000 Milwaukee has seen a small, but significant increase to 604,477 residents. Yes, a growth rate of just 1.3%, but it is a start.

Traditional Neighborhood Development Partners was one of the seven firms that submitted a proposal for Bay View’s Solar Village project. Although they were not selected by the City of Milwaukee to develop the site the renderings by Grenfell Architecture, PLLC are shown below. The plan included a mix of single family housing, multifamily housing, as well as green features such as solar panels, public green space, and three wind turbines.

Recently I moved my mother from a single family home into a low-income subsidized senior housing development. It wasn’t fun, or easy, but it was necessary. It’s vitally important that all of our communities have facilities like these, as imperfect as they might be, to allow our aging population safe and clean housing to live in. Unfortunately, there is a severe shortage of affordable units, not just in Milwaukee or the Bay View neighborhood, but nationally.