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.

Whitney Gould took an early retirement buyout from Journal Communications a little over a month ago.  Her send off column was titled "Retiring, not tiring of quality design." Ever since moving to Milwaukee three years ago I’ve enjoyed her reporting on issues involving building design.

My views began to disagree with hers when she started to question the restoration of the former check processing center on the corner of Broadway and State St into the Grohmann Museum, a museum dedicated to the showcasing of men (and women) at work throughout time, at the Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE).

I began to wonder if she cared that the new Grohmann Museum would finally build a book-end for the MSOE campus with the Kern Center, rehab an underused and unattractive building downtown, and build a transition piece from Milwaukee City Hall north to the Kern Center and Park East neighborhood.  Add to that the fact that the financing was entirely provided by Eckhart Grohmann.  In fact Robert & Patricia Kern and Eckhart Grohmann deserve nothing but admiration and applause for their commitment to producing well-rounded engineers in downtown Milwaukee.

To be fair, Whitney Gould does address some of the these facts and does give a fair amount of praise to Grohmann for his contribution.  I do disagree with her on a few things though.

Her appraisal of the building as a cheap impersonation of the style of a bygone era is lacking in insight.  One needs to only walk from City Hall, past the Grohmann Museum, and to the Kern Center to see the bridge the museum forms between the past and present architectural styles.  Unlike many other bland glass buildings in many other cities, Grohmann and the architects at Uihlein Wilson created something distinctly Milwaukee and distinctly MSOE.   The building meshes perfectly with the Kern Center both inside and out thanks to Uihlein Wilson designing both buildings, and forms a southern book end of the MSOE campus on Broadway to match the Kern Center’s north anchor position.  MSOE should be praised for finally developing a physical identity, especially while both Marquette and UWM expand theirs in a much more public fashion.

She, along with other members of the art community, also seem to take offense that no one that works at the museum has true art credentials.  Speaking as someone who has been in the museum many times, the artwork is displayed just as it in any museum and curator John Kopmeier is just as qualified to discuss the content of the collection as anyone with an art degree.

My final point of disagreement with Gould is over her obsession with the Nazi art work in the collection.  She seems to hold this belief that the Nazi-attachment to the artwork is hidden from viewers, it’s not.  It is not outwardly stated that "hey, this painting could contain Nazi slaves", but if you ask someone they will tell you.  They will also tell you that the paintings featuring Egyptians might contain slaves building pyramids.  That the paintings featuring peasant farmers toiled in fields for a king.

The focus of the collection isn’t on whether workers have been treated humanely throughout time, because clearly they haven’t.  The focus of the collection is to honor the work that they have done, because hard work is honorable.

The labeling of the art work as Nazi art or that it might contain slaves would draw attention to the collection for the wrong reasons.

The Man at Work collection on display at the Grohmann Museum seeks not to glorify slavery or oppression, but to take the viewer on a journey through time to demonstrate the amazing feats of hard working men and women throughout time.

I do think somewhere there should be a pamphlet or plaque to explain this to visitors and I’ve heard from reliable sources that it is coming eventually.  That same source has also confirmed to me that they’re not rushing to get it out there because the Journal Sentinel thinks they should, nor do they have any intention of putting plaques next to the paintings that may contain Nazi artwork.

While I understand Gould’s conclusions at a high level, I wish her article would have done more to recognize the fact that Grohmann transformed a building that would have sat empty for years into a viable asset for the city of Milwaukee.

I’ll miss her column in the Journal Sentinel and hope her sendoff column isn’t the last we of her in Milwaukee.

As a special note: I am a student at the Milwaukee School of Engineering, which is why I waited a month to respond to Gould’s column.  Any immediate response would have been emotional and grounded in what I think is reasoned out logic at this point.  Feel free to disagree in the comments.

Links from the Milwaukee-informationsphere

• Mary Louise Schumacher is yet another art person doesn’t think it’s a good idea to build a recognize 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.

The city of Chicago, in its continual quest to be at the forefront of the implementation of green features, has launched the Green Alley Program.  In a city with almost 2,000 miles of alleyways, this is a huge step.  Nearly 50 alleys have already been built, with many more to come.  The pavement allows water to drain into the water table instead of puddling and running to the sewer system.  This obviously reduces the strain on the sewer systems, but there are other benefits to the program.  The pavement reflects more heat, reducing the urban heat island affect that plagues urban areas in the summer.  Dark-sky lighting fixtures are also installed that are not only more energy efficient, but eliminate the waste of light shining into the sky all night long.  This keeps the alleys well-lit, while at the same reducing the light pollution that comes with life in a big city.  Costs will continue to drop as more of the porous pavement is produced by cement companies and more of the dark-sky lighting fixtures are installed.

The Chicago Green Alley Program properly bundles a series of efficiency and environmental improvements that are helping fuel a renewal in the quality of urban life.  While programs like this go largely unnoticed now, down the road they’re going to be part of the decision process when you choose where you want to live (not the program itself, but the results).  Cities that invest now are only adding to their bottom lines long-term, through both a probable reduction in costs and an increased tax base in neighbors that have the improvements.

MSOE has a permeable pavement parking lot, which aside from being good for keeping water out of the sewer system keeps the surface of the lot a lot more dry during the rain and therefore a lot more pleasurable and safer to walk on (no puddles or slick spots).  Permeable pavement is one of those things that the first time you see it in action, you wonder why it isn’t required in new buildings.

It would be a true shame if Milwaukee does not adopt this same program in the next year or so, especially for a city that faces sewage discharges into Lake Michigan on a regular basis during periods of high rain.  Milwaukee would be wise to at the very least make permeable pavement a requirement in all new construction in the Park East neighborhood.

Special thanks to Jason Varone at the NYC-centric Streetsblog for drawing my attention to this development.

Rooftop figure
Originally uploaded by johndecember

MSOE’s new Grohmann Museum will be open to the public for free on Saturday, December 1st from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m.

I had class in the building all last trimester (there are a couple classrooms in the building), and would recommend you stop in to check it out if you’re in the area. It has a wonderful roof-top sculpture garden, which you’ll be able to get on weather-permitting and take a couple pretty pictures.

On the note of the building itself, it’s a wonderful addition to Milwaukee. It’s a renovation of a previously underused and fairly ugly building, and for the first time creates an entry and exit point for the MSOE campus with the Kern Center.

Admission is available any other day of the week for $5.

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.