MSOE Soccer Parking Facility

Milwaukee County and the City of Milwaukee City Plan Commission both unanimously recommended approval of the Milwaukee School of Engineering’s parking garage proposal in the Park East.  These approvals point out that City of Milwaukee and Milwaukee County politicians are anxious to see new development in the Park East. Unfortunately, as currently conceived this isn’t a project worthy of approval.

During the City Plan Commission hearing Dr. Viets, Milwaukee School of Engineering (MSOE) President, stated that “I view this request before you, as part of our commitment to downtown”,  and there is no doubt that MSOE is committed to and critical to downtown Milwaukee (note without MSOE there would likely not be an Urban Milwaukee), but this is not the right way to show MSOE’s commitment.

To quote Dr. Herman Viets, President MSOE, “…we could certainly do better”.  Yes, we, as in Milwaukee County, the City of Milwaukee, and MSOE can certainly do better.

Issues with the project

• Does not meet the requirements of the Park East Redevelopment Plan.  As Vanessa Koster, of the Department of City Development, explained during the City Plan Commission meeting, “since it does not comport to the design standards of the Park East Redevelopment Plan” action is needed to remove the parcel from the Redevelopment Area.  In this case the parking garage doesn’t meet the height requirements, the mixed-use requirement, won’t create any sort of terminating vista, and in fact deviates from the street design’s within the plan, as Ogden Avenue will not be put through if this project moves forward.  The plan for the Park East was worthy when originally developed, and this project doesn’t come close to offering benefits that exceed the design requirements.
• Does not maximize tax-base creation.  Although MSOE will pay property taxes on the 12,000 SF retail slot, and any parking spots leased out to non-MSOE users, it is possible that when the BMO Harris lease runs out the entire parking portion of the facility will become tax exempt. Discussions about this garage catalyzing future Park East development have taken place, and are flawed, MSOE has made it clear that in the long-run they intend to utilize the full garage, leaving no space for other regular users.
• Limits a large portion of the Park East to a single use – parking.  As part of the deal BMO Harris’ (M&I) is acquiring a key parcel of Park East property along Water St (in exchange for selling a parcel to MSOE).   The agreement specifies that BMO Harris won’t use the site as a surface parking lot for at least five years, but after that time period the possibility of that parcel becoming surface parking is high.  Bruce Westling, President of NAI MLG Commercial, who spoke in support of the project did so with a caveat, “I’d be very concerned that we get lulled into a green space for 5 years and then parking”.
• Design does not address the street.  Although the soccer field will be at ground level at Broadway and Knapp Street, there appears to be extremely minimal consideration for creating a public space that draws people into the field.  Much of the building will present itself to the street as a parking garage, which is not a use that will serve to activate the street.  Further, the proposal does include a park space along Water St., but seems to be of an more an afterthought than a key component of the design. In addition, as MSOE participates in Division 3 athletics it is likely that thousands of seats aren’t needed, but the current seating plans are underwhelming.
• Encourages driving.  Although the intention is for this to be used for long-term parking for students, the likely outcome will be more driving from students as a result hundreds of additional parking stalls being placed so near to campus.

How did we get here?

There’s a feeling in the community that the City of Milwaukee needs something, apparently anything, to be happening in the former right-of-way of the Park East freeway.  And apparently Milwaukee County simply needs funds. In particular the support for the project stems from the funds being earmarked to fund the Ready to Work program, a job skill training program for city youth.  Additionally, some members of the Milwaukee County Board were looking for a win for the Park East Redevelopment Compact, as made evident in a recent comment by Supervisor Dimitrijevic, “our standards to build sustainably, hire locally, and pay family- supporting wages will be met.”  For MSOE it is about replacing approximately 200 spaces that are rented across the river (and adding hundreds more spaces), so these spots will be closer for students to access.  Development in the Park East, and jobs for Milwaukee County residents are all laudable goals, but are they good enough reasons to forgo a good project down the line for this one?  No.

Despite supporting the project, Alderman Kovac summed up a key concern regarding this project, “if this lot ever becomes surface parking, this project will be a mistake”.  The alderman is right, if the adjacent lot does become a surface parking lot, the project is a clear failure, but we believe for the reasons listed above this project is already a failure.

Marquette University

Location: Avenues West, west of downtown.

Students: 8,012 (undergraduates), 3,587 (postgraduates)

Affect on Neighborhood: Marquette defines Avenues West. In addition to the buildings themselves, there are signs visible every which way you look, as well as students.

Recent Projects: The school has recently opened a new home for the Law School in Ray and Kay Eckstein Hall. The $85 million building is highly visible from the adjacent Marquette Interchange. Journal Sentinel art and architecture critic Mary Louise Schumacher details some of the challenges with the site. Under construction along Wisconsin Avenue, thanks to a $25 million anonymous donation, is the Discovery Learning Complex. The $35 million building will be five-stories tall and include 115,000 square feet of space for the College of Engineering.

On the Horizon: Marquette is working to enhance their existing investment in the Valley Fields athletic complex in the Menomonee Valley, a development that the school could have just as easily placed in a suburb. The school is planning to invest $1.2 million to add a 3,000 square-foot facility that includes dressing rooms for teams and officials, medical treatment areas, as well as public restrooms.

Grade: A. Marquette could have ran from Milwaukee like Concordia, but instead of fleeing they kept investing in their campus, and as a result have a great urban campus that keeps getting better.

Milwaukee Institute Art and Design

Location: Historic Third Ward

Students: 630

Affect on Neighborhood: Today MIAD has a minimal affect on the built environment of the Third Ward, though it does play a key role in the area’s art scene. Unlike Marquette and UWM, you can miss it as the college doesn’t possess a lot of public signage, with the exception of recently added sign on the school. It’s minimal affect also has a lot to do with how much else is going on in the Third Ward. If you placed it in the neighborhoods that the other schools call home, it would certainly have a much bigger impact.

On the Horizon: The college is seeking to build a new 250 bed residence hall. An RFP was issued and General Capital’s property was selected at 252 E. Menomonee Street . The school must now raise the funds to complete the residence hall.

Grade: B. MIAD students inject life into the neighborhood, without the town versus gown debate that makes UWM neighbors pack public meetings, and helped spur the art scene. At the same time the school hasn’t actually broke ground on the new residence hall yet. As the school continues to expand and improve its facility, increased visibility will follow.

Milwaukee School of Engineering

Location: East Town

Students: 2,438 (undergraduates), 210 (postgraduates)

Affect on Neighborhood: MSOE defines area around the few blocks it occupies, but with the exception of a couple way-finding signs you could miss it if you passed the campus only a block or two away.

Recent Projects: MSOE has added two new facilities to their campus in the past six years. The Kern Center, a large athletic and wellness facility paid for by Robert and Patricia Kern which is one of the few developments to actually happen in the Park East corridor. More recently the university opened the Grohmann Museum to house the General Studies Department and Man at Wok art collection. The rehabilitated building was paid for by Eckhart Grohmann, and operational costs are covered by revenue from the adjacent building, which Grohmann also owns. The buildings act as bookends for the campus along Broadway.

On the Horizon: Recently the school has proposed building a 500-stall parking garage in the Park East land immediately north of the Kern Center (to be funded by the Kern’s). The catch? A soccer field on top of the garage. The facility won’t be an architectural marvel, but being built into the hillside should help hide the garage (similar to how Juneau Village Towers and Yankee Hill Apartments work).

Grade: B-. MSOE has added two urban buildings since 2004, both of which help better define the campus and add to the attractiveness of the neighborhood. Unfortunately the university still possess a number of large surface parking lots on some of Milwaukee’s most valuable, and otherwise well developed, land. The proposed Park East parking garage should give the school flexibility to reduce or develop their parking lots into better assets for school and city.

University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee

Location: Upper East Side

Students: 25,239 (undergraduates), 5,216 (postgraduates)

Affect on Neighborhood: UWM currently dominates the Upper East Side, although much of that effect is achieved by the large amount of off-campus housing in the form of duplexes. The campus itself is well contained with a couple block area. You get the feeling you’re on a college campus many blocks from the school itself though as large numbers of students can be seen walking to and from class.

Recent Projects: The university, through the UWM Real Estate Foundation, has recently added three facilities along North Avenue, all of which include a sizable student housing component. The first UWM development in the North Avenue corridor was the Kenilworth Square Apartments, which includes apartments that can house approximately 330 students as well as street-level retail. The east side of the facility also includes facilities for the Peck School of the Arts. RiverView Residence Hall opened in January 2008 and is located along the Milwaukee River just off North Avenue in Riverwest it includes space for approximately 475 students. Most recently, the school opened the Cambridge Commons residence hall which includes space for up to 700 students and is expected to be LEED Gold certified.

On the Horizon: The university has plans to build three satellite campuses to house graduate-level schools. A School of Public Health is planned for the former Pabst Brewery on the northwest corner of downtown, thanks to a donation from the late Joseph Zilber. The university plans to expand upon their Freshwater Research Institute to build a new facility for the School of Freshwater Sciences. The water school was originally proposed for the lakefront, but plans for that location were ultimately dropped. The latest plan has split facilities between a Reed Street Yards site and the Great Lakes Research Facility on Greenfield Ave. Their most controversial plan is the one already underway, the construction of a new engineering school on the Milwaukee County Grounds in Wauwatosa. While we applaud the school’s efforts to build a new engineering school, we’ve written extensively that the location and proposed development style are misguided.

Grade: B. The university has a contract with Milwaukee County to purchase suburban land and develop it in a suburban fashion. That alone wouldn’t be so egregious, but as the school continues to invest in all kinds of “green” and urban developments across the city, the Engineering School in western Wauwatosa appears to be even more of a paradox. If the university follows through on plans to build the suburban engineering campus, it’s easy to believe that future grades on the schools urban qualities would be lower. On the upside, the school’s new residence halls have been successful in reducing pressure on non-student neighbors by reducing the number of students living in off-campus housing. They also, thanks to their good urban design, are part of what continues to make North Avenue vibrant. The Public Health and Freshwater Sciences Schools are certain to be assets to the city when they’re completed.

MSOE Soccer Parking Facility

Milwaukee School of Engineering is proposing the construction of a $30 million, 780-car parking garage, that would have an athletic field on the roof of the building.  About 500 of the 780 parking spots would be leased to business and the general public, generating taxable revenue for MSOE.  The proposal also includes a small public park that would be maintained by MSOE, and a retail slot designed for a small restaurant, or coffee shop that would be adjacent to the park.  The parking garaged would be located north of the Kern Center on the northwest corner of Broadway and Knapp Street, within the Park East corridor.  Not visible in the renderings, but do to the elevation drop of the 2½ acres site the athletic field be visible at ground level on the corner of Broadway and Knapp Street.

The project would be funded in a large part by a donation from Drs. Robert and Patricia Kern.  The property is currently owned by Marshall & Ilsley Corporation and Milwaukee County.

To move forward the project will require approval by the Milwaukee County Board of Supervisors, and a zoning change to be approved by the City of Milwaukee Common Council.

AGI Team Members: Mike Ingo (CM/PM), Matt Koski (CM), Saif Islam (CM), Brian Harley (ST), Nick Kerchner (ST), Jeremy Matthews (ST), Rock Ridolfi (EV), Eran Moses (EE), Adam Wetzel (EE) Team photos courtesy of MSOE

Despite work on the Marcus Center parking garage this past summer, there are still ambitious to redevelop the site in the near future.  The repairs were done in an effort to keep the garage open until 2013, at which time a decision will be made to redevelop the site or be forced to do extension repairs.  The intent of the redevelopment project is to allow the Marcus Center to capture income from the new development and move completely off of Milwaukee County’s budget, eventually creating tax revenue.  In a sign that the redevelopment effort is still ongoing the Marcus Center engaged one of MSOE’s senior design studios to propose several conceptual designs for the project.

The teams were made up of mix of architectural engineers and construction managers required to accomplish a building of this scale.  Over the course of sixteen weeks, the three teams worked as if Marcus Center was an actual client to produce a final proposal.  Below you can see each teams design, these are conceptual ideas of how the Marcus Center can build out this location and connect this key site between Water St. and the riverwalk.  Efforts like this help to keep pushing for a highest and best use of this site.  Certainly, each design has its strengths and weaknesses but each attempted to address the complexity of the project.

CPC Team Members: Adam Koch (CM/PM), Katerina Eksler (CM), Dan LoBello (CM), Michael Norris (ST), Mike Zeeck (ST), Nathan Schwebke (EV), Mitchell Setterman (EV), Kathleen Hines (EE), Shawn Campbell (EE)

The project requirements included a 1,200 stall parking garage, a green roof, a focal point banquet and meeting place, LEED certification, and a mix of uses to generate various income streams and create various activities on the site.  Each of the three teams took a slightly different spin on the project, though a common thread was an attempt to screen the large parking garage, by wrapping it with other uses, or using artistic design to spruce up the structure. It was clear the size of the required parking structure clearly impacted the overall design of each project, partly by restricting the size of other functions in the development.

One team, CPC, brought a practical design that lent itself to multiple phases of construction.  Along Water St. the retail/office building attempted to address the human scale, though the exposed garage detracted from this design feature.  A small public space was also created along State Street that would sit in front of a restaurant.

QUIM Team Members: John Marschke (CM), Adam Messing (CM), Josh Anderson (CM/PM), Ryan Kaplanek (ST), Brian Harley (ST), Alicia Garton (EV), Bobby Fischer (EV), Dan Wayer (EE), Gary Cook (EE)

The team QUIM had a unique design with the residential portion cutting through the building and terminating the vista looking east on Highland Street. The first floor along Water Street did need to improve its connection to the public space along the street.

The team of AGI addressed the pedestrian scale by utilizing a step-back design which seemed to be effective at matching the scale of existing buildings.  To screen the large garage they used metal screening and artistic notes, this was very creative but the shear size of one of the garage elevations was to large even for this clever solution.

All of the projects faced the huge obstacle of a 1,200 space parking garage, which is often an issue that detracts from the architecture of a building.  Each team successfully attempted to address it on some level.

Partnerships such as this effort between MSOE and the Marcus Center offer a good example of how our local universities can play role in the future of our city.

Team photos courtesy of MSOE

This initiative draws on some of Milwaukee’s great assets and lays the groundwork for future enterprises, but it raises an important question.  Wouldn’t it be easier to continue these efforts in the future if UWM wasn’t planning on moving much of the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences further away from the other partner universities and companies?

If these efforts grow and there is more interaction between these universities, sharing more than just data, but labs and researchers, it is likely the proposed Wauwatosa site could be a hindrance.  The ability to walk out MSOE’s door and quickly into Marquette or UWM’s new research facility just down the block or on a ten minute bus ride would be a time saver, rather than a thirty minute drive to Wauwatosa .  Better yet, with this clustering, the possibility of the building of shared research labs and facilities, is a possibility.  It is of course possible to collaborate over the web, email, or phone, but the value of working in the same lab, debating around the “water cooler,” or sketching out ideas on a whiteboard is invaluable, all of which would be better accommodated if the university research facilities were located in close proximity to each other.

Wouldn’t a cluster of UWM, Marquette, and MSOE in downtown Milwaukee all working together on energy research and green technologies just make sense?

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.

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.

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.

• 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.

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.

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.

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.