The candidates are worlds apart politically — but practically neighbors.

Suburbia is where the developer bulldozes out the trees, then names the streets after them.

– Bill Vaughan

Although months ago UWM entered into an agreement to purchase a portion of the Milwaukee County Grounds for the purpose of expansion, the deadline for public input into UWM’s Master Plan past just this week. Regardless if this input will be considered going forward or not, it’s worth looking to see what the UWM community thinks about the expansion plans.

Mo’s Irish Pub in Wauwatosa, WI intends to demolish two homes to create 48 new parking spots for their patrons. With the expanded parking lot Mo’s Irish Pub will have 179 parking spots, and although they do serve food it is likely that many of these spots are for pub patrons. Yup. One hundred seventy nine parking spots for a pub.

To think, I was just about to put the UW-Tosa t-shirts up on the new Urban Milwaukee store, maybe I can hold off now? Apparently, UWM’s backing out of the fight to locate the School of Freshwater Sciences on the former Pieces of Eight restaurant site ruffled some feathers, and Michael Cudahy decided to return the favor by backing out of funding UWM’s proposed Wauwatosa location for the Engineering School.

The University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee, Marquette University and Milwaukee School of Engineering announced that the universities are collaborating on seven energy technology research projects. These projects are being conducted as part of the Southeastern Wisconsin Energy Technology Research Center, which ties the universities together with local companies, such as Rockwell Automation and WE Energies, to conduct research in the area of energy technology. The initial projects involves green concepts and advanced technologies such as wind turbines, Li-Ion Batteries, CO2 recycling and sequestration via algae, and nanowire thermoelectric materials.

Despite the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s efforts with the Center for Sustainability Education (CSE), the hiring of a sustainability coordinator, construction of a green roof on Sandburg Hall, and maintain of the 11.1 acre Downer Woods the leadership at UWM who are pushing to develop an engineering school on the Milwaukee County Grounds seem to be missing the larger point, that there is nothing green about greenfield development.

“Kitty Corner, Across the Freeway.” This is how County Executive Scott Walker described just how close UW-Milwaukee’s new Engineering School could be from the Milwaukee County Research Park. I don’t think I could of summed it up much better myself. Kitty corner, across the freeway.

Normally people oppose projects because it is in their backyard, I oppose UW-Milwaukee’s expansion in Wauwatosa because it isn’t in my backyard. I know that’s a strange concept but the list of reasons to build the Engineering School in downtown Milwaukee, my backyard, are numerous. It’s not just my backyard, but the backyard of 600,000 residents of the City of Milwaukee.

I recently gave up and said, “fine, let the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee expand in Wauwatosa”. I argued this move would make life more difficult for students and that’s great because they will learn about the “real world”. Further I thought it was great that this move would allow the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee to stay in Madison’s shadow. Of course I really think the best thing about the Wauwatosa site, will be the UW-Tosa t-shirts. It occurred to me that beyond these there are a few more “great” reasons for UW-Milwaukee to expand in Wauwatosa.