NYC to Madison with wife and three boys under 5 (Milwaukee: cul-de-sac, house)

[Water 4 the Pool]

I am deep in the interview process with a Madison company and would love to hear from any people who relocated there from somewhere else. My wife and I have lived in Manhattan for 13 years but are originally from the Midwest (me from MI and she from Beaver Dam, WI). For family reasons, Milwaukee has generally been at the top of our list of possible places to move but I'm trying to determine if I should hold out for a job in MKE or make the move to Madison if the interviews go well.

We have three boys, ages 4 and under, so schools--public or private--are critical. Neither of us is fond of new suburbs/exurbs with cul-de-sacs--we are seeking a real, established neighborhood, with sidewalks that people actually use, good schools, parks, restaurants and stores/shops.

A few questions:

1. I grew up on Lake Michigan and would love to live on or near a local lake, which I heard are plentiful. Any neighborhood suggestions?
2. I've heard it's hard to meet other families/couples, particularly if you're not from there. Wife's cousin moved there and said people generally talk a lot about high school. Any truth to this?
3. I'm Swedish, so can I get lutefisk?!?!

Please no NYC bashing! We really love Manhattan and the opportunities for our kids are incomparable, but the expense is so insane ($35k tuition for the kindergarten of choice) that it's time for something new.

Cheers!

P.S.--If this thread looks familiar, it's because I started similar threads for Milwaukee and Minneapolis over the past couple of years but the jobs weren't the right fit or weren't offered.

[nikita0872]

I was born and raised on Long Island and the past 4 years have lived in Florida, Germany and now Wisconsin. The people are nice but there is nothing to do in the winter unless you like to drink and watch the Packers/Badgers. Alot of people say it's great in the summer but when you live in NYC nothing will ever match up to your standards. You won't find the same diversity of food either. If you don't have to travel on the beltline that will be a plus- avoid it at all costs!
If anything you can make trips to Chicago for the weekends if you are missing that big city feel.

[Skippery Boo]

Quick answers to questions:

1. Living ON a lake is pricey. If you can find a house that you like on a lake, expect to pay at least a 40% premium over a similar house not on water. Tax rates reflect this premium as well. But living NEAR a lake is easy. The neighborhoods that seem right for you include, on the West Side, Vilas, Shorewood, Nakoma, Regent, Dudgeon-Monroe, or Westmoreland, and on the East Side, Marquette, Schenk-Atwood, or Tennney-Lapham. Both lists are arranged roughly from most to least expensive but all are on the higher end of affordability by Madison standards. If you're coming from Manhattan you can probably manage any of them. Schools in all of these areas range from great to fine. These are established neighborhoods with sidewalks that people actually use, but Madison is not Manhattan or even Milwaukee, and the number of shops and restaurants you can walk to from a house in any of these neighborhoods is limited. I live in Nakoma, which is one of the less commercial/mixed, i.e., more purely residential of the neighborhoods listed here (Westmoreland and parts of Shorewood are equally distant from pedestrian shopping, I guess). Ten-minute-walkable from my house are: a veterinary clinic, a drugstore, an auto repair shop, three or four restaurants, an ice cream shop, a knitting shop, a coffee shop, and maybe a dozen other small businesses. But that's it, and most of these are quite a brisk ten minute walk too. I guess I'm saying (but why should it be necessary?) don't expect anything like Manhattan. In Madison, as in most of the rest of America, the family will use its car. At best you'll be glad to live in a neighborhood where now and then you won't have to use it.

2. Neighborliness is well developed in all of the areas I've listed. In general, it's easy get to know people here. In fact, it would be hard not to get to know them. You have small children, so the truth is that no matter where you live in the Madison area, or in the entire Midwest, or for that matter in the entire nation, you'll immediately become acquainted with the others in your area who are at your life stage. No problem. That said, there is one distinct and frequently overlooked advantage in the friends-making department of living in an established neighborhood such as one of those I've listed above, even when you have the huge additional advantage in this regard -- anywhere! -- of kids. In close-in areas there is simply more time for neighborliness because people aren't constantly driving to kingdom come. The pedestrian/bicycle/bus/ and even automobile commute from any of the areas I've listed to the center of town is pretty much in the five- to fifteen-minute range, meaning you'll be home more during daylight hours, running into your neighbors, maybe joining them for coffee, a drink, or dinner. Your children's friends, likewise, will be mostly a walk or bike ride away. Yes, as I mentioned earlier, you'll use your car here, but in a close-in neighborhood you won't use it constantly. People farther out spend a LOT of time in cars. And car time is a big social waste. Parents in particular turn into chauffeurs. They often know the parents of their kids' friends not as neighbors (they likely live too far away) but from regular three-minute encounters in the front entryway at drop-off and pick-up time. "Well, gotta go...I need to pick up Sam in twenty minutes over in..."

3. Having grown up in a Swedish neighborhood in Minneapolis in an era when lots of older people, such as my next-door neighbor, spoke only Swedish, I can say these things: (a) there are plenty of people of Norwegian descent in Madison, though not so many Swedes, and many of them claim to enjoy lutefisk, meaning that, yes, it's available if you look, though I have doubts about the volume that's actually consumed; (b) even in my youth the joke was that the only Swedes who still ate lutefisk lived in Minnesota; peoples' cousins back in Sweden no more touched the stuff; and (c) the cousins were right.

[L.K.]

Originally Posted by nikita0872

I was born and raised on Long Island and the past 4 years have lived in Florida, Germany and now Wisconsin. The people are nice but there is nothing to do in the winter unless you like to drink and watch the Packers/Badgers. Alot of people say it's great in the summer but when you live in NYC nothing will ever match up to your standards. You won't find the same diversity of food either. If you don't have to travel on the beltline that will be a plus- avoid it at all costs!
If anything you can make trips to Chicago for the weekends if you are missing that big city feel.

Nothing to do in the winter? you mean except ski, ice skate, sled, cross country ski, build forts with the kids, snow ball fights and get great exercise shoveling?
Of course it's not going to compare to NYC. But these two came from WI and MI., they may have a small inkling of the differences.