What you NEED to know before moving your family to MADISON! (Milwaukee: insurance, lawyer)
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nice thing about the US, just about every climate type is available for someone who thinks Madison is unbearable 9 months a year and must have temps in the 80's to enjoy themselves. Compared to where I live, Madison is warm and I dislike where I live.
While OP seems to be going on a rant, I have to say I've lived here all my life and am kind of looking forward to getting out. There are many things I love and cherish about the city....99% of them are during May-August. Winters have been cold and depressing for too long and I cannot imagine living here more than 5 more years. Also made a good point about when you have kids...I have a toddler and another on the way; keeping them indoors in a tiny house (because things in Madison are pretty expensive) is a challenge. It forces you to get creative, but after months on end, you do hit obstacles sometimes.
I have to say though, I can't STAND it how almost everyone I know around here tends to do this: complain, complain, complain about how cold it is, for months and months, and then when summer finally arrives...they are complaining about the heat!! Even this summer with our 90 degree days, I LOVED every minute of it! It's not even that hot compared to half the country. Knowing what's coming in 3 or four months, when it hits June I am thankful every single day that it is warm outside. And for those of us that are not exactly here by choice...we dream of moving, but until then we'll have to make the best of it!
I have to say though, I can't STAND it how almost everyone I know around here tends to do this: complain, complain, complain about how cold it is, for months and months, and then when summer finally arrives...they are complaining about the heat!! Even this summer with our 90 degree days, I LOVED every minute of it! It's not even that hot compared to half the country. Knowing what's coming in 3 or four months, when it hits June I am thankful every single day that it is warm outside. And for those of us that are not exactly here by choice...we dream of moving, but until then we'll have to make the best of it!
I have noticed that too and hear is my take. People in Madison (or Wisconsin for that matter) have a much lower heat tolerance than the rest of the country only because extreme heat is so rare here. We arespoiled with relatively mild summer temperatures, the vast majority of the days are in the70s and 80s and only a handful are in the 90s...so when you get out of that reliable comfort zone, it really can feel miserable to a lot of people. Granted, the heat we get here is tempered even more so by the lush vegetation and lakes...so people don't realize how bad it could be only a couple of hours drive south and west. We get off "easy" in that regard.
Ass the climate continues to change, I imagine Madison will continue to have warmer and drier summers, which will still make them enjoyable when compared to the rest of the country even down the road, but as that happens and there are more genuine hot days on a consistent basis, people will build a tolerance to the heat to a certain degree.
No, no, no, no, no. Not everywhere is going to work for everyone -- simple as that.
This is so very true!!! Different people like different things, and that's a fact. Why stick around in a place that is NOT a good fit for your emotional, spiritual and physical needs?
And to those who are complaining about crime in Madison, whoo-wee, come to the East Coast if you want to see CRIME.
I'm only the occasional visitor to Wisconsin, but you just do not have the crime that we have here in the east. I live in the Norfolk/Virginia Beach area (Hampton Roads) and when I visit Wisconsin, I'm in awe of the people and the low-crime. In many neighborhoods in Wisconsin, people leave their cars out on the street - UNLOCKED.
Here in Norfolk, my LOCKED car was broken into three times in two years. And I got off light. My neighbors' cars have been stolen.
Last week, one of my neighbor's had their car stolen and this is just a common occurrence. And don't get me started on copper theft. I know 10 different people here in Norfolk who had their copper stolen right out from under their house.
Two of them had their pipes stolen while they were asleep on the upper floor!!
There's an entitlement mentality here in Hampton Roads and there's an entire "class" of people who think it's a game to see how much they can steal from you and if you're stupid enough to not put a high-tech alarm on your house, then you deserve to lose that wide-screen TV.
I lived in Illinois for 12 years, and while I did not like the winters, I loved the low-crime.
I know that winters in Wisconsin are terrible, but I think I'd be willing to suffer that, if I could live in a city that doesn't suffer from so many "urban wanderers" who are just watching and waiting to see how much they can steal from me when I slip out the door to go to work.
I too wish to leave Madison, but only because after living in the midwest most of my adult life, I am tired of dark, grey, long cold winters. This last winter was indeed, terrible, truly the worst I can remember.
I have a vitamin D deficiency that I have gained since I moved here. I am now on supplementation. That's because I finally grew weary of trying to get outside to exercise very cold and windy days.
I love WI in the summertime, but like the op, I don't appreciate the mosquitos and the deer flies (when you go up north), for some reason, they adore me and if I venture out for a walk I get chewed up with painful and then itchy bites.
I'm having a ball researching alternatives. My job requires a major airport, that is all. My family is willing to go as my daughter is through school finally. I have traveled many places and spent some time living in Nashville which I enjoyed. But my goal ultimately is live somewhere warmer before I retire.
I lived in Wisconsin for almost 15 years, and can definitely relate to the darkness in the winter. I don't mind the cold, and I don't mind the snow (as a matter of fact, I [i]love[i] snow. But what I couldn't stand was the darkness; I found it to be absolutely depressing.
I think if I had lived in Michigan instead of Wisconsin, I would have been fine. Although Michigan has essentially the same amount of daylight and darkness as Wisconsin, both happen one hour later in Michigan because of the difference in time zones. Most of Michigan is in the Eastern Time Zone. In Michigan, even on the 21st of December, the sun doesn't set before 5:00 in most locations. The exception to that is that there are four counties in the UP that are on Central Time, just like Wisconsin. In those counties, the sun sets shortly after 4:00 in the afternoon in December. How depressing.
I don't mind driving to work in the dark in the morning; but I would like it to be light when I come home in the afternoon.
1: Salaries are not as high as you would expect and the costs of home ownership is HIGH....really high property taxes.
2: Some people complain there is traffic, but there is actually very little traffic. Madison has a few arteries that all of the suburban residents use and that congests things for about an hour in the morning and an hour after work.
3: Madison is still mostly white since the entire state is mostly white. There are some people of Arabic, Asian, etc, but mostly white.
4: The city is big in university, state and healthcare employment.
5: The majority of the graduates are forced to leave after graduating college because of the lack of employment opportunities.......hint: people who graduated in the 90s never left and have taken up the majority of the managers and vp positions all over the area.
6: Winter can be a ***** some years. If a snow storm hits right at rush hour it can take an hour or longer to get home based on the distance you have to travel.
"After just over 2 years living in Madison, as a homeowner on the west side, I can tell you that the grass may look greener but it's because it's covered in fertilizer (g-rated substitute)."
I did my research before moving here to Madison. I spent over 9 months compiling everything from social trends to housing information, schools to personal input. I even looked up EPA stats to determine pollution levels within the city in different areas, including which wells provided the safest water. Let's just say - I was very thorough.
It was 2.5 years ago that I was on this very website talking to locals in Madison. The impression that I got that Madison is very safe, laid back, liberal, democratic, family-friendly, with a stable economy. The cost of living calculators all showed it as affordable for a middle income, professional family. I will highlight the complaints I have with Madison below:
Weather: Yeah, yeah, we all know the north has seasons and it's wonderful - unless you get a winter that doesn't end like this last one. The cold set in back in October and it is almost July and we are barely getting into the 70s with barely any sunshine.
Unfortunately there are some years this does happen. Just a few years ago it never got above 85 all summer long. Maybe this is the summer you are referencing? Usually we get a couple of weeks in the 90s and not much more than that. Most of the summers it gets around 85 or highs and feels like the 90s with the humidity, but it usually takes until July before it gets to the point where you sweat just standing outside. By the time September comes around it gets down into the 40s at night again and will remain that way until the next summer.
The days that are decent are far and few between, mostly humid and hot or cold and cloudy -
May is almost always cool and cloudy.
Cost of living: The midwest is cheap = FALSE. I would not recommend living in Madison for a family of 4 unless your income is $65k+
Wisconsin has been under liberal leadership for a while and, as a result, Wisconsin has become a very high taxed state. The cost of home ownership in Dane County is not cheap. For a house worth around $300k property taxes can be around $4,500. Renting in the Madison area is not cheap either because of the university students. It is cheaper to own a home in the Twin Cities than Madison.
FOOD: We eat real food, not processed crap, so our food costs remained relatively the same here as southern CA. We still shop Whole Foods, Trader Joes, and Costco for most things, also Target has a great organic produce section. Organic groceries = same cost as elsewhere. The nice thing they do offer here is CSA shares, you can buy your fruit and veggies locally for about the same cost, maybe a bit cheaper (many other states offer this too, def. worth checking out). UTILITIES: Ouch! We use 50% less than the average US family, about 450 kwh per month on electricity and bare minimum heating with natural gas. We do pay a bit more for the greener tomorrow MGE program to fund wind energy so 100% of our electric energy is green offset, but this is a small amount of difference worth it imo. Our house is well-insulated, energy efficient in all appliances, windows, etc. and we pay approx. $100 for our electric/gas bill in (May, June, July), $180 (March, April, August, September, October), $250 (November, December), $350 (January, February). This is not living large with shorts on in winter or sweaters in summer, this is BARE MINIMUM to sustain life without freezing energy use. Yes, with the most efficient products in use in an 1800 sq ft newer house. The water bill comes 2x per year, so it's a chunk of change when it comes ($250-300), but it is comparable to our water bills previously in other locations for our use. The city of Madison does NOT rebate you for rain barrels and still charges you for stormwater runoff despite rain gardens and barrels (Verona and others rebate you this, Madison does not). Gas for your car is about 20 cents less here per gal. than back in CA...of course, car services are about double (ridiculous - hope you never need towing in winter, it was $100+ for one block). HOUSING/SALARY: Our house is mid-range at $250k for 1800 sq ft (3b/3b), newer west side location. It's nothing fancy, it's in a nice middle ground neighborhood of professionals (engineers, scientists, professors, pharmacists). The thing is that for us specifically, the salary is half the amount it is elsewhere, just like the houses in those places being 2x the cost as here - basically, Madison is equivalent in housing/salary ratio to other places such as southern CA (where we moved from, though it's cheaper in CA due to the entertainment costs, transportation, and utilities compared to Madison).
Parking: Everything here has an excessive fee. I parked on a street with no signage, no painted curbs, no indications at all and received a $45 ticket. I appealed it and was told I should know there is no parking anywhere unless it SAYS you can park there. Backwards? Yes. Legal? Not so sure. But can you fight it? No. Why? Because they will charge you 4x the original ticket fee to do so and once again not take evidence (photo or video) into account when doing so. They're rude to you no matter how nice you are and because they run this city and the university and most things in this place as a dictatorship, you are always wrong and they are always right - but if you want to discuss it, they will be happy to oblige in circles orally until your bill is racked up further. So I am here to let you know, NO PARKING applies to the ENTIRE city unless they have a sign (which to date I have not seen) that says YOU CAN PARK HERE. There are marked stalls everywhere with meters and parking lots that charge a few $$ by the 30 minutes. Yeah, it adds up. Quickly.
CRIME: The stats all looked like this was a safe city, but what I've found through personal experience is that the stats can only report what the police have reported and if the police aren't doing their jobs, well...it isn't reported. For instance, you report a rape...well they can downgrade that to improper conduct and brush it off. That means the city is rated safer and the victim is further victimized, because the little guy doesn't matter here (no matter how much they'd like you to believe otherwise with their "origin of liberalism" talk). There are an EXCESSIVE amount of sexual offenders of children here - I didn't realize so much when I looked it up on the sex offender database - because guess what, so many are NOT listed on there because they are MINOR offenders. BEWARE your babysitter! It's really disturbing. We run in very nice social circles and have stumbled upon 2 with close connections in our 2 years here. No thanks, Madison, I'll take gang shootings over raping my kids anyday. And they will ticket you for anything they can possibly find, this is their revenue - it is much more important to the police here than helping capture criminals, which involves use of city funds, not income for them. Scary but true, and very sad.
PEOPLE: There are some nice people here, but in general, people are mostly introverted. I think they are friendly because after being isolated so long with weather, they're just happy to see ANYONE alive. Most people are overweight, and being someone with high metabolism, I can assure you that it is not just their diet - whether it is the weather affecting metabolism and exercise I can't say, but we have gained weight here eating the same foods and amounts as we did before living here. So be prepared to buy a size or 2 larger than you are in now...despite going to the gym or whatever else you normally do to keep in shape. Rush hour sets in later here (7a-9a) and then earlier in the afternoons (3p-5p) - people are beyond laid back most of the time, to the point of laziness which is really frustrating if you need something to actually get DONE (esp. in those few sunny weeks of the year). I want to say I'm sure there are some who do their job, but in my experiences, this city is full of people who only do a half-a** job and then there are the few who pick up all the slack to make it actually function -- a city of leeches and mooches and some other VERY hard working, underpaid folks. If you are on welfare, you will do quite well here, unless Gov. Walker has his way -- which he is prob stubborn enough to get. And I should input that many people who are the friendliest here are transplants from other places, people move in and out of Madison like a revolving door. My non-Caucasian friends have commented to me on being racially profiled and treated differently, I cannot comment on this as I'm white and everyone seems ok to me - but it has really bothered them.
TAXES/MIDDLE CLASS AFFORDABILITY: I'm a fairly liberal person. I believe in a person's right to choose their partners, lifestyle, religion, fertility, etc. I also support in helping those less fortunate to get on their feet. I'm a fan of innovative projects to better the future. What I DO NOT support are free handouts and Madison seems to have an awful lot of those. They will gut the middle class with high fees so they cannot afford much while handing out free to all the low/no income people. We pay so much in taxes (our house taxes annually reach over $5k), and I don't think they are being handled well at all - especially since they are cutting our school funds right now. I know people on welfare, several I've met through mother communities, who have their kids enrolled in great classes and activities, the same ones I cannot afford because the fees are so high for me but since they are welfare, it is all free for them. They use their food stamps at whole foods (expensive) because they cannot use them all up at copps or other plain grocery stores. It's just a very sad thing, abuse of the system, but Madison makes it so easy that people cannot refuse the free handouts.
Case in point, if they can screwya here financially, they will. Don't let the friendly looks fool you, this city is full of leeches and I for one am SO glad to be leaving. PLEASE read not only the good but the bad and ugly about this city, they wear their masks well but you don't want to come into this defenseless. Especially if you are planning to work at Epic...that has it's own long line of horror stories splitting families apart. :-/ I wish you all GOOD LUCK, including those who keep fighting the good fight here with honest hard work and optimism.
See above.
As far as people who read the OP, there is some truth to what the OP speaks. I should know since I lived in Madison for six years and will never return because of the taxes, home ownership expenses (aka property taxes), etc. I am in the process of moving to a less taxed state.
Madison is a great place, but is highly taxed and the downtown area you have to pay up your ass just to park for 20 minutes.....I am sure it is worse in Chicago.
i'm new to this posting site. i read much of your post and agree with most. I'm originally from central wi. It was a smaller community, closer, still what i considered real. We had plenty of social issues to contend with, but maybe some things like gays, i found people to be more indifferent towards than places like madison. my oldest brother is gay, and while i'm not, i still wouldn't tolerate any body belittling him or beating him up over it. but on a differing note, i'm not big on liberals shoving stuff down my throat, without me being able to read the proverbial disclosure at the bottom. I prefer to learn much of what i learn thru experience. Enough of my ranting.
Parking tickets? i hate parking nazi police. Never had a problem for the first 10-12 years i lived here. then, a ticket for my truck being on the street with expired plates. then a night out with a friend, and left my truck so i wouldn't drive, drunk. cuz that is something i don't want to do, yet alone give the nazi bastard police another reason to ticket and jail me. well, $35 ticket turns into a $45 or 55 then so on, and on. If i don't pay in ten days it goes up? not everyone gets paid every week right? the reason i'm not paying is cuz i can't afford, not because i'm rebelling against the system. maybe that'll change. There are plenty of nazi crap agendas in madison. yes, there is.
Well, I don't live in Wisconsin, I am down here in sunny Florida (which I love) but my sister moved to Wisconsin many many years ago and seems to love it. She lived a number of years in Madison (as a single renter) and when I visited, these were my observations: very beautiful, a vibrant and lovely downtown with a nice mix of shops, etc. Nice scenery and neighborhoods. I was shocked, however at the high, high price of real estate and taxes there (made my supposedly expensive city of Sarasota Fl look cheap! ) It was also VERRRRRRY COLD! I was there in late April and I don't think it ever got above 28 degrees and snowing, and yet they said it was spring! I hear it is supposedly liberal there, but being from Florida it seemed like there was somewhat lack of diversity, but maybe I was missing it since I was only there for a week.
I see that Asheville was recommended to the OP - if she doesn't like the politics of Madison, I guarantee she won't like the politics of Asheville. It is kind of a small liberal city in a conservative state, Asheville goes overboard to give to the "homeless" of which there is a HUGE contingent - mostly able-bodied druggies who don't want to work. It is a real pretty city to visit, we had a second home there for 3 years, but I think it can be a difficult place to live - expensive, and a very poor economy that relies on tourism and retirees.
Good luck, OP, hope you find what you are looking for. By the way, my sis loves Wisconsin, and I think it's a beautiful state, but for me, just nice to visit - unlike my sis who likes it cold, I like my warm sun!
As far as people who read the OP, there is some truth to what the OP speaks. I should know since I lived in Madison for six years and will never return because of the taxes, home ownership expenses (aka property taxes), etc. I am in the process of moving to a less taxed state.
Madison is a great place, but is highly taxed and the downtown area you have to pay up your ass just to park for 20 minutes.....I am sure it is worse in Chicago.
A $300k home in the Madison area will probably run you $6k in property taxes. That's $500 per month! Fortunately there are many cheaper housing options available in the area - you just need to compromise neighborhood, school district, lot size, house amenitites, etc. to find them.
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) It was also VERRRRRRY COLD! I was there in late April and I don't think it ever got above 28 degrees and snowing, and yet they said it was spring! I hear it is supposedly liberal there, but being from Florida it seemed like there was somewhat lack of diversity, but maybe I was missing it since I was only there for a week.
