fitchburg? (Milwaukee, Madison, Verona: apartment, rental, high crime)

[kfierce]

what is the fitchburg area like?

[Megan1967]

Kind of sprawling. It has several nice developments, but it isn't really a "town" per say. More or less a part of Madison with it's own government. I think it is rather expensive, but others have disagreed with me on this forum. What is you budget for housing?

[kfierce]

we want to rent 1000.00 or less (house)

[Megan1967]

I'm not as familiar with the cost of renting a house as with the cost of renting an apartment, but I think you may be okay. Two bedrooms start at about $790 (but those are hard to find) so I would think you could get a small home for $1000. Are you open to duplexes? There are a ton of those in Fitchburg. It looks like duplexes/townhouses are around $875 - $1000.

Check out startrenting.com.

[Megan1967]

Oh, and be careful. Fitchburg is the Southside, but so is the Allied Drive area. Very poor, high crime rate.

[kfierce]

what area would you suggest?

[Megan1967]

I don't know the exact boundaries, but the area north of the rail road tracks (and Dunns Marsh), east of Verona Road and west of Seminole hwy is sketchy.

There is some nice rental housing right off County PD (also known as McKee Road). It is on the corner of Seminole Highway and McKee. I've seen units on Viroqua, but they weren't houses or even duplexes. They were townhouses, but very nice.

I wish I knew the area better. Hopefully someone else will chime in.

[ostrichrider]

Basically, the further out in Fitchburg you go, the nicer it gets. The areas around the beltline are to be avoided at all costs.

Look on Google Maps. Definitely stay away from the Marlboro Park area, and the Arbor Hills Greenway and Aldo Leopold Park areas (east of Marlboro). Those areas are very high crime, i.e. gangs, drugs, shootings.

South of McKee road is much better.

But, do you really want to live in Fitchburg? All it is some strip malls, chain restaurants, and housing developments (cookie cutter). There is no downtown or center, if you want to do anything ever, you'll be driving in to Madison.

[kfierce]

i am open to any area

[transambulance]

I wouldn't recommend Fitchburg to anyone who automatically equates black people with crime, but the crime in Fitchburg is blown way out of proportion; what makes Madison's sheltered lily-white racists uneasy is that Fitchburg has an ever-increasing number of blue-collar black families from Chicago. The vast majority are working families with children who come to Madison because it's cheap and safe. My wife had a beautiful, affordable place in Fitchburg that she loved, but she's from the south side of Milwaukee, so she knows the difference between real gangs (there aren't any) and the bored wannabe kids who freak out the white-flight crowd.

That said, Fitchburg is a boring place that's set up for working and raising a family.