Whats Milwaukee Like (Waukesha, La Crosse, Wauwatosa: rent, condo, crime rate)

[CTownNative]

What are the schools,crime,houses,and people like in Milwakee?

[Robert Girelli]

Milwaukee is one of the worst cities in the Midwest. The people in MKE are friendly, but people get shot and killed on a daily basis. Housing is good, unless you have $$$$, otherwise you're in trouble. Don't move to MKE, it's a BAD city!

[illwauk]

Originally Posted by Robert Girelli

Milwaukee is one of the worst cities in the Midwest. The people in MKE are friendly, but people get shot and killed on a daily basis. Housing is good, unless you have $$$$, otherwise you're in trouble. Don't move to MKE, it's a BAD city!

Funny... I grew up in that oh-so dreaded North Side ghetto and never had any problems. Besides, name one large city in the US that doesn't have problems with crime and poverty (sorry, Salt Lake City doesn't count)...

[GreggB]

No Crime in Salt Lke City You say. Seems to me that recently some nutbag went postal in a mall there and shot and killed quite a few folks. He wasn't a Mormon though. Crime is and has been on the rise in Mikwaukee. Some parts of the city relatively safe and nice. Others parts mirror a third world type environment. Just like most major cities.

[Mohawk41]

Originally Posted by Robert Girelli

Milwaukee is one of the worst cities in the Midwest. The people in MKE are friendly, but people get shot and killed on a daily basis. Housing is good, unless you have $$$$, otherwise you're in trouble. Don't move to MKE, it's a BAD city!

I find it strange that when ever people post questions about Milwaukee, the answers immediately focus on the worst parts of town, as if anyone wanted to relocate there. I don't know if most people would agree but I think of Milwaukee as the entire metro area, not just the area within the Milwaukee city limits. After all, if you live here you will find yourself in many different communities every day. You might live in New Berlin, work in Milwaukee, shop in Wauwatosa, dine in Brookfield, visit friends in Glendale, play golf in South Milwaukee etc, etc. Actually, the only part of the metro area that I never go and never will is the inner core of Milwaukee. There is nothing to go there for. For most Milwaukeans it's an area that simply isn't a part of their life. What about all the daily shootings in Hales Corners? Oh, there weren't any. What about St. Francis? Oh, none there either. How about Menominee Falls? Zip. The vast majority of the Milwaukee metro area is clean, safe and attractive with decent schools and affordable houses. If you want to find out how affordable, try looking 90 miles south of us where a small 2-bedroom condo goes for 450k. Except for the weather and property taxes, I think the Milwaukee area is a great place to live.

[illwauk]

Originally Posted by Mohawk41

I find it strange that when ever people post questions about Milwaukee, the answers immediately focus on the worst parts of town, as if anyone wanted to relocate there. I don't know if most people would agree but I think of Milwaukee as the entire metro area, not just the area within the Milwaukee city limits.

Ummm... the suburbs are NOT Milwaukee. And believe it or not, there are plenty of good places in the ACTUAL CITY to raise families even in that oh-so dreaded North Side ghetto and that oh-so dreaded South Side barrio. I grew up on the North Side near 19th & State and I've never been shot, robbed, beaten, etc. Oh... and I'm white which by the logic of most of this community means that I should have been a lightning rod for racially motivated attacks by those mean and scary Blacks on a daily basis.

Although I wouldn't move there now... not because I think it's too "rough" of an area, but because it's being overrun by Marquette students who have daddy paying for their tuition, rent and cars. After graduation, if I don't end up on the East Coast I'd be more than happy to settle either on the North Side or Riverwest, both of which have progressive, diverse populations.

Of course, if you're one of those people who automatically assumes brown people = crime, then you probably wouldn't like Milwaukee and would rather leach off of it from a white-bred, leave-it-to-beaver town like Brookfield or Waukesha. Just don't say "I didn't think that could happen here) when one of those angsty white kids shoots up their high school as a revolt to fact that mommy and daddy put their careers ahead of actually giving two s**ts about their kid.

[GreggB]

I remember back some years when New York City had the worst crime rate in the nation. It is now the SAFEST big city to live in. Lots of factors as to why that turned around. Lived in Milwaukee in the 50s and 60s-didn't even lock our doors at night, so my folks tell me. Lived in the city-not in a burb. Milwaukee crime has been rising steadily. A lot of that has to do with so many folks fleeing to a "Better Life" in the burbs and leaving the inner parts of the city to decay. Milwaukee is starting to Re-Invent itself in some areas. Riverwest, East Side, Old Third ward to name a few. If I ever moved back to Wi (which I won't), other than La Crosse, I would choose Milwaukee to live in. I would venture to say that the "Good" areas are far more widespread than the "Bad" areas. Hopefully at some point the crime in Milwaukee will go on the downslide too. Crime, sadly, has reared it's ugly head in so many of our nations cities. Big and Small. And the fact of the matter is, is that so much of it is tied to drugs.

[illwauk]

Then maybe we need to question how all these foreign-grown drugs are getting into neighborhoods where no one owns an airplane.

[EnjoyEP]

Originally Posted by illwauk

Funny... I grew up in that oh-so dreaded North Side ghetto and never had any problems.

Well, then you were fortunate. Unfortunately for many, many others in these areas of Milwaukee, the same is not true...read this article, written even by Mr. Eugene Kane -

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=576240

Sorry, even when Kane is reporting the severe nature of crime in these areas, and he is quoting local residents as admitting how high crime is, etc., it is just silly to lamblast folks as being racist for wishing to live / raise kids, in stastistically-safe neighborhoods where they do not have to worry about being gunned down just because they drove in the wrong neighborhood.

[illwauk]

Again, people unfamiliar with the area get the facts right, but the context wrong.

Murders in inner-cities happen for specific reasons (one guy owes another money (usually over drugs)... one guy slept with another guy's girl, etc.). No one... and I repeat NO ONE gets shot just because they didn't "stay in their place." I always used to laugh when students at UWM told me they didn't go past MLK because of a supposed unwritten rule that white people weren't allowed there.

Do innocent bystanders sometimes get shot? Unfortunatley, yes. But innocent people get shot and killed every year during hunting season as well, and no one ever says "don't go into the northwoods... it's dangerous there." And people always laugh at me when I say I wouldn't move to the suburbs because I don't want my kids to get caught up in another Columbine (which unlike typical inner-city murders... these kids REALLY DID die because they were in the "wrong place at the wrong time"... those boys didn't care who they killed). But whenever that, or any other murder happens in the suburbs, it gets explained away by the locals who ALWAYS say "that sort of thing doesn't usually happen here."

Which begs the question... where does that sort of thing "usually" happen? The school shootings have all been in suburbs, and contrary to popular belief most people who grow up in the inner city do so without having been a victim of a crime. Although, most of them at least know of someone who has, the idea that inner-city muders are some kind of norm is extremely racist, classist and usually perpetuated by people who have no f***in' clue about the area.