What do you LOVE about Milwaukee? (Madison, Wauwatosa: house, neighborhoods, buying)

[jessysunshine]

What do you love about living and raising a family in Milwaukee?

[Milwaukee City]

I only raise my dog and my wife so I would say I love it except for the winters. When my wife and I have children in 3-4yrs if we are still here in Wisconsin we have no problems raising him or her in Walker's point or Brewers Hill. She like Wauwatosa a lot b/c they have trees and I'm want to live as close to the lake as possible. So we would stay in Milwaukee and we wouldn't move out of the city when we have kids we have already discussed this. My wife is a country girl and never lived in a place larger than 10,000 people so moving to milwaukee was culture shock for her. Now she loves where we live one mile south of downtown. She is a marathon runner and triathlete so we like being close to the lakefront and using all the trails and green space available. We love that every day in summer there is something to do in Milwaukee, we value our summers a lot here so we do a lot in the summer. We love the festivals, the Milwaukee atmosphere and the array of people. People say Milwaukee is segregated and if you live anywhere else other than downtown, east side, river west, west side, walker's point, you might think so but in my neighborhood there is a lot of people from all across the board. We have two cab companies right by our house so it isn't uncommon to run into people from Somalia or Jamaica or Nigeria or Europe. I love the new Marquette interchange however they could have added more lanes. I love the unique neighborhoods that have such character. I love how every neighborhood has it's own style of house or theme. In general I love Milwaukee and everything about it.

[EnjoyEP]

I currently live in a inner ring suburb of Milwaukee, although I am still currently working in Milwaukee.

Although I have not lived my entire life in the Milwaukee area, I still lay claim to the majority of my life having lived *in* the city of Milwaukee itself.

So, if your question was related to specifically in the city of Milwaukee, I can probably allude to that. If it was (which I suspect) more in relation to the metro Milwaukee area, I surely can allude to that as well.

I have two young children who are still not of school age.

Now that the disclaimers are out of the way...

What do I LOVE about living here? And raising a family here? (Surely there are a few things I do NOT love or like about it, but that is for a different thread, and truthfully, the pros do outweigh the cons)...



-I enjoy that there is a plethora of extremely good school (private and public) options in this area for when the tykes are of age for that.

-I enjoy that this metro has many / most of the "big city" amenities that a family would typically need or desire, but yet the price tags and access make them fairly doable in comparison to other bigger, more congested cities. Yet, again, this is a fairly *big city metro*, so it doesn't lack for variety of family options.

-I enjoy that outside of a few pockets in the city of Milwaukee itself, for the most part, the heavy majority of the metro is extremely safe still. Here in Greendale, I would actually still feel very comfortable to have my little ones when they are of age walk to school, even though we aren't exactly a "country" or "rural" burb. You can be in many, many other pockets throughout this metro where this is still the case.

-I enjoy that this area still seems to value elements of tradition, traditional social and family values, etc. ...tying into this...

-While sometimes I rue the "traditional" aspect of this area (generations of folks live in this general area from birth until death which leads to some annoying things), overall, this tends to be a very strong quality for young families. From basic stuff like "school sports rivalries and spirit" tends to be good, to networks of parental social outlets, friendships, etc., are limitless. This area you'll find is like a typical upper Midwestern area - the "circles of friends" sometimes may be tough to break into, but once you do, the folks you befriend in the area will literally be your friends for life.

-The area overall is fairly unpretentious - or at least semi-unpretentious - and there is a real element still of "real life people." People tend to like to play / party hard here after working hard here, and that leads to people in general not taking life too, too seriously, and not taking themselves too, too seriously. I wouldn't describe this area as "laid back" (I lived extremely happily in New Mexico - now THAT is "laid back"), but in comparison to a bigger Midwestern city or an East Coast town, Milwaukee is fairly laid back.

-There are many outdoors activities possible here with little ones (woods / forests for that stuff, rivers/streams/lakes for that stuff - winter and summer - etc.). I am not a huge winter fan, but you *can* ice skate, build snowmen, etc. or what have you for "winter stuff", but can still do all of the warm weather outdoor stuff here with kids too. Lake Michigan is a huge natural resource not to be taken for granted either, and a huge selling point of Milwaukee - families or no.

-The park system in the area is one of the best in the nation. That's good stuff.

-Cost of housing / living is fairly reasonable still. Unlike towns on the east or west coast, owning a decent home for the family isn't out of reach of a single-income family where a spouse stays at home.


There are downsides to the area for sure. The winter weather for me is a huge one, along with summer mosquitoes, relatively high tax rates, and heating/eletric bills (due to said-winter) from hell. Overall though, there is much more good than bad, and this is a great area for families.

[Milwaukee Ronnie]

I love Milwaukee's near total lack of pretense. Other Midwestern cities are constantly trying to "prove" that they're cultured, sophisiticated and worldly. They're totally obsessed with keeping up appearances. Here in Milwaukee we race sausages around the bases during baseball games. And when an incident happened that thrust this goofy practice into the national spotlight, we didn't hem and haw about "our image" and "how this makes us look." We laughed about it. We kept it in perspective and moved on.

Milwaukee is the kind of city that, if we were more inclined to toot our own horn, we would have plenty to brag about. This is a second tier American metropolis that has a cultural scene and urban vibe that could throw down with a lot of first tier cities. But our cultural scene is authentic. It fits our history and our place in the world. It's not trying to be anything it's not.

I love Milwaukee's friendliness and sense of humor. The random friendliness that you encounter every day in this city, whether on the sidewalk, at the grocery store, at an "upscale" event or "downscale" event. I love the fact that tailgating at the ballpark is one big party where everyone's invited. I love Gallery Night, and the fact you can walk into any gallery with no intention whatsoever of buying a $40,000 painting, and no one is judging you our scoping out your "cred." Other cities are polite, but that politeness can mask a cold demeanor. Milwaukeeans are as warm as our weather is cold.

I love Milwaukee's close-knit neighborhoods, where you can really get to know people, where kids play together on the sidewalks and neighbors help neighbors dig out after a snowstorm. I love my neighborhood, where there is a place for damn near anyone, no matter what race, economic station, or lifestyle choice. And I love the fact that for all my neighborhood's diversity, we don't constantly sit around patting ourselves on the back for it. To do so would be pretentious, and to be pretentious is very un-Milwaukee-like.

Milwaukee is, in many ways, a big city that thinks it's a small town. And for all the drawbacks of this, it does lead is to believe that we can do better. In a lot of other places, crime, failing schools, poverty, etc, are tacitly accepted as part of the urban condition. Here in Milwaukee, for all of our difficulty in addressing our urban problems, we really believe in our heart of hearts that we shouldn't have big problems, because at the end of the day we're just a lovable Midwestern town.

[jjacobeclark]

Great post. I agree with everything you said. We embrace the things other cities try to distance themselves from.

Originally Posted by Milwaukee Ronnie

Other Midwestern cities are constantly trying to "prove" that they're cultured, sophisiticated and worldly. They're totally obsessed with keeping up appearances.

Madison and Minneapolis come to mind.

[karfar]

I agree about the lack of pretention except for in one area, the Third Ward. Something about the people that live in that area that I've come across that just rankles me.

[Angorlee]

What I like about Milwaukee is that it is a real down to earth blue collar city and the great thing about it is this: It is like being in a city with all the advantages of a big city and living right next to an inland sea at the same time. You can compare living by lake Michegan to living by an ocean but I lived near the Pacific Ocean and there is an aura or feeling to the ocean that is different from Michegan because the ocean has a feeling of vastness that you don't get off Lake Michegan. Large bodies of water seem to have their own feelings that emanate from them. Nevertheless I love lake Michegan.

[jjacobeclark]

Originally Posted by Angorlee

What I like about Milwaukee is that it is a real down to earth blue collar city and the great thing about it is this: It is like being in a city with all the advantages of a big city and living right next to an inland sea at the same time. You can compare living by lake Michegan to living by an ocean but I lived near the Pacific Ocean and there is an aura or feeling to the ocean that is different from Michegan because the ocean has a feeling of vastness that you don't get off Lake Michegan. Large bodies of water seem to have their own feelings that emanate from them. Nevertheless I love lake Michegan.

If you love Lake Michigan so much, can you please learn to spell it correctly? M-I-C-H-I-G-A-N that spells Michigan.

[andrw313]

Originally Posted by Milwaukee Ronnie

I love Milwaukee's near total lack of pretense. Other Midwestern cities are constantly trying to "prove" that they're cultured, sophisiticated and worldly. They're totally obsessed with keeping up appearances. .

I couldn't agree more with this. Not only do other Midwestern cities do this but try the Northeast!!! Talk about materialistic. I respect the people in Milwaukee that live within their means and are perfectly content to do so! Having grown up here and been educated on the East Coast, I can say this is one of the most drastic differences I noticed. Growing up I resented Chicago for these reasons but I love Chicago when compared to the likes of NYC as well as CT, NJ, etc.