What Should Milwaukee do to Grow? (Madison, Kenosha: renters, neighborhood, school district)

[Milwaukee City]

What do you think Milwaukee needs to become more relevant on a national level or bigger? more people means more money is available to support more recreational things such as museums and art gallery's and sporting events. Should Milwaukee annex suburbs such as west milwaukee or st.francis to boost populations? How about new suburbs being created or more freeways to encourage sprawl or metro growth? What could Milwaukee do to become more of a draw for people to move here? How about a natioonal TV station like WGN that would serve as advertisment for the city like wgn does for Chicago.

Jobs? Political Leadership? Educational system upgrade? more colleges?

What would you do?

[Ron Burgundy]

Milwaukee can't just annex the suburbs without their consent, right? South Milwaukee would be better served merging with West Allis, but I'm not sure WA would appreciate their addition to the tax burden. Maybe they'd consider merging w/ Milwaukee, but the time for that to happen was when the MPS was better run. If WA/WM school district slides, maybe Milwaukee will seem like a more enticing option.

To get to that next level, Milwaukee should not be encouraging freeway sprawl. That only furthers the divide between the core and the exurbs. The region will only be as strong as it's core. Encouraging sprawl is a disincentive to maintaining the heart of the region.

Promote regional rail transit and a working connection with Chicago. Time to enter the 21st century, and preferably without the kicking and screaming.

Clean up the schools. Hopefully the regime change can have an identical impact that the police department did in bringing in Flynn. Better schools keeps the middle class from bolting to suburbia. Doesn't really affect the rich (can afford to go private) or the poor (can't afford to leave). A stronger middle class is vital to the survival and growth of any city.

Encourage neighborhood improvement projects. Keeping streets clean can go a long way towards keeping them safe and livable.

Rein in the slumlords. Something has to be done to get the renters to feel more accountable to their neighborhood. This may or may not help, but I don't see how it could hurt.

Move Summerfest to the Menomonee Valley and further develop the land on the lake there. Ditto to the south shore.

DO NOT privatize the waterworks as a quick fix to the upcoming budget shortfall. If water is indeed the technology of Milwaukee's future, how does pawning off the rights to their most precious and abundant resource make any sense.

Embrace progress. Whether or not that can happen on the county level with leadership as is (this is referring to both Walker AND Holloway) is up in the air.

Unfortunately, I feel the best chance for Milwaukee to grow was hindered long ago when the state legislature enacted laws that essentially blocked Milwaukee from annexing Oak Creek, thus ending any chance at growing any bigger land-mass wise.

[Milwaukee City]

I agree with the Oak Creek thing. Milwaukee should annex South Milw and Cudahy and St.Francis, Franklin, greenfield as well. Then Caledonia should be one big suburb since every one already thinks everything south of Oak Creek is Caledonia anyways.

[BrianPK]

Start filling in Lake michigan. Free land until we hit the other shore.

[Milwaukee City]

Originally Posted by BrianPK

Start filling in Lake michigan. Free land until we hit the other shore.

Ha as long as it's Milwaukee land.

[south-to-west]

First of all, Milwaukee should just be itself.

But all in all, Milwaukee should focus on integrating its regional economy with Chicago's regional economy--thus strengthening the megaregion. Investments in infrastructure such as improvements to the already-used Hiawatha line, extending Metra commuter rail to Milwaukee in order to better connect it with Chicago's northern suburbs, and enhancing I-94 are all essential steps in strengthening the infrastructure linking both of the cities. Positioning Mitchell Field so that it can attract a hub of a major airline and promoting it as the third airport in the Milwaukee-Chicago region could also be useful in attracting business.

Overall, tying in to Chicago's economy will:

• Attract Chicago-based companies to open satellite offices and facilities.
• Allows the Chicagoland market to become more accessible to Milwaukee-based businesses and industries.
• Capture a portion of freight traffic that uses the Chicagoland area as an important point of origin and destination in the distribution of goods and services throughout the Midwest.
• Attract major conventions and events that would be drawn to the region's central location in relation to the rest of the country.
• Position Milwaukee's lake port and airport as ideal ports of entry and distribution in regards to trade with Canada, which is bolstered by NAFTA.
• Enhance Milwaukee's existing institutions of higher learning as they become more accessible to urban areas to the south.
• Capture a portion of the tourism that Chicago attracts in that tourists would be able to easily make daytrips to Milwaukee via rail or intercity motorcoach.

[Milwaukee City]

Originally Posted by south-to-west

First of all, Milwaukee should just be itself.

But all in all, Milwaukee should focus on integrating its regional economy with Chicago's regional economy

About time!!!!

Nothing against madison but I get sick and tired of our politicians saying we need to team up with madison and get rail and other things going between the two cities, maybe be true to a certain extent. But HELLO???? 3rd largest city only 30min south, how about piggybacking off of the Chicagoland area.

It's like picking a tag team wrestler and you can chose the Hulk Hogan or The Rockers(see below)

[south-to-west]

Originally Posted by Milwaukee City

About time!!!!

Nothing against madison but I get sick and tired of our politicians saying we need to team up with madison and get rail and other things going between the two cities, maybe be true to a certain extent. But HELLO???? 3rd largest city only 30min south, how about piggybacking off of the Chicagoland area.

It's like picking a tag team wrestler and you can chose the Hulk Hogan or The Rockers(see below)

ROTFLMAO!!! That's just too much...

Anyways I've always been more partial to the British Bulldogs from the old WWF myself.

[Milwaukee City]

Study ranks Kenosha area among top 50 high-tech economies - JSOnline

It's all b/c of Chicago!!!

[south-to-west]

Originally Posted by Milwaukee City

Study ranks Kenosha area among top 50 high-tech economies - JSOnline

It's all b/c of Chicago!!!

You're right, my friend. And there's no reason why the Milwaukee-Chicago corridor can't be a major hub for tech and R&D. Facilitating better connectivity between prominent universities such as Northwestern, DePaul, IIT, UIC, UWM, Marquette, MSOE, UW Parkside, UW Whitewater, and even UW Madison would be an important step.