Moving to Wisconsin, but don't know where to live! (Milwaukee: for sale, houses)

[MunaCat]

Hi everyone,
We are moving to Wisconsin at the beginning of November, but the requirements of my fiance's job are rather odd. We are not allowed to live in Madison, Green Bay, or Milwaukee...but we can have our pick of anyplace else. It's a home-based office with travel throughout the state. Naturally, this is a bit overwhelming!

I would appreciate your advice on any of the following towns/cities. Northern Wisconsin is beautiful, but probably should stick to lower regions.

My requirements are: must be near (short driving or walking distance) a university/college; decent downtown (coffee shop, please); places to live downtown. No kids yet, so no worries about the school system.

Whaddya think of:
Baraboo
Stevens Point
Portage
Whitewater
Chippewa Falls
Ripon
Kenosha

Thanks!

[dreamhunter65]

Chippewa Falls/Eau Claire area is good but sounds like if doing alot of travel may want to centralize more so that may be Stevens Point.

[Adream]

No brainer - I'd live in Appleton.

[escapetacoma]

Originally Posted by MunaCat

My requirements are: must be near (short driving or walking distance) a university/college; decent downtown (coffee shop, please); places to live downtown. No kids yet, so no worries about the school system.

We're new here so I can't comment on most of those but having just spent some time in Portage I'd say it really doesn't qualify for having a decent downtown

We like Waupun but it's downtown is no great shakes either. Fond du Lac's downtown was much nicer. Definitely not impressed with Appleton's.

I've heard good things about Baraboo but we haven't made it out there yet.

[MunaCat]

Escapetacoma: you said the Portage downtown wasn't great. Why was that? (if you remember

[escapetacoma]

Originally Posted by MunaCat

Escapetacoma: you said the Portage downtown wasn't great. Why was that? (if you remember

Rundown, depressed and a more than a bit shabby. I find the historical aspect of the area interesting so we'll go back at some point, but the downtown area was mostly just vacant storefronts, with many of the ones that weren't vacant for sale.

To be honest that's what has caught our eyes more than anything about the smaller, and even some larger (e.g. Appleton), cities around here. We just got back from a walk in Waupun and we were both thinking that if the downtown had a bit more life and fewer vacant storefronts this would go from a nice place to live to a great place to live. Many of the businesses have moved out to strip malls away from the downtown area - one of the reasons I disliked Appleton so much was that the strip mall area reminded me too much of Tukwilla, Washington

One other, rather smaller town, that we've visited had a pleasant little downtown area: Fox Lake. Beaver Dam's downtown wasn't too bad but I haven't gotten a good feel for the city as a whole yet.

[adam76]

[quote=MunaCat;1543307

Whaddya think of:
Baraboo
Stevens Point
Portage
Whitewater
Chippewa Falls
Ripon
Kenosha

Thanks![/QUOTE]

Interesting list here... what about Wausau? That is central like Stevens Point or Portage but a little bigger for some of the city services you may want. Other than that I'd probably try to get around the Fox Valley. Perhaps Appleton... Fond du Lac is a decent place as well. La Crosse would also have some of the things you are looking for, but it is not very central if you have to travel a lot.

[MunaCat]

[quote=escapetacoma;1546232]Rundown, depressed and a more than a bit shabby. I find the historical aspect of the area interesting so we'll go back at some point, but the downtown area was mostly just vacant storefronts, with many of the ones that weren't vacant for sale.


Just curious--when were you in Portage? My fiance's a bit obsessed with going there (he's into historic preservation), even though neither of us have visited. It's driving me nuts! I've been through Appleton, and Oshkosh (which I liked better than sprawly Appleton). However, I've been reading about the bad water quality of that region, which is kinda surprising...

Stevens Point...sounds kind of interesting....

[berries]

watch out around point especially plover. Much of the water is undrinkable due to nitrates from the potato fields. If your a woman of chilbearing age or have children it is bad. If your a guy you can get away with it but would highly reccomend a reverse osmosis water system intalled if you have your own well in any of these areas

[escapetacoma]

Originally Posted by MunaCat

Just curious--when were you in Portage? My fiance's a bit obsessed with going there (he's into historic preservation), even though neither of us have visited. It's driving me nuts!

We were there about 2 months ago. We were just checking things out since we're new in the area and we enjoy browsing downtowns. Not this one, though there was a pretty good candy store

We're not really into Historic Preservation but we are into old houses and cool old buildings (you can see pictures of our house here:

)

Fond du Lac has some great old houses as does Beaver Dam. Both also have some pretty cool older commercial buildings. Really each of the towns/cities around here has something along these lines to recommend itself, though.

I've been through Appleton, and Oshkosh (which I liked better than sprawly Appleton).

I'd definitely take Oshkosh over Appleton.