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I am from the West Indies and have lived in NE Wisconsin since I came he 4 years ago. My husband is white and I am black and we have 2 black teen age daughters. I want to relocate to a more diverse place in Wisconsin to get away from the stares and looks. Any ideas? Looking for good school, jobs etc.
Madison would be fine for this, I see lots of interracial couples around I don't think you'd ever get odd stares from anyone. I live Downtown though so I don't know what the suburbs are like.
This is in response to posts about Madison not being friendly. I moved here 7 years ago, my partner couldn't leave, so after a long distance relationship, I came on up. Had no idea. Chicago is friendlier...people think I'm joking when I say it, but it's true. I still feel like an outsider. I earn less, so I can do less. I was an earthy, crunchy organic recycler years before it was trendy, so I thought Madison would be perfect for me...but I'm not pretentious about it, nor elitist about it, and Madison seems to be. I love my dear husband very much, but if we were to part, I'd be outta here faster than the ink could dry on divorce papers. Don't get me wrong, it's a lovely small city, with lots to offer...if you can afford it. (I did fine as a single mom in Chicago, can't earn what I used to down there, so I'm back in school, etc).
I could go on and on, I've done so in my head over and over...about the things that drive me nuts about Madison, for those who love it, it's a great place to be...great restaurants, great 'local' movement (but like another poster...um woo hoo folks, there are things in the rest of the world too!). Maybe if I was a jock type or gay I'd do better here? I don't know. I'm not biking everywhere (but if I did I'd obey the freaking traffic signals, unlike so many idiots whom I've almost hit from time to time running stop signs on their cycles...less coffee, slightly distracted and you'd be dead jerk!), maybe if I was, I'd be happier here?
I've tried, once joined a mom's meetup group...full of either network marketers wanting fresh meet to sell to, and people from somewhere else, who were having a very hard time meeting friendly people here...I also had a client for a short time, she was a therapist from Cali, her main client base? Counseling people having relocation issues in Madison...if you feel lost here, you are not alone...I've heard Minnesota is worse BTW.
Long and short of it, if I could have a do over, I'd never move here.
My background: I moved to Madison about two years ago with my fiance. She is from Wisconsin but not from Madison. I am from Iowa originally. I have lived a couple different places. That being told, here are my two cents (or more) on Madison:
I think Madison is a good mid sized city and has several nice things going for it, but it is really hard to break into socially and possibly work wise. I have hard a very hard time finding full time employment and therefore went back to school. If you are in the IT field (software development esp.) or healthcare sector there will be lots of opportunities. However, if you are not it can be very hard to get a job as others have mentioned due to a highly educated workforce and new entries every semester from the UW and other local schools.
Also, the cost of living here is extremely high compared to other mid sized and smaller cities. The jobs do not pay nearly as well. I am in accounting now(was in journalism) and most of the jobs I have found are in the 30-35K range while many homes here (3 or 4 bedroom 2000 ish sq. ft.) are around the 300K range. Even the lower end of homes are around 200K. Again, if you are in tech or healthcare the jobs pay much better and therefore you can afford the Madison area.
There is a lot to do here though. One of the best restaurant scenes in the midwest, and lots of sports and activities going on all the time. The people here are nice but don't really want or need your friendship. It can be tough. If you aren't a Packer, Badger, or Brewer fan then forget it haha. I was pretty shocked at many people here grew up here and are from the Madison area. Not as transient as I thought or had hoped. As has been said, they really don't think anything else exists outside Wisconsin.
If you like breweries and beer, well then Madison is for you. Tons of great local brews and pubs. However, people here tend to drink a lot and often. It was startling to me at first. I enjoy the occasional beer, don't get me wrong, but apparently getting highly intoxicated here (and driving too) is somewhat acceptable for otherwise responsible adults here.
Overall, it's not too bad, but I don't plan on living here forever. It's nice and has lots to offer, but only if you become a Wisconsinite. I'm not cheesy or drunk enough to fully accept!
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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Maybe things have changed, but I found Madison to be one of the most affordable places compared to salaries (I could live along on an entry level job right out of college, and that is entry level environmental non profit work) and incredibly easy to make friends. How everything focused on going out for beers socially did take some getting used to, for sure. But, I love sports, like beer, love cheese and I made the best friends of my life. I grew up in Boston, so the pace took some getting used to, but I still think it is my favorite city.
Some of this might be when I moved though. I moved there at 23. If I moved there in my 30s it would have likely been totally different.
@ Chelito and MidwesternBookWorm especially: thanks for all the comments. You've pretty much described my experience with Madison. I chalk a LOT of it up to sports.... I'm really not interested in sports, and I don't see a lot of social activity going on in Madison that's not sports-related. (Although I do love the beer!) Even at my job (I've worked in a couple of restaurants downtown), it's amazing how sports determines whether I make money on any given day.... the Packers are playing, so NOBODY comes out. Or... wait.... the Packers are playing, so EVERYBODY comes out. Badger game? Streets are empty in a city of 250,000 people for the duration of the game. In small college towns like Chapel Hill and Bloomington, IN (where I'd lived before), I can totally understand this.... but I dunno, I guess I was expecting more to be going on in Madison.
I'd been here as a tourist several times before and always liked the area, but I guess living here is something different entirely.
I'd visited Austin, TX, over the summer and was thinking about moving there, but also thought it was probably kind of hyped-up. And the prospect of 90-degree weather in November just didn't excite me (for the record, I love winter, up to a point.... one reason why I was tired of living in North Carolina was the lack of any real dynamism in the seasons.... sounds like a weird reason to move somewhere or leave, but it's true.... as an outdoorsy person, life down South in the winter and summer just doesn't appeal to me.... Wisconsin is a place where, stereotypes about the weather aside, you can actually get out and do things for most of the year....) Whatever. I'd read something about how Madison would be as popular as Austin if it wasn't for the Wisconsin winters, and I guess maybe that's what tipped me in favor of coming up here. (Again, like I said, it wasn't like I'd never been here before, but visiting a place and living there aren't the same thing.)
I guess there's something really off-the-mark about the statement that "Madison would be Austin" if it wasn't for the weather.... come on! People are moving to Austin because **people are moving to Austin**. I dunno, I haven't really worked out the logic of it. I can totally see Austin and Portland burning out and gentrifying (they're already talking about how Louisville and Pittsburgh are going to be the next hip, trendy towns, because they're cheap and mostly undiscovered.... I spent some time in Louisville and can definitely see that happening....) I guess one of the things that appeal to people about these trendy towns like Portland and Austin (and even the Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill area, where I lived for 6 years) isn't just all the entertainment stuff going on there (actually, I thought Chapel Hill in itself, as a town, was SUPER boring), or the idea that "wow those are cool towns," it's the fact that there's a ton of new people moving there ALL THE TIME, from all over the US, and that creates a really interesting vibe. It's like going down the Oregon Trail or something.... a lot of really exciting adventurous people just pick up and move, set out for something new where the other adventurous people are going. And they go there together, and that's what creates the cool vibe. I wasn't really expecting Madison to be on a level with Portland or Austin (even though, actually, something about the trendiness and faddishness of those towns kind of turned me away).
I guess my big assumption was that with a major school like the University of Wisconsin right in the middle of Madison, there would be a bunch of people here from other places. My experience with towns like Bloomington, IN, and Chapel Hill led me to believe that big universities attract a lot of outsiders. I guess that's just not really true of UW? Or that you have to go to school here to really interact with any of those "newcomers"? I dunno, there's some weird variables here, but it just seems like a strange situation to me, something I hadn't really encountered before in other towns, or expected in Madison.
The scary thing about racism in Wisconsin (and I guess I'll just go ahead and call it racism, because let's be honest, that's what it is... not some strange spin-off of "Midwestern niceness" or lack of "openness")... the scary thing is that I've sometimes found myself acting differently around non-whites since I moved here. I can't speak for the entire South, but in my experience with North Carolina (for all its enormous history of racism) black people and Hispanics are not that marginalized. There's a TON of interaction between people of all types. Blacks and whites have been interacting side-by-side for centuries down there, not always in a really positive way, but there's always been some kind of communication. Midwesterners assume that blacks and whites down South have always been hostile, and that's just not true. In Madison, I get the impression that blacks and Hispanics are just these people that you kind of look right through. I catch myself doing it sometimes now, which I find scary. And it's kind of a mutual thing. I might not find myself saying hello to black people on the sidewalk much anymore, but that's partly because I don't get much friendly vibe back from them. It's not exactly hostility on anybody's part. It's just a coldness and reserve that I rarely saw much of down South (I can think of places that were exceptions, but that was my own general experience.)
When I read that a lot of black people who live in Madison came here because they got gentrified out of the South Side of Chicago, that doesn't make me feel any better about the Midwest, unfortunately.
Honestly, I love enough things about the Midwest to keep me in the general area, and I might move over to Minneapolis in the spring. (I know that city has it's own set of weird problems, but I feel like there's trade-offs, probably not so insular.) Don't really have anything or anybody to keep me attached, and haven't really invested too much in Madison yet..... kind of a weird situation to be in for a dude in his early 30's to be in. (My hometown in Indiana not being an exciting option.... a place as alien to me as anywhere.) Still, it was interesting to check out the Minneapolis forum on this website and see some of the same kind of comments (about the flip-side of "Minnesota nice" and all that kind of stuff....)
Thanks for all the input!
Minneapolis will probably be closer to what you are looking for and inter-racial couples don't even raise an eyebrow there..even in nearby suburbs (maybe in exurbs now and then). Minneapolis has its chain of lakes with trails and Madison's lakes are beautiful, too...probably the greatest similarity between the two and having the largest university in each state. Don't forget the Mississippi River and not far to the east enjoy the gorgeous St. Croix River in nearby Stillwater on the border of the two states.
I visited Minnesota in 2005 and grew up there. I hopped across the border into Wisconsin to visit an aunt and cousin for a few days. The people on the Wisconsin side seemed more reserved, but that is a bit of apples/oranges comparison of the Twin Cities region to smaller towns in western WI.
Anyways, I would recommend Minneapolis because you said you were there briefly with a girlfriend and did not encounter this problem to the same extent as Madison.
There are no guarantees and some conversations start with "What is wrong with those Vikings (substitute Twins in summer)! LOL! They will talk about a lot of other things, too.
Minneapolis will have more to offer and you will find more people from other places.
One aspect of towns like Madison (and Austin, Ann Arbor) is that they need to work on their diversity. You pick any big city in the South, Atlanta/Raleigh/Houston, they have amazing diversity and amazing food. The Latino and Hispanic population there are the new majority. Madison, on the other hand, is quite sterile and provincial. When other cities in this country have changed so much, midwesterners still have this old image of the South and an illusion of itself. The upper midwest is one of the least ethnically diverse places in the U.S. Chicago and the Twin Cities are 100 times better than Madison. Wonderful food, variety, differing viewpoints, you name it.
The story of Madison and Austin is a story of white people fearful of difference gathering together so that they share their own culture and viewpoints, while they simultaneously have the luxury to give lip service to people of color they moved away from.
One aspect of towns like Madison (and Austin, Ann Arbor) is that they need to work on their diversity. You pick any big city in the South, Atlanta/Raleigh/Houston, they have amazing diversity and amazing food. The Latino and Hispanic population there are the new majority. Madison, on the other hand, is quite sterile and provincial. When other cities in this country have changed so much, midwesterners still have this old image of the South and an illusion of itself. The upper midwest is one of the least ethnically diverse places in the U.S. Chicago and the Twin Cities are 100 times better than Madison. Wonderful food, variety, differing viewpoints, you name it.
The story of Madison and Austin is a story of white people fearful of difference gathering together so that they share their own culture and viewpoints, while they simultaneously have the luxury to give lip service to people of color they moved away from.
Another day, another stereotypical tirade...
So all big cities rule and Madison sucks because it isn't one. And it's the city's fault it wasn't settled over 100 years ago by more ethnically diverse pioneers. And it's the city and the current white majority of residents' fault that there aren't more minorities living here. And it's Madison's fault that it is geographically located in a traditionally non-diverse area of the country. Got it! Thanks for explaining that.
Madison doesn't have racism issues like more conservative areas do (yes,*gasp*, like the south). Madison is very progressive and welcoming of minorities...to the point where it practically trips over itself to show it. Off putting and somewhat misguided yes, but I don't think there is any ill will or evil, alterior motive in said disposition. Of course, there is condesencion and a lack of understanding, but that is more likely due to the cacoon of isolation Madison has woven itself into. It turns many people off, minorities included. In Madison, it's more about politics-and politics usually means status quo for the people in charge. All the diversity you rave about in Raleigh and the new south is merely the demographic revolution of the country. It's happening everywhere. Even here, just in smaller numbers, because of the reasons already stated. By sheer number, minorities are achieving more power in bigger cities and conservative areas, again, like the south. It isn't because there are more enlightened white people there or due to an Anglo population that was historically exposed to many different races that minorities have flocked to big cities or the new South. They want lower taxes, jobs and warmer weather like most people in general.
Madison isn't everyone's cup of tea...and it certainly isn't a racial plurality. It is a small Midwestern city, why would you expect it to compare to the largest and most diverse metropolitan areas of the country?
The bottom line is, Madison and it's residents are pretty transparent and although you may not agree with the prevailing local mindset, politics or beliefs, the city consistently ranks high in quality of life issues, job creation, good health care, low unemployment and is clean and safe overall. Those are good enough reasons for plenty of people to stay living or relocate here. And Madison isn't looking for massive growth, it's about quality over quantity...and it doesn't strive to be a major city either. It basically embraces what it is....and the only frustration seems to be from people like you, because Madison hasn't emulated other sprawling sunbelt cities. Sucks for you.
The bottom line is, Madison and it's residents are pretty transparent and although you may not agree with the prevailing local mindset, politics or beliefs, the city consistently ranks high in quality of life issues, job creation, good health care, low unemployment and is clean and safe overall. Those are good enough reasons for plenty of people to stay living or relocate here. And Madison isn't looking for massive growth, it's about quality over quantity...and it doesn't strive to be a major city either. It basically embraces what it is....and the only frustration seems to be from people like you, because Madison hasn't emulated other sprawling sunbelt cities. Sucks for you.
I didn't mention the "sprawling" part of it. Seems like your assumption. The stuff I mentioned is not Madison's fault, but that doesn't meant that it cannot be pointed out. I don't have particular opinions about sprawling. But I might as well point out that a lot of minorities, especially those from lower-middle-socio-economic backgrounds, prefer suburbs because of low tax, cheaper housing costs, and a better environment to raise their family. The vast majority of the fastest growing population in the U.S. have solid family values, prefer multiple kids and large families. Dense urban areas don't work well with this future dominant demographic group. Many of them are also quite industrious, such as high-skill immigrants, who came here for a high-paying job at a multi-national or a research lab. They are quite a mobile population, thus suburbs and their low taxes enable these folks to retain to the wealth they have accumulated. The demographic revolution in the U.S. is an economic revolution, by integrating world human resources and bringing in low-cost labor to reduce production cost and increase productivity.
There is nothing wrong if Madison suits the taste of white liberal babyboomers, generation Xers, and millennials. The media is dominated by stories about white liberals' life choices, and only occasionally about ethnic minorities' lifestyles. However, just know that in 30 years they are going to be the minority of this country and much less well to do, and their tastes in lifestyle and urban planning will no longer dominate our national discourse. Minorities, by contrast, are focused on getting ahead because they never had the luxury and they know they want to be affluent.
Location: RI, MA, VT, WI, IL, CA, IN (that one sucked), KY
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What would you have Madison change? It can't force people to move there. A high quality of life, jobs (jobs and more jobs), good education, etc generally attracts people. What should it do (and why should it do it?) to try to attract specific demographics? Madison isn't a dense urban area and there are tons of suburbs with even less density; I'm really missing the issue.
What would you have Madison change? It can't force people to move there. A high quality of life, jobs (jobs and more jobs), good education, etc generally attracts people. What should it do (and why should it do it?) to try to attract specific demographics? Madison isn't a dense urban area and there are tons of suburbs with even less density; I'm really missing the issue.
Madison doesn't have to change, nor is it able to change. People would just pick and choose. Madison's identity is often the idea of dense urbanity, counterculture, etc. That doesn't mean that it isn't a normal city. Every city is normal. It has plenty of suburbs. If there are jobs, diversity will come. The COL is quite reasonable and the atmosphere is not necessarily that hostile to new comers. The key is JOBS, JOBS, JOBS. Art and culture do attract people to move, but they often can't sustain it. It's jobs that ultimately create a robust economic engine. If Madison truly wants to diversify and it should, it ironically needs to work on its conformist aspects of economics rather than the weird aspects. Weird and prosperous places all share one secret: Economically, they are conformist to their soul.
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Been here 7 years, still feel like an outsider
