Moving back to Madison, how has it changed? (Sun Prairie, Middleton: 2015, rent)

[Master Jay]

timberline742, have a great weekend!

[Allan Trafton]

Madison is a safe city. Of course it has it’s incidents, but cmon. Compared to other cities I have visited and lived in, it might as well be Mayberry from the Andy Griffith show.

[EastViaWest]

Thanks for sharing your experiences! Immature behaviors are rampant across the US currently, so I’m not really interested in focusing on the handful of drama but moreso the overall big picture of the area.

We also looked at Waunakee but I feared it may be too much like Middleton from what I had read elsewhere, which is a little too sterile for our tastes. Are there other Madison suburbs you’d recommend?

[EastViaWest]

The protests and meth issues are nationwide, even in small towns, so once again I take it for granted those will be present anywhere.

I did a sex offender search and noticed an extremely high number of offenders in and around the madison area and nearby towns. I couldn’t see what the offenses are, child porn online versus rape is very different imo. Wish there was a way to lookup how many serious crimes there are against women and children. Any resources?

Also, do schools use buses for pre-k through high school? CA you must pay for bus use $400/year and is very limited availability. NY buses pickup/dropoff children at their houses from K-8.

[timberline742]

The sex offender list is going to be abnormally high as the Dane County halfway houses for supervised release are in Madison. So all of Dane County supervised release people in halfway houses are funneled into Madison. The halway house becomes their legal address.

[GraniteStater]

Originally Posted by EastViaWest

Thanks for sharing your experiences! Immature behaviors are rampant across the US currently, so I’m not really interested in focusing on the handful of drama but moreso the overall big picture of the area.

We also looked at Waunakee but I feared it may be too much like Middleton from what I had read elsewhere, which is a little too sterile for our tastes. Are there other Madison suburbs you’d recommend?

I like Monona, closer to Lake Monona is better.

[guidoLaMoto]

Originally Posted by timberline742

This also makes me wonder what cities in Wisconsin people prefer? Last fall I did one of my normal visits and went to stay with friends. Reedsburg: 80% of the 20 somethings I saw were drugged out. Viroqua (friend is in Alpine), over half. LaCrosse could be renamed Methcrosse. There are drugs all over, it's just that Milwaukee and Madison have more than enough "other" and culture to offset it.

Where are you "hanging out?"

- reminds me of the patient who goes to the doc and says "Doctor, I think I broke my arm in three places!"....Doctor answers "You oughta stay out of those places."

We're FIBs from Chicago, retired here 6 y/a (to rural WI- 60 mi NW of Madison) and are still amused that 10 minutes of every daily Madison TV news broadcast is devoted to a meaningless story about "shots fired" somewhere. Rarely is anyone hit (or caught)--The local Lawless oughta take some shooting lessons. They're just wasting good ammo.

[EastViaWest]

Originally Posted by guidoLaMoto

Rarely is anyone hit (or caught)--The local Lawless oughta take some shooting lessons. They're just wasting good ammo.

LOL! Ammo is quite expensive and hard to come by these days! You know if they were rural shooting, they’d be bringing home a buck or two. But weapons education and access is a whole other political debate off topic, thanks for the good humor.

[everwinter]

Crime's not the issue in Madison. It's trying to find a house for sale on the market.

[ServoMiff]

Bumping this thread as I visited Madison last week, and as I drove around I struggled to find an area that really spoke to me as I am anticipating a potential job offer in the next few weeks and wanted to scope it out.

Are there areas of affluence that aren't solely just lakefront, or is it somewhat scattered all over?

I will likely rent to start out with because of the high prices and high mortgage rates now, so I know that limits us a bit, but my asks are:

- avoiding vinyl villages (cheaply built neighborhood homes with vinyl siding that all look the same)
- would like newer construction (last 5-ish years) but better quality than the vinyl hoods
- maybe a condo or apartment with ~ 2k sq ft
- hopefully with some walkability to grocery/drugstore
- without students (at least those who are loud/mischievous) I'm fine with quiet grad students for example.
- low on the ambient city noise so I can work from home sometimes in peace
- safe to walk around at night (although from my last 2 visits I have never really felt unsafe anywhere in the city) - I see people talking about crime increasing there, but I'm coming from Seattle, which, like Portland, has turned into a he||hole. I saw nothing like what I've seen in those cities or SF.

I have some close friends that live on Lake Monona and in visiting them last week I was struck by how old and not really modernized/updated their house was for an $800k house on the lake. It was in a neighborhood with some obviously renovated and rebuilt and really nice properties, but even driving on W Broadway before getting to Bridge Rd was somewhat dilapidated looking - not what I'd expect when 5 minutes away from near $1M homes.

The job would be in Middleton, but I don't mind a 30 minute commute, so it seems like I could really live anywhere in the metro area if it was decent, right? Where would you recommend?