Moving to Madison, HELP! (Milwaukee, Janesville: rental, condo, broker)

[edjack]

Before I posted this question, I took some time to read a lot of the posts that are on and in advance I want to thank everyone who regularly posts to this site. What I've read so far has been very helpful.

My wife has recently been offered a position with a ChemE (Chemical Engineering) firm in Verona, we are looking into relocating to Madison and we would love some help in finding out more about the area.

My wife is in her late 20s, I'm in my VERY early 30s . We currently live in Upstate NY and have both lived in the Northeast (Providence, The Bronx, Boston, Buffalo, Ithaca) for most of our lives. She is an Engineer and I am a Public Relations professional with a large bank who also DJs on the side. We also have 1 pre-teen son...

We would like to rent at first and then depending on the viability of the area, we would then buy a condo.

Some specific questions I have are:

* What neighborhood should we look into for renting? (Far Westside, Eastside, Near Eastside, South Westside, Atwood, etc)
* What is the political climate like?
* Public or Private schools, ideas?
* What are drivetimes/commute like?
* What is there to DO?

Of course, anything else you would think that we would need to know would be great! Thank you all in advance

[Drover]

Originally Posted by edjack

Some specific questions I have are:

* What neighborhood should we look into for renting? (Far Westside, Eastside, Near Eastside, South Westside, Atwood, etc)

What are you looking for in a neighborhood and how long of a commute is your wife willing to tolerate?

Originally Posted by edjack

* What is the political climate like?

Stridently left-liberal in the city, not-so-stridenly left-liberal in most of the suburbs, and downright conservative with some libertarian streaks in the rest of Dane county.

Originally Posted by edjack

* Public or Private schools, ideas?

All of the public high schools in the city are at least adequate while some are some are better than others. Most suburban high schools are pretty good too.

Originally Posted by edjack

* What are drivetimes/commute like?

Longer than you might think because of the city's unique geography where traffic is either forced through a very narrow isthmus between two lakes, or forced around the lakes on an inadequate number of major thoroughfares. However, headache-inducing commutes are pretty easy to avoid by strategic selection of where you live relative to where you work. It's really only cross-town commutes that truly suck.

Originally Posted by edjack

* What is there to DO?

What are your interests?

[edjack]

Drover, thank you for the quick reply... So to address your questions to my questions:

We both currently commute about an hour (1-way) to/from work, so anything in that same range is acceptable. Of course, a shorter travel time is always better - but hey...

I have taken looked quite extensively at maps of the city and surronding area and I can see how traveling cross-town would suck. We're used to your northern cities where everything is a neat box and you can take a 'straight' line to just about anywhere in town - I see that's not so much the case in Madison...

As far as what we like, I guess like any young adult in this time we're into: a decent nightlife, shops/shows/events and the like, active people who enjoy intelligent conversation.

[Drover]

You have to try really hard to have a commute as long as an hour in the Madison area -- you'd almost have to live outside the Madison area and commute in. Even so, it is possible to have commute times that take a long time for the distance traveled. I think as long as you live anywhere southwest of downtown -- even on the southwest fringe of downtown itself -- your wife should have a commute of 25 minutes or less. Just beware that some parts of the south and southwest fringes of town are kind of iffy. There's no such thing as a truly bad neighborhood in Madison in a classic urban sense, but simple quality-of-life issues can vary greatly from neighborhood to neighborhood. Meanwhile, the near southwest side has a lot of student housing. IMO, one of Madison's "sweet spots" is the area right in between the student ghetto close to downtown and the semi-urban-ghetto on the southwest fringe.

Madison doesn't have much of a "night club" scene where thin pretty people dance to European techno-trance. Madison is a bit more of a birkenstock-and-granola town (weather permitting, of course). But of course it's also a power-broker town with it being the state capital and all. So the nightlife tends to appeal variously to idiot drunk students, non-idiot non-drunk students who prefer a more mellow scene, and the three-martini-lunch/dinner crowd. So bar/cafe options run the gamut from "drink Miller Lite 'til you puke" college bars, neo-bohemian arthouse coffee shops, serious beer bars where serious students and young professionals drink serious beer and have serious conversations (IMO Madison is the craft-beer epicenter of the Midwest), and martini bars with up-market pretensions. In the outskirts of town you'll find old-school shot-and-a-beer blue-collar neighborhood taverns. Sometimes there's some overlap from one or more of these types to the other, but most can find a niche that mostly appeals to their tastes. There are a few small local live-music venues, a couple venues just big enough for touring indie acts to stop in town, and a major arena for major touring acts, though many will skip Madison in which case you'll have to truck it into Milwaukee or Chicago if a major act that you want to see swings through the area but doesn't stop in Madison.

There are several ethnic restaurant options, but who knows about their authenticity seeing how Madison is not particularly ethnically diverse. Madison is the kind of place where it's "cool" to eat at ethnic restaurants rather than them being part of a genuine, organic cultural landscape. But hey, even if it is contrived, it's better than living somewhere that considers Chili's haute cuisine.

[Megan1967]

Originally Posted by Drover

Madison is a bit more of a birkenstock-and-granola town (weather permitting, of course).

I've seen people in Birkenstocks in the dead of winter - they just don those lovely thick wool socks under them. I wear "earthy" shoes myself so I shouldn't throw stones, but those Birki people are hard core.

[gold*dust1]

I have never owned a pair of Birkenstocks, nor wanted to, and the last time I ate granola was in breakfast bar form several years ago.

[Nonesuch]

Originally Posted by edjack

... firm in Verona, we are looking into relocating to Madison and we would love some help in finding out more about the area.

I've been living and working near Verona for a couple of months now, and I would suggest that to keep your commute reasonable, you'd want to look for housing west/South of the Isthmus. The near west side is like any other midwestern suburb, but as you go south and west things get much more rural, and nightlife becomes very sparse.

Originally Posted by Drover

... and martini bars with up-market pretensions.

Any good suggestions where I can find a concentration of these?

There are several ethnic restaurant options, but who knows about their authenticity seeing how Madison is not particularly ethnically diverse. Madison is the kind of place where it's "cool" to eat at ethnic restaurants rather than them being part of a genuine, organic cultural landscape. But hey, even if it is contrived, it's better than living somewhere that considers Chili's haute cuisine.

I've tried most of the ethnic cuisine options around town, and I would say the vast majority are more "cool" than authentic. There are a few notable exceptions, as well as some very nice upscale restaurants if you're just looking for fine dining rather than authentic ethnic dishes.

As far as stuff to do, most of the nightlife I've found is very much tuned for college students, I haven't found a lot of interesting stuff to do for people older than 28; keep in mind I've only been here for a couple of months of colder weather, so I could be unduly grim about this.

[Wellstone]

For renting I would consider Far west side of madison, lots of good places there to get you started. Places to avoid would be south beltline anywhere near Beltline & Verona road. You want to be well west of that area. It's going to be cookie cutter suburban but over by Target there are quite a few good rental properties extending there and all the way into Middleton.

It's been a while since I lived there but at that time Verona wasn't a great place to live and neither was Fitchburg. Maybe things have changed. At that time the schools were massively overcrowded and the people refused to pony up to build an addition.

Madison is much more politically liberal than anywhere else around, and middleton is much the same. When you get into the rural areas, it's the exact opposite.

Typically commutes are nothing unless you try and go across town on the beltline. For Verona it should be no big deal unless you try and live on the east side of Madison, and there would be no good reason for you to do that.

[thetallnathan]

* What neighborhood should we look into for renting? (Far Westside, Eastside, Near Eastside, South Westside, Atwood, etc)

Like some folks said, depends on the commute your wife is willing to put up with. But also like others said, Madison is smaller than Boston, and you could commute in from Janesville and still have less than an hour each way. Evey if you lived way on the Northside by the airport, you'd still be looking at a half-hour each way, maybe less.

My personal favorite neighborhood in Madison is the Atwood area. It's an old neighborhood with good parks, bike paths, and lakefront. Good eats. Good music venues. Very walkable, and a solid sense of community. Its school systems (Marquette and Lowell for elementary, O'Keefe for middle) have a pretty good rep, as far as I know. But it's definitely kinda far from Verona, relative to other possibilities.

I'm also fond of the Monroe Street area and the neighborhoods between Monroe, University, and Midvale. Some pricey areas in there, but quite nice. Good schools, parks, shopping, proximity to good things Madison has to offer, and all the rest.

I also like Monona, as far as suburbs go. Not real great in terms of shops you can walk to, but their parks and lake access are amazing. Really pretty area, and it's really not far from the Beltline (meaning a quick commute to Verona) or to eastside and downtown Madison.

Frankly, I don't know as much about some of the West and Southwest suburbs - Verona itself and other points on the far west and southwest sides. Some parts of Middleton are very nice, cute, etc. and eschew *some* of the suburb stereotypes. But those neighborhoods on the W/SW edge of town have a very suburbran feel to me - lots of nice single family homes, but not much else that I find attractive.

* What is the political climate like?

Sure, the city itself is firmly left-of-center, although I would take some issue with Drover's use of "stridently". I find Madison's left to be fairly mature most of the time.

As one indicator of a city's politics, you could look at Madison's city council representatives. We've got 20 alders, and they are technically non-partisan races. But everybody kind of knows which party each alder belongs to. The biggest group are Democrats - and fairly liberal Democrats at that. The second biggest contingent of alders are Progressive Dane - the local affiliate of the Green Party. PD used to have a majority on the council, but the pendulum seems to be swinging more Dem in recent years. And then there are a handful of Republicans from aldermanic districts on the edge of town.

* Public or Private schools, ideas?

There is, of course, some variation from one school to the next, but on the whole, Madison public schools rank very high in all the surveys that get published.

As far as high schools go, West High takes the top marks on the quantitative research. But lots of kids get very good educations at the other schools, too. Monona schools also rank super high in the research.

* What are drivetimes/commute like?

Well, traffic at drive-times or during special events can get a bit snarly, but by and large, you can get from the *far* Northeast side to the *far* Southwest side in a half-hour or less. I lived in the DC area for a couple years, so when I hear people complain about Madison traffic, it's kind of laughable. That said, traffic congestion can still be annoying, even if it's not even in the same league as the DC beltway.

So yeah, if you're accustomed to an hour or more commute, you ought to be able to take your pick of neighborhoods and be just fine.

* What is there to DO?

Boy, that's a big question. It's a city of nearly a quarter million people with another quarter million living in the surrounding county. So there's quite a bit going on. I suppose I'll just share some of my favorites:

-- WARM WEATHER --

* Madison gets cold in the winter, so when warm weather comes, there are neighborhood or city festivals every weekend somewhere in town. Starting with the WORT block party in May and ending with the Willy Street Fair in September, there's always some festival with live music, local food stands, beer, and people hanging out having a good time.

* Parks. Madison has lots of parks, including many with terrific lake access. Personal favorites are Tenney and Vilas, although there are many other great ones.

* The zoo. Madison has a free zoo. It's small compared to some zoos in the country, but it's got a remarkable variety of animals. Great for kids, but also fun for adults.

* The terrace at UW's student union. Yeah, it's the student union, but in the summertime, it's very much a community space. Great place to meet up with people, enjoy the lake, drink some good beer (20+ varieties sold at the student union) and catch a movie or some live music on the outdoor stage.

* The farmers markets. I say "markets" plural because we actually have several in town, even though the gigantic Saturday market around the Capitol square is the biggest and most impressive. But it can also get ridiculously crowded to the point that it's not even enjoyable (for me). But if you want to see the bounty of Wisconsin agriculture, as well as food and other wares that people have made with said bounty, the Saturday market is the place to go. If you just need to pick up some veggies and cheese, any of the other markets would be just fine, too.

* Arboretum, state parks outside town, bike paths, etc, etc. Lots of outdoor activities.

* Drive to some of the cute little towns outside Madison. I finally made it down to New Glarus last summer to see the "Little Switzerland" thing they've got going on. It was pretty neat, if kitchy. The brewery tour was good, too.

-- COLD WEATHER --

* Catch a movie at the Sundance theater. They get lots of good ones that you might not expect in a market the size of Madison.

* See some good shows. The Barrymore, Orpheum, UW, and other venues get lots of good touring acts. Smaller clubs like the High Noon Saloon, Harmony Bar, and others get smaller but also very good shows.

* Drink with friends. Madison has no shortage of watering holes, including a whole bunch of great local and regional brews. Madison has a bunch of places that are great for gemutlichkeit.

* Listen to the radio. Madison is a great town for public and community radio. This happens to be one of my main pasttimes. If you want to produce radio, swing down to WORT or WSUM and apply for a show.

* Do some kite skiing or cross-country skiing. This isn't really my bag, but there are lots of cross-country trails around here. And every winter, I see people on the frozen lakes, being pulled around on skis by gigantic kites. I think they're a little crazy, but it does look fun in a cold sort of way.

Hope this helps!

[edjack]

Everyone thank you so much for your help...