Milwaukee Annexation (Madison, Waukesha, Greenfield: neighborhoods, school districts, maintenance)

[Milwaukee City]

So I was thinking Milwaukee should annex some smaller suburbs such as West Milwaukee, St.Francis, Cudahy, South Milwaukee and even Greenfield. That got me to thinking I would be in favor of all of Milwaukee County being annexed by the city of Milwaukee. The suburbs would not go for this so in order to keep them happy I would make the suburbs that would be annexed and turn them into "Districts". What do you think? good idea or bad idea? The way the districts would work would be for the districts to keep their school districts the same and fire and police would be handled by MPD and MFD. This create more of a cohesive city instead of Former city residents -vs- current city residents aka City vs Suburbs. Garbage would be picked up by the city. A lot of the suburbs already share city service so it would not create the nightmare that would exists if you annexed Butler in Waukesha County. You would have to keep a lot of the zoning laws such as River Hills does not allow any commercial development any where within city limits. Schools and certain city wide ordinances would have to stay in order to coax the suburbs to join the city. Of course this would cost millions to do and the burbs would never go for it but if it were possible would you do it?

I found an article from 1957 on annexation in the city of Milwaukee.

HeinOnline

Annexation policy in Milwaukee: an historical institutionalist approach.(Author abstract) - Polity | HighBeam Research - FREE trial

So would you annex the rest of Milwaukee County's Suburbs into becoming "Districts" in the city? Such as "The Shorewood District of Milwaukee"

[northbound74]

I fully understand the desire to find ways to unify and do away with the typical suburb/city division. It sounds nice, but people in the suburbs who are used to certain levels of services may not want to compromise that. If those 'districts' could have substantial say in police/fire protection, waste removal, water system maintenance and the like, it might work.
People initially left cities as a part of white flight unfortunately, but now, they often leave because services are often sub-par.
I'm new to the Milwaukee area, so I don't know what city services are like there. Perhaps they're not so bad. In other places I've lived, the hub city is often poorly managed and wasteful.

That being said, I like the cities and generally prefer them to suburbs. We live in Greendale at the moment even though we do like the city.
It didn't take long for me to figure out that most towns in Milwaukee County don't seem to share Greendale's appreciation for street maintenance. If they were to merge, that's one issue that would have to be addressed before I'd be on board.

I don't mean to nitpick, because generally I'm pretty tolerant about that kind of stuff. I'd rather have a little extra money in my pocket than drive on glass-smooth streets all the time. But I must say that many of the streets around here are unbelievably bad. Third-world bad. I've driven on gravel roads in Arkansas heavily pitted after the rain and with boulders poking through the surface that were smoother than some of the stuff around here.
I do like the idea of merging (as long as the former towns can keep some of their uniqueness), and thought it was pretty cool when some of the Canadian cities did a similar thing.

[Devitron5000]

If we're gonna redraw borders, I'd like to see the neighborhoods of Bronzeville, Brewers Hill, Riverwest, Eastside/Brady, East Town, Third Ward, Walker's Point and Bay View form a city of their own. I think it's a damn shame that these neighborhoods have to continue to define themselves by how "different" they are from the rest of the city when, together, they make up close to (if not) a majority of Milwaukee. I can only imagine what type of city that would develop into without having to deal with the pettiness, short-sightedness and fear of new ideas that have been the status quo in Milwaukee's civic leadership for way too long... I would guess something like Madison, but with actual diversity and a much lower level of snobbishness.

Barring that, I'd like to see Milwaukee County done away with completely. Merging with the suburbs would only be a bigger weight on progress for Milwaukee and would dilute minority voting power. If anything, Milwaukee needs to start flexing its muscles for a change and start threatening to cut the suburbs off from the MMSD or putting a toll on the freeway if they don't start giving into things the city desperately needs like light rail.

[TommyGavin]

It isn't so much about redrawing borders as it is about contracting services. Sure, actual annexation or a complete takeover is a possibility, but I don't think that is what the area needs to do.

An example of this would be with the village of West Milwaukee for fire/ems. West Milwaukee decided that it would be more beneficial for their community to eliminate it's fire department and contract for service with the city of Milwaukee. There is now a Milwaukee fire station located in the village, on 45th and Burnham, at a fraction of the cost the village paid previously.

This model is happening everywhere around the country, as well. Indianapolis essentially merged an entire county, as did Omaha. The city of Denver provides contract fire/ems service, such as Milwaukee does for West Milwaukee, in contracting service for Glendale and Sheridan, CO.

If people are truly concerned with being more efficient and fiscally prudent, these are avenues and practices that should be looked at.

[andrea3821]

I don't see why anyone would want to do this. Having been here for a few months now, I have no desire to do much of anything in the city, I work in the burbs, live in the burbs and pretty much do all my shopping/business in the burbs. Unless I'm downtown (and I consider a lot to be downtown, since I don't know the exact boundaries of all the neighborhoods), I see no attraction whatsoever to the city. To annex it would turn a lot of people off. I agree with your sentiment that the folks in the burbs would not go for annexation but the "benefits" your propose would still not make it worthwhile, IMO.

[northbound74]

^^I'm not so sure I'm for it, but annexation does not automatically mean the entire county will come to look like downtown. Everything would probably look and feel the same as it does now, just under one city government instead of many.
I agree that it would probably do little in the effort to change peoples attitudes. It would go from being this town versus that town, to this part of town versus that part of town. The division would still very much be there. Another thing, would city services and schools be influenced more by the well-run places or the not so well-run places?
We also live and work in the suburbs, but Milwaukee wouldn't be very attractive were it not for downtown, lakeshore, and all the 'big city' stuff to do. It would just be another nothing-burg in the middle of nowhere. Those kind of places just aren't good places to live usually.

[Milwaukee City]

Would you be in favor of one big county instead of 6 different counties? say one big Milwaukee County?

[andrea3821]

Originally Posted by Milwaukee City

Would you be in favor of one big county instead of 6 different counties? say one big Milwaukee County?

No way. Taxes in Milwaukee County are way too high. If folks are willing to go with fewer services in exchange for paying less in taxes, why not let them? To me, the surrounding counties feel different and it would be weird if they were part of Milwaukee County.

[TommyGavin]

Here is the issue that people are not paying attention to. Shared revenue is going to be significantly reduced this year, by the governor. There is nothing anyone can do about that; Walker ran with that as a part of his campaign and he is going to follow thru with that promise.
Shared revenue is utilized by every single community in this state. As a result, there will be a huge short fall in the operating budgets of these communities, as huge sums of money from the state are going to stop. Good, bad or other it is what is going to happen and needs to be planned for.

This is what the citizens of Wisconsin wanted, based on the last election. So the question is; what are we going to do to ensure that the high quality of life we enjoy in the region continues? Snow plowing; garbage pick up/sanitation; drinking water; fire/police/ems; these are all huge issues which will need to be addressed and, may be more affordable and vastly improved thru a region-wide cooperation, as opposed to the stand-alone entities each city is in Milwaukee county.
I don't believe that the city of Milwaukee annexing up other communities is necessary, but consolidation of some of these services will be a money saver, if done correctly. And, not only will it save money but, it has the potential to vastly improve some of these services in suburban cities. The blue print is already out there and, even exists already in this county, with West Milwaukee. Omaha, Indianapolis and Denver are all regions in which this concept has already taken place, not to mention tight here in the county.