Student Looking at Milwaukee Area (Wauwatosa, Brookfield: neighborhood, to buy, schools)

[MastersCandidate]

Hello everyone, I am actually looking at different cities and towns as possible places to live for a few different schools I am considering to finish my formal education. Marquette University is one of them (University of Washington, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, University of Wisconsin and the University of Utah being the other likely choices with a few more that are less likely or less appealing) because of the research opportunities with one of the handful of folks in the field in which I am interested. Actually, I would be attending Marquette but working largely with a couple of professors at MCW if that makes any sense (it's really complicated and I don't feel like getting into it more than I have to). Granted, I have heard mixed reviews of the Milwaukee area so I really can't say I'm jumping for joy over the location of the school although I am definitely open to having my attitude changed towards the city. I have only been to the Milwaukee area a handful of times for conferences and such and never had any problems but I seem to find a lot of people who are dissatisfied with the area but that might just be that old "you make a person happy, they tell one person; you make them unhappy, they tell everybody" adage rearing its ugly head.

The questions I have though are what are the good suburbs or outlying towns that would be a good fit for someone who is academically minded and well-educated? I grew up in a town of a few hundred people and being an intellectual in a town where it is not exactly the norm isn't exactly pleasant. I know for a fact that I don't want to live in the city itself for the most part since I'm not a "city kind of guy" if that makes sense. My fiancee (wife by the time we move) is more of a city girl so the idea of living out in the smallest of towns would really not be amenable to her thinking.

Neither of us are big party sort of people and honestly, I would prefer to live in a community with an average age older than myself (31 in my case, 27 for my fiancee). To be brutally honest, I would prefer to stay away from areas populated with students because of the noise and other issues associated with those areas (which is one major reason we are moving to a different neighborhood here in Indianapolis for the remainder of our time here). We don't have kids (neither of us can) so schools aren't a major concern as they are for a lot of folks. A quiet and friendly area is all we are really looking for.

The only other big issue we have is that we are trying to avoid areas that are prone to racial/ethnic/social division or strife as a result of that since we currently live in a predominately black neighborhood (there is one other non-black couple living within a couple of blocks of us) and have been largely treated as "outsiders" even though I am a minority myself (Native American, albeit a fair skinned one as a result of my mom's side being "five shades of pasty white European" to quote the joke she tells). Nothing too hostile, no violence or anything like that but we just have not felt "welcome" in the area because of the self-imposed segregation of the neighborhood. We have a few neighbors who are great including the older couple across the way who have been so kind to me but the vast majority treat us like we have horns or something sticking out of our heads whenever we try to be social or helpful.

It may honestly be more a result of this being a relatively younger and less educated neighborhood than some others we could have chosen since nearly all of the problems we have had are with younger people whereas the few older folks in our community are a lot nicer. I don't care what ethnicity my neighbors are so long as they are friendly and don't care about my ethnicity. I hope that makes sense... From what I can tell from reading the forums, Milwaukee seems to have a problem with people viewing it as "divided" and there seems to be a lot of fingerpointing and attempts to cause more problems than really need to be caused (example: //www.city-data.com/forum/milwa...-problems.html although that thread seems to be heavy on the "blame someone else" or "someone else needs to fix my problem" more than anything) Getting away from the divisiveness of Indianapolis would be a welcome and wonderful thing as it is one of the things that makes this city flounder and fail miserably. We are all in the same boat, so let's act like it has always been my approach.

I did a search on here and also looked over the pages of a few of the places that seemed to suit our requirements. The ones I have looked at include New Berlin, Mequon (pretty sure this is out of our budget but I looked anyhow), Cedarburg and Elm Grove (same issue as Mequon). Any other suggestions or advice on these towns would be appreciated.

Thank you in advance for your time and assistance.

Steve

[Ralph Shinners]

In a nutshell seems what you are looking for would be the upper tier suburbs. Some others in addition to the ones you mentioned would be: Whitefish Bay, Fox Point, Bayside, Brookfield, Men. Falls, Sussex, Delafield, Greendale, Pewaukee, Glendale.

That list may not be complete, but that is a good chunk of them.

Shorewood is also very nice, but there are areas with students.

River Hills & Chenequa are certainly nice, but very few can afford to buy in those communities.

[pete6032]

It really depends on what you think of as "the city." But going off of what you said my first inclination was Cedarburg or Theinsville. You listed Mequon and said its too expensive, Theinsville is literally surrounded on all sides (landlocked) by Mequon but can be much cheaper but still provide the environment you're looking for. Both Cedarburg and Theinsville have nice little downtown areas with an older population and very few college aged students. The commute to Marquette would probably be 20-30 minutes with no traffic. Not sure what it would be in traffic.

[MastersCandidate]

Thank you everyone for the input! It's really appreciated.

[Engineer_Guy]

Want slightly more urban? Whitefish Bay is probably your best bet. Shorewood might be worth looking at though there are a lot of students in some areas. Wauwatosa would also be worth looking at.

Less urban? Oak Creek, Mequon, Fox Point, Bayside, River Hills, Greendale, and some parts of Glendale.

There aren't too many places you could live in the Milwaukee area where the drive to Marquette would be unreasonable.