Is Milwaukee A Dangerous City (Wauwatosa, Brookfield: 2015, living in, groceries)

[Allan Trafton]

Originally Posted by augiedogie

Vegas Cabbie: You're right about the crime. My sister lives in one of the best parts of the city and had a break in. The Bil told me one time he was driving close to dusk on one of those northern streets like Capital or Burleigh, and kids were throwing rocks at his car. I don't know what people call "safe" anymore, but the pockets of it are pretty small, IMHO. And considering the "over the top" property taxes, I can't imagine why anyone would want to live there any more.

This tread has nothing to do with Lubbock, but when clowns such as this guy, who lives one thousand miles away, decide to rip our city, I feel Milwaukeans have every right to be defensive. I would never go on the Lubbock forum and decide to rip their city. It's bunk to say the least.

We should stick up for our city. It's a great place, regardless of it's flaws and I ,for one, enjoy living here. So if clowns like augie dogie cheap shot Milwaukee, I have no problems firing back.

[Vegas_Cabbie]

Battery and assault upon Wisconsinites has just skyrocketed... It was the Saints bulldozing Green Bay's Defense
That game made me nauseous.

[Mystal]

It was a HORRIBLE place in the 70s. I was molested there by a gang girl, my school was a gang war zone, the teen hordes and hippies were everywhere, they once grabbed something I was carrying and tore it to pieces and left laughing. They hated us in part because although my Dad is Scandinavian, he has darker skin than most whites and my mom was pale and I insisted he was my real Dad. I was targeted because I am autistic and had huge glasses. Once we got a rock through a window with a threatening note from one of the hippie gangs and my Dad lost his job, we moved way up north and never looked back. I wasn't treated much better in the new town, but no one broke into our house, or threw rocks, or killed any of us. When I went back there to attend UW-Milwaukee, a girl got her faced rearranged by a drug addict looking for money (40 stitches), the 24 hour Sentry dropped its night hours because several people got attacked in the parking lot after midnight, there were also a set of gangsters running around in cars and sticking pedestrians up at night while they were out walking, the local parks starting having "closed hours" after 10 pm, and the campus security set up a cheap or free taxi service for light night students who didn't have cars. They also put up security cameras in the dorms in all the hallways, entrances and parking garage and established checkpoints after 9 pm at night, and you had to show your ID if you were going to enter the dorms after 9 pm. They also starting locking most of the buildings after 11 pm and checking them over with security to make sure non students or homeless weren't hanging out anyplace besides the Union and the Union booted these folks out after midnight. That was also when they installed a lot of those "emergency phones" they put up, because most people didn't have cell phones yet.

[Mystal]

Oh yeah, I forgot to add that when I attended 6th street elementary school out near 76th and Oklahoma, a middle school kid was shot when I was in the fourth grade

[ram2]

Originally Posted by Mystal

Oh yeah, I forgot to add that when I attended 6th street elementary school out near 76th and Oklahoma, a middle school kid was shot when I was in the fourth grade

Is that anywhere near south 34 street? Or Jackson Park? My grandparents lived on south 34th street from 1953 thru 2007.

[timberline742]

Damn 70s hippie gangs!

[MKEastsider]

Originally Posted by timberline742

Damn 70s hippie gangs!

Uhhh, like, give us your money or we'll burn you with this bong, maaaaan.

[timberline742]

Originally Posted by MKEastsider

Uhhh, like, give us your money or we'll burn you with this bong, maaaaan.

Cheech, is that you? Wasssuup, homie!

[MKEastsider]

Originally Posted by timberline742

Cheech, is that you? Wasssuup, homie!

I wasn't even thinking of Cheech, then I read what I typed in Cheech's voice and legit LMAO'd.

[Unclemeat]

Since this was kind of revived... I guess I'm curious if anyone thinks the homicide spike this year as well as the revelation that police were (is it still officially "allegedly"?) falsifying the severity of crime reports has changed opinions?

I voted yes, even though I generally try to be a Milwaukee defender. I feel like a lot of the "no" answers, based on comments, are including the surrounding areas. If you count the immediate suburbs then sure, any city seems way different. But in just the city limits, Milwaukee residents are more likely to be involved in violent crime than most other major cities in the US. Here's a city-data advanced search to prove it...

It's a real shame, as I'd like to live in the city but I don't think it's worth the risk. District 6 is really the only one that is as a whole safe by civilized standards. And it's hardly great. While there are pockets of niceness elsewhere, they are very small. You shouldn't have to make an area look like the 3rd Ward for it to be safe. Maybe it's far too idealized for the rust belt or our area in particular... but there has to be a balance of less danger without kicking out all of the residents. You can't bring in safety at the expense of displacing people or creating huge degrees of inequality. But that seems to be how it's going.

PS - please don't reference the weather unless you plan to back it up with actual analysis. Yes, extreme weather does show strong links to increases in violence - but 50 degrees in April is not extreme and having winter end a little early does not fit the model of any study that's been done. When there are spikes of violence during periods of moderate temperatures - you have to look elsewhere, at much more complex social issues, to find your cause(s).