Madison and Milwaukee: So close, yet so far

I lived in Madison while attending college and for a couple years afterwards until an ad agency job brought me to the Milwaukee area. Frankly, I wish I lived there now (but that might be nostalgia talking).

While visiting Madison last summer (after over 10 years away - so close and yet so far...), I stopped by my first apartment (my roommates and I had the ground floor) and found that the house, which was built in 1859, is now being restored by a couple who was nice enough to let me take a little tour of the place. What an eerie sensation - - here was the site of so much college debauchery, now transformed back into a home for decent people.

Anyway....

From an ongoing series in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Cindy and Gene Seidle reside between the commercial and intellectual capitals of Wisconsin.

From their home in Oconomowoc, he commutes 50 miles west to Madison. She drives 35 miles in the opposite direction to Hales Corners.

He's a recruiter of high-tech talent for Covance Inc., a global developer of biopharmaceuticals. She's development director of the Friends of Boerner Botanical Gardens, the non-profit support group for the struggling Milwaukee County park.

Theirs is a tale of two cities, Milwaukee and Madison. One's a research juggernaut with a booming population and one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country. The other's a Rust Belt icon, factories closing, population moving, crime and education intractable.

Link: JS Online:Madison and Milwaukee: So close, yet so far.

Part One of the series: Allis-Chalmers site's changes reflect arc of Wisconsin economy

Comments

[Zach K]

Great article. As a native Sheboygan-ite I've driven that route many times.

It's certainly a little too far to commute, but if you lived in between the two (like the couple in the article)... who knows?

A couple initial reactions:

- A "regionalist" type of approach between the two cities as the described in the article (thinking of them as a region, and each focuses on its strengths to catalyze economic activity across the region) seems like such commonsense.

Why is it so difficult to actually make this happen?

- It's really telling to see the commuting patterns around the Milwaukee region. Clearly there's a lot of reverse commuting going on.

- Can you explain the communiting patterns in Racine County? You've got a lot of new commuting to the west (to where?) and to the east (to where?).

I don't know enough about Racine County to understand exactly what is going on there.

[John Michlig]

Regarding Racine: A few years back - before I really had any interest in sustainable development issues on a personal level, frankly - I worked as a consultant for the Racine County Economic Development Council. I had to learn quite a bit about the region and was surprised to note the disconnect in the Milwaukee-Milwaukee suburbs-Racine-Chicago corridor. The reliance on cars and highways is so great that the logical rail connection is nonexistent beyond the Milwaukee-to-Chicago Amtrak line (a great ride, but illogical for me as I live in a southern suburb and would have to drive north to the depot to come back south - - no depots down here!).

[John Michlig]

Correction - There is a new Amtrak depot near Mitchell International Airport which is certainly accessible from my neck of the suburbs. $21 one-way fare to Chicago, plus $5 per day parking at the airport.