Sprawled Out: The Search for Community in the American Suburb

Stranded in Suburbia - New York Times

A difficult pill to swallow for suburbanites - the culture of "happy motoring" and routine 45-minute daily commutes, one person to a car, is coming to an end. And we're stranded in suburbia without sane mass transit options. Heaven help us when we get too old to drive.

Stranded in Suburbia - New York Times:   
May 19, 2008

By PAUL KRUGMAN
BERLIN

I have seen the future, and it works.

O.K., I know that these days you’re supposed to see the future in China or India, not in the heart of “old Europe.”

But we’re living in a world in which oil prices keep setting records, in which the idea that global oil production will soon peak is rapidly moving from fringe belief to mainstream assumption. And Europeans who have achieved a high standard of living in spite of very high energy prices — gas in Germany costs more than $8 a gallon — have a lot to teach us about how to deal with that world.

If Europe’s example is any guide, here are the two secrets of coping with expensive oil: own fuel-efficient cars, and don’t drive them too much.

Notice that I said that cars should be fuel-efficient — not that people should do without cars altogether. In Germany, as in the United States, the vast majority of families own cars (although German households are less likely than their U.S. counterparts to be multiple-car owners).

But the average German car uses about a quarter less gas per mile than the average American car. By and large, the Germans don’t drive itsy-bitsy toy cars, but they do drive modest-sized passenger vehicles rather than S.U.V.’s and pickup trucks.

In the near future I expect we’ll see Americans moving down the same path. We’ve already done it once: over the course of the 1970s and 1980s, the average mileage of U.S. passenger vehicles rose about 50 percent, as Americans switched to smaller, lighter cars.

This improvement stalled with the rise of S.U.V.’s during the cheap-gas 1990s. But now that gas costs more than ever before, even after adjusting for inflation, we can expect to see mileage rise again.

Admittedly, the next few years will be rough for families who bought big vehicles when gas was cheap, and now find themselves the owners of white elephants with little trade-in value. But raising fuel efficiency is something we can and will do.

Can we also drive less? Yes — but getting there will be a lot harder.

There have been many news stories in recent weeks about Americans who are changing their behavior in response to expensive gasoline — they’re trying to shop locally, they’re canceling vacations that involve a lot of driving, and they’re switching to public transit.

But none of it amounts to much. For example, some major public transit systems are excited about ridership gains of 5 or 10 percent. But fewer than 5 percent of Americans take public transit to work, so this surge of riders takes only a relative handful of drivers off the road.

Any serious reduction in American driving will require more than this — it will mean changing how and where many of us live.

To see what I’m talking about, consider where I am at the moment: in a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood consisting mainly of four- or five-story apartment buildings, with easy access to public transit and plenty of local shopping.

It’s the kind of neighborhood in which people don’t have to drive a lot, but it’s also a kind of neighborhood that barely exists in America, even in big metropolitan areas. Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars.

And in the face of rising oil prices, which have left many Americans stranded in suburbia — utterly dependent on their cars, yet having a hard time affording gas — it’s starting to look as if Berlin had the better idea.

Changing the geography of American metropolitan areas will be hard. For one thing, houses last a lot longer than cars. Long after today’s S.U.V.’s have become antique collectors’ items, millions of people will still be living in subdivisions built when gas was $1.50 or less a gallon.

Infrastructure is another problem. Public transit, in particular, faces a chicken-and-egg problem: it’s hard to justify transit systems unless there’s sufficient population density, yet it’s hard to persuade people to live in denser neighborhoods unless they come with the advantage of transit access.

And there are, as always in America, the issues of race and class. Despite the gentrification that has taken place in some inner cities, and the plunge in national crime rates to levels not seen in decades, it will be hard to shake the longstanding American association of higher-density living with poverty and personal danger.

Still, if we’re heading for a prolonged era of scarce, expensive oil, Americans will face increasingly strong incentives to start living like Europeans — maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and for the rest of our lives.

Personal Happiness

Personal Happiness:

"The personal happiness of many Americans has been undermined by poorly designed housing and public space, yet few of us employ the language of real estate development, architecture, or urban planning to trace the contours of loneliness, boredom, weariness, discrimination, or financial worry in our lives."

Source: Dolores Hayden, Redesigning The American Dream, The Future of Housing, Work and Family Life.

(Via Slow Home.)

Fact-deficient Wal-Mart defenders make it easy

ABOVE: Wal-Mart promotes literacy at its Menomonie "Distrubution" Center

What motivates a private citizen - - with no ostensible ties to Wal-Mart - - to write a letter to the editor filled with mistakes and sloppy logic?

Big-box retailer has economic benefit

Letter writer Pamela Fendt made several incorrect assumptions about Wal-Mart ("Don't welcome store," May 13).

She incorrectly stated that Wal-Mart is using the state's publicly funded health insurance, BadgerCare. This program is not used by stores. It is set up for individuals. Being a Wal-Mart employee is not an eligibility requirement for BadgerCare, which is based on income and other factors. These folks would be getting BadgerCare whether or not they worked for Wal-Mart.

Being a Wal-Mart employee is not an eligibility requirement for BadgerCare. However, one goes with the other pretty snuggly; Wal-Mart employees use BadgerCare.

Quoting one of my earlier posts: In Arkansas - Wal-Mart headquarters - Wal-Mart is NUMBER ONE in Children of employees on publicly-funded State Health Care programs.

Quoting a story in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette: "Georgia, Tennessee, Washington, Massachusetts, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Connecticut have also reported that Wal-Mart employees, or their children are a disproportionately large share of their state health rolls."

More: "A 2002 Georgia state survey showed that 10,261 of the 166,000 children covered by PeachCare for Kids (a Georgia state health program) had a parent working at Wal-Mart. That’s 14 times the number for the next highest employer, Publix grocery store, with 734."

Now, is that just because Wal-Mart employs SO MANY people that the numbers are skewed? I'm afraid not: Wal-Mart claims to have similar health care coverage as other large retailers. That's just silly. A recent Harvard Business School study (2002) shows that Wal-Mart spent an average of $3,500 a year on health care for each employee, compared with $4,800 for the average retailer and $5,600 for the average U.S. company. In Tennessee these numbers are even worse, with 3,700 of Wal-Mart’s 9,617 employees, or 26%, on state aid (according to the Chattanooga Times Free Press)!

When you are the biggest employer in the country, these practices CAN and DO cost the taxpayer money, putting ENORMOUS pressure on state health care systems. Just "good business"? It's irresponsible and simply shameful.

As an addendum: Wal-Mart has been shamed into marginally improving its health insurance offerings to employees, but the company is still far from a superhero.

Back to the letter:

While it's true that Wal-Mart has used public subsidies, Fendt ignored all the revenue it brings to the state through sales taxes. Without taxes, BadgerCare would not exist.

"While it is true that Wal-Mart has used public subsidies...". That's it? Talk about colorful understatement - - Wal-Mart is the patron saint of corporate socialism, and avails itself to our coffers on a gargantuan scale.  From "Wal-Mart's Tax On Us" at Alternet:

The subsidies Wal-Mart lobbies for run the whole gamut: free or reduced-price land, infrastructure assistance, tax increment financing (TIF), property tax abatements or discounts, state corporate income tax credits, sales tax rebates, enterprise zone tax breaks, job training funds, and low-interest tax-exempt loans. The most deals and dollars were found in Texas (30 deals worth $108 million) and Illinois (29 deals worth $102 million).

And because of poor disclosure in most states, this could be just the tip of the iceberg.

And taxes? Think again.

More from the letter:

The claim is made that for every job Wal-Mart creates, 1.4 retail jobs are eliminated in the local economy. Economists have questioned this claim. At the University of Missouri, economist Emek Basker found that a Wal-Mart's move into a community increases employment.

Oops - I don't think the letter-writer read Basker's entire paper (neither did I). Other economists did; let's look at a passage from the testimony of Heather Boushey, Economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research:

Wal‐Mart does create jobs. But, as I mentioned above these jobs are generally not well‐paid, and, the total number of jobs created, after discounting the local jobs destroyed, is actually quite small. In a recent paper, Emek Basker finds that Wal‐ Mart’s entry into a community in the United States increases retail employment by 100 jobs in the first year, but 50 of those jobs disappear over the next five years. Wholesale employment declines by approximately 20 jobs due to Wal‐Mart’s vertical integration, but no spillover effect is detected in retail areas that Wal‐Mart does not compete in. 

Ms. Boushey, you see, read the whole paper - not just the "good parts."

We shouldn't forget the jobs created indirectly from Wal-Mart's distribution network. Many local businesses buy supplies from Sam's Club.

Er - wonderful, I guess. For reasons not explicated.

Successful economies are diverse. Big-box retailers like Wal-Mart contribute to that diversity.

Al Savastio

Milwaukee

Right-o, Mr. Savistio.

UPDATE:  The Menomonie "Distrubution" Center pictured above cost the city $750,000. They subsidized half of Wal-Mart’s land acquisition costs through the use of tax increment financing. (Source: Shopping for Subsidies: How Wal-Mart Uses Taxpayer Money to Finance Its Never-Ending Growth, by Philip Mattera and Anna Purinton)
 

More on the Wal-Mart blight:

The cost of doing business with Wal-Mart.

George F. Will - "Condescending lectures by liberals RE Wal-Mart"

What's wrong with having a Wal-Mart across the street?

FAST COMPANY: The Wal-Mart You Don't Know (the article that became the book THE WAL-MART EFFECT

Paul Soglin: "Your Wisconsin Tax Hell: Manufactured by WMC"

"Scamming the system" - More about corporate tax abuse

Property taxes: "Why am I paying so much?" PART 2

 

 

Boomgaard: "We've heard from only one side, the blogger community and the people who comment on the blogs"

Ted Grintjes evidently doesn't read Milwaukee Journal Sentinel columns or see the video they posted, or listen to talk radio.

What a botched job. Horrendous and expensive - - and this debacle comes from a member of the Franklin Citizens for Responsible Government (Grintjes was the group's spokesman in 2003).

Ah, the Franklin Citizens for Responsible Government. Here's a little background on that group from  the 12/17/06 Journal Sentinel:

Franklin Citizens for Responsible Leadership emerged in March 2003, saying it intended to recall [Basil] Ryan and anyone else members saw as blocking the city's economic development efforts. Over the next year, the group replaced four of the six sitting aldermen with one of its founding members - Ald. Steve Olson - and three others sympathetic to its agenda. Olson later distanced himself from the group.

The group made what turned out to be false or exaggerated claims against opponents in fliers, claiming in one case that the candidate knew a sex-offender home was being planned for Franklin and that the candidate did nothing to fight a landfill expansion whose height would "exceed the Empire State Building."

"It was 'take the office at all costs.' That was the tactic they used," said former Ald. Don Dorsan, who lost to Olson and complained to the district attorney's office that the group had knowingly distributed false information about him.

Sounds like a great bunch of fellas.

From The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Regional News Briefs section.

Group awaits feedback on 'Boomgaard' name

Franklin - A controversial plan to christen the area along S. 27th St. in Franklin and Oak Creek as the Boomgaard District is on hold while the committee that chose the moniker gets more feedback from local residents and businesses.

Ted Grintjes, who chairs the S. 27th St. Steering Committee, said Wednesday that a final decision on the name could take 120 days or more.

"We've heard from only one side, the blogger community and the people who comment on the blogs," Grintjes said of the negative reception the name has received since it was announced. "And we'd really like to hear from the business community and residents."

The name Boomgaard, which is Dutch for orchard, plays on the city's environmental and cultural history, but it has been pilloried by critics as pretentious and a bad fit for the two communities.

The committee decided to suspend action on the name Tuesday night after the mayors of Oak Creek and Franklin sent it back for reconsideration.

Deploy the bad puns: Franklin and Oak Creek reconsider Boomgaard

Now Boomgaard is talk radio fodder for Sykes and Belling - no surprise.

It's not just the NAME that's messed up. I'm certain lots more will be revealed about the faulty process in days ahead...

From FranklinNow.com:

Panel considers lowering the boom on Boomgaard

27th Street committee reviewing district's name

By JULIE BECKER
jbecker@cninow.com

Posted: May 14, 2008

At least one city official admits the cities of Oak Creek and Franklin might have made a mistake in selecting the name Boomgaard District for the South 27th Street corridor.

"The idea I have is, you should never do anything knee-jerk, because knee-jerk never gets you any place you really want to go," Oak Creek Mayor Richard Bolender told the 27th Street Steering Committee on May 13. "It just postpones failure, generally."

Bolender said he "never was nuts" about the name, but supported it to help move the project forward.

Reacting to public criticism, Bolender and Franklin Mayor Thomas Taylor referred the name back to the committee. The committee decided at its meeting to suspend the naming and logo development for the corridor while gathering more public input, particularly from the surrounding business community.

More input needed

"I just think we need to do our due diligence, think about it, think about the process," said Ted Grintjes, committee chairman. "I think that shouldn't come from us; that should come from the public."

Bolender suggested allowing Franklin and Oak Creek residents to participate in a naming process if the committee decides to scrap Boomgaard.

So far, the two communities have spent about $9,800 on naming and logo development work with the Zizzo Group Advertising and Public Relations - about 47 percent of what was budgeted for the task.

Zizzo Group, with help from the steering committee and city officials in each community, chose the name "boomgaard" - Dutch for "orchard" - to represent the economy of the area dating back to the early 19th century and to pay tribute to some of the early settlers.

However, the name has sparked backlash from community members who say any name that must be explained probably won't convey a good message to potential developers.

No need to rush

Grintjes was hesitant to provide a deadline for a decision on the name, but suggested the committee give itself at least 120 days.

"If it takes 60 or 90 or 120 days, what's the difference, as long as the entire project goes forward," Bolender said. "I don't think we should stop the project or tie the progress of the project to a name."

There are plenty of other issues for the committee to tackle, said Doug Seymour, Oak Creek's Community Development director. They include development of marketing materials and collaboration with the Wisconsin Department of Transportation on designs related to 27th Street and the Interstate 94 North-South corridor project.

 

Julie Becker can be reached at (262) 446-6606.

Next step

WHAT: 27th Street Steering Committee meeting

WHEN: noon Thursday, June 12

WHERE: Oak Creek City Hall, 8640 S. Howell Ave.

The mortgage lending crisis explained

Want to REALLY understand the mortgage/credit crisis and the myriad human failings that created the mess we're in? Click HERE to listen to the "Giant Pool of Money" episode of NPR's THIS AMERICAN LIFE.

It's astounding. From the story:

People would close on a house, sign all the papers - - and then default on their very first payment. No loss of a job; no medical emergency. They were underwater before they even started.

There's the story of one particular person - now in deep financial trouble -  who, upon looking at the mortgage loan application his original broker filled out for him, learned that it claimed he made $16,250 a month. He was able to get a half-million dollar loan while making $37,000 a year. What's in it for the broker? An $18,500 commission.

Foreclosure is becoming a booming industry.

Joint 27th Street Steering Committee Meeting 4pm today

Thanks to Franklin alderman Steve Olson, I was made aware that there's a Joint 27th Street Steering Committee Meeting scheduled for 4 pm today. It's at Oak Creek City Hall and includes a citizen comment period.

4 pm? That should encourage citizen participation, huh? I can't get there, but I'll get a tape.

On the agenda: A $29,254.24 "marketing, branding, positioning, and public relations" payment to HTNB Corporation - - an engineering firm. They are the conduit through which we pay Zizzo Group.

Why do it this way? Ask Ted Grintjes. And this bill is ONLY for the period between Feb. 23rd and March 28th of this year.

Here's another question someone should ask: How much does Ted Grintjes think it costs to buy and reserve a group of internet domain names?

Boomgaard!

Franklin's Plan Commission now useless by design

ABOVE: It's ok, we planned it that way....

Allow me to begin by quoting a blog post from last September:

On the Plan Commission, Kevin Haley has been an ongoing beacon of wisdom. Never afraid to express the truth, no matter how unpopular, his was the sole dissenting vote against approving Target's building. After praising Target's efforts and execution, Haley said he would nonetheless have to oppose the motion:

My concerns are with the big picture, the quality. The Civic Center District guidelines tell us that this is supposed to set a higher standard. This is the standard by which all of Franklin will be evaluated in terms of architecture, site planning, many amenities. You did a great job on spiffing up the building, but as I tried to make apparent in our previous meetings, I have issues with the site plan, with the massing of the buildings, the fact that many of the third and fourth sides are very plain.

Haley is not soothed by a pretty facade; he's aware of the root of the site plan problem: Everything is built around the self-sufficient Target. This will ultimately be the undoing of the entire development as a true public space and commercial success beyond the Target parking lot border.

Mayor Taylor noted after Haley's comments:

Commissioner Haley, I’ve said it before -- I very much respect that you are sticking to your guns and principles. And I understand that you’ve made it no secret for some time that perhaps this could be done or that could be done. I do appreciate your position, and I also very much appreciate you being a plan commissioner.

As should we all.

Well, forget all that.

News comes to me that Mayor Tom Taylor has removed Kevin Haley from the Franklin Plan Commission. His three-year term has been given to present one-year appointment Shari Corrigan Hanneman. No replacement for the vacant chair has been announced as of now.
 

Kevin Haley was, without question, the single member of the Plan Commission who could be counted on to advocate for the COMMUNITY, understand the site plans, and vote with his conscience.

It was Haley who recognized the bald cynicism of Mark Carstensen's  11th hour addition of a single-family residence behind the Target loading dock of Shoppes at Wyndham Village - - after Carstensen had asked for and gotten re-zoning that would not permit such a dwelling in that location. (Incredibly, even as Carstensen's lucrative development endangered this family's property, he was able to make them think it was the Plan Commission they needed to fear!)

Kevin Haley was often a burr in developers' saddle, and - - barring an announcement that he's being named to a consequential planning post I've not yet heard of - - he has been removed so the rubber stamp can fall more efficiently.

In the days ahead I will be posting the backgrounds of each remaining Plan Commissioner. Prepare to be underwhelmed.

In the meantime, realize that one sitting plan commissioner, George Torres, was comfortable writing a letter dated 1/2/07 to WISDOT in support of Carstensen's Shoppes at Wyndham Village before seeing any definitive plans and before Carstensen's development had appeared before him in his role as plan commissioner - - a role in which Torres would and should be expected to show no positive predisposition toward a project that has not yet demonstrated compliance to the city's requirements.

Download TorresLetter.pdf

An especially cuddly passage from Torres' letter:

Mr. Carstensen has also proven to be committed to ensuring his developments meet all State and local requirements. He remains open and receptive to ideas and suggestions that must be met in order to allow his projects to move ahead.

Really?

Dateline 6/4/07: At the eleventh hour, Carstensen foists a single-family residence on the land he had re-zoned to City Civic Center District by making it seem as though the city would be the bad guy if the family had to leave. Meanwhile, the city of Franklin has on file a letter of permission from the homeowners dated 2/13/07 for Carstensen to apply for a Site Plan And Certified Map approval on their behalf. The letter states plainly: "Mr. Carstensen is currently under contract with us for the purchase of the property." (My emphasis). The city was clearly fooled.

Dateline 6/7/07: I report the Common Council's rubber-stamping of an odd boundary re-draw - "odd geometry," I call it - on the Shoppes at Wyndham Village site plan. I make a prediction borne out below.

Dateline 11/23/07: Carstensen  agrees to pay $46,000 to avoid a federal lawsuit over the destruction of wetlands at the site Shoppes at Wyndham Village.

Dateline 1/12/08: This blog unearths the agreement between Target and Carstensen that basically laughs off the City Civic Center District ambitions Carstensen touted when attempting to get rezoned so his project could go forward. Even the mayor was unaware of the document's existence.

How can a Plan Commissioner hold a developer to his/her promises and responsibilities when he's already on record as ready to rubber stamp whatever strip mall the developer spits out?

Kevin Haley asked the hard questions and raised issues that served the interests of this community and its future rather than that of the developers and their next Big Deal. He was the Plan Commissions' greatest asset.

And now Mayor Taylor has removed Mr. Haley from the Franklin Plan Commission.

More on this later.

JS Online: Pedaling proves profitable

Photo/Rick Wood Ken Leinbach (left), executive director of the Urban Ecology Center, joins other riders along the Oak Leaf Trail on his way to work last week. Some local businesses are working to become bike-friendly. Bike to Work week runs from today through Friday.

It's interesting that this Journal Sentinel story focuses on Northwestern Mutual in Franklin. While the intent is wonderful, actually biking to the NMI "campus" from home requires traversing some very, very unfriendly territory that does not resemble the bucolic picture above. More often, you face a tightrope situation like the one below:

Franklin is not quite ready for prime time when it comes to bike-friendly streets and roads.

See also The Bike Lane Dilemma.

From the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel:

Bike to Work Week highlights rewards for eco-friendly, healthy workers

By TOM HELD theld@journalsentinel.com
Posted: May 11, 2008

Bike-to-work inducements aren't all that different from the basics of day-to-day happiness: security, hot showers, clean clothes and a little extra cash.

Those are the very things that Milwaukee-area employers use to encourage their workers to bike, walk or bus to work, long after Bike to Work Week - which starts today - and its free coffee and festivities have ended.

Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co. provides an in-house cycling club, a secured bike parking area and two locker rooms for men and women at its downtown and Franklin offices, for its workers who arrive in Spandex and work in suits.

Eppstein Uhen Architects has the locker room facilities and the bike storage area, and last year added a company bike, which its workers in the Third Ward can pedal to nearby meetings and lunches.

It's the environmentally focused nonprofits, though, that put cold, hard cash into the equation. Both the Urban Ecology Center and the Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers pad their employee paychecks by $1, after taxes, for every day they bike, walk, or take a bus to their job.

"That little bit of motivation seemed to be enough," said Ken Leinbach, the executive director of the Urban Ecology Center. "Everybody became engaged, and it became a camaraderie and a friendly competition."

Leinbach figures at least a dozen of the center's 18 full-time employees either bike or bus to work on a daily basis, and he counts himself in that group, whether he's on a bike or in-line skates. He also adds that daily $1 to his paycheck, using the same honor system as the rest of the employees.

The ecology center's eco-bucks concept has spread to other businesses around the country and close to home. Lynn Broaddus, executive director of the Friends of Milwaukee's Rivers, copied the program Leinbach started in 2003.

"People compensate employees in a lot of different ways," Broaddus said. "This is a way for us to show that we appreciate when staff are doing the right thing."

Keeping employees happy

Eco-bucks seems like a natural fit for the green-oriented businesses with relatively small payrolls, but variations can be found on slightly bigger scales. Diablos Rojos Inc., a Milwaukee-based restaurant group with more than 100 workers, offers extra vacation time for cycling managers and in-house credits for food, drinks and clothing for its hourly workers.

"We reward our staff to be environmentally friendly," said Gordon Goggin, director of operations for the company, which owns Trocadero and Café Hollander.

It's not entirely altruistic.

Staff turnover can be one of the biggest expenses in the restaurant business, and Goggin sees some savings in retaining staff and keeping them happy.

It's reasonable to wonder how those eco-credit incentives, or locker room and other infrastructure investments, would transfer from smaller businesses into larger, more institutional manufacturing or financial concerns.

Mark Mone, a University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professor who teaches strategic management, said managers will look for a return on investment and find it through reduced health care costs, better productivity and attendance.

Encouraging cycling should be part of an overall wellness effort that maximizes a company's investment in its workers, its most important resource, Mone said.

Sustainability trend

Rich Tennessen, the executive vice president of Eppstein Uhen Architects, has noticed that more businesses are incorporating bicycle storage areas and employee locker rooms into their building or expansion plans. It's part of the trend toward sustainability, in building design and corporate mission, he said.

Eppstein Uhen, with 135 employees split between offices in Milwaukee and Madison, also has used incentives to encourage workers to take part in Bike to Work Week activities.

Last year, the firm put $1 into a fund for every mile its workers biked or walked during the annual May event. That money was used to buy the company bike, now available for employee use.

Even with the trends that Tennessen and Mone have identified, cycling remains a minuscule part of Milwaukee's overall commuter mass. The 2000 census found that cycling accounted for roughly one-third of 1% of all trips to work in Milwaukee, just below the national average of 0.4%, according to the League of American Cyclists.

Those numbers are likely to be bolstered by the rapid rise in gas prices, which have pushed motoring commuters to look for alternatives, according to news accounts across the country.

Saving money on gas appears to be its own eco-bucks incentive, leaving the parking and the showers up to the employers.

Buy a link here

.)

Man on the street Boomgaard video: SURPRISE! Nobody like the name ...

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel's Jim Stingl asked some folks around town what the think of "Boomgaard District" as a name for the 27th Street area (click HERE for video feed).

The Zizzo Group and 27th Street honcho Ted Grintjes must be bursting with pride.

Wait until we talk about the money we spent for that silly name ....