Milwaukee is a walker’s paradise. Wisconsin’s largest city has made some great strides recently and, as with many cities in the Midwest, if you haven’t been here in the last decade you might as well say you’ve never been here. Once you’re on foot, you find that this city has a lot to offer in its confusingly large yet compact downtown area.
Over the years, Milwaukee’s built form has organized itself into categorized blocks spread across the downtown area that feature various bars, restaurants, and other entertainment destinations. If you want to see college freshmen go to Water Street, if you want to hang out with yuppies go to Milwaukee Street, if you’re part of the counter cultures of America go to Brady Street, etc. There are dozens of these little strips that are all easily walkable between each other. So, when people spend a night out bar hopping they can easily walk five miles without realizing it, and with that comes the perception that Milwaukee is one large neighborhood.
Once you start walking around though, you’ll notice that the neighborhoods between the shopping districts vary wildly. They’re all very dense quite walkable, but they allocate their forms in different ways. Around Brady Street you’ll find very large Queen Anne duplexes, Along Prospect Avenue people live in rows of high-rise condominium towers, In Northpointe and Yankee Hill there are large, historic, and beautiful mansions, Murray Hill is full of non-descript low-rise apartment blocks, and the Third Ward has historic warehouse to condominium conversions.
What’s more impressive is that despite this density and walkability, Milwaukee continues to find new places to develop and continues to find ways to ‘fill in the gaps’ between the various commercial strips mentioned above. As this former rust belt’s renaissance continues, developers have been finding innovative ways to reuse former industrial properties. The former Schlitz Brewery is now an office park, an old railroad corridor and stockyards is not an upscale neighborhood called Beerline B, the Pabst Brewery has been retrofitted with bioswales along it’s streets and now has a mix of condos and satellite campuses for area universities. And the latest venture is a broad swath of land called the Park East, where a freeway was recently torn down and the street-grid was reassembled. Many of these projects are a direct result of our former Mayor John Norquist, who is now the president and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism.
Our transit system only helps with the walkability of the city. While we’re consistently noted for having a severe lack of rail transit for a city our size, the absence of these systems doesn’t tarnish the car-free life here. With our walkable core being somewhat linear, the few bus lines that run through the downtown area run at frequent intervals and are used heavily by locals and tourists. In addition, Milwaukee’s inter-city transit options are above average. With Chicago only 90 miles to the South, the Amtrak Hiawatha route makes seven daily runs each direction and acts as a commuter train for many businessmen. There are also frequent daily coach bus routes to the suburbs, and the wildly popular BadgerBus to Madison and Megabus to the Twin Cities. Still, there’s always room for improvement and Milwaukee is actively seeking federal funding for Streetcars, BRT and Commuter Rail, which are all on the cusp of beginning construction.
All in all, Milwaukee lives up to its Walkscore.com moniker of a “Walker’s Paradise.” The city is stable, growing, and a lot of fun to explore on foot. And while our winters can be nearly hellish at times, our summer festivals are worth the wait. The next time you’re in the area, park your car or jump off a train and enjoy everything the Brew City has to offer by foot.
Andrew Knee is a student at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and is studying Architecture and Urban Planning.
Excellent article — you’ve provided a good overview of some great walking places in Milwaukee. I’ve lived in Milwaukee for over 12 years now, and I continue to be amazed by the growing vitality of the places you mention.
Also, definitely worth a walk: 1) Walker’s Point (start off at Alterra Foundry and walk west to the roundabout and then into the emerging areas around 5th and 6th street; eat a Conejito’s. 2) Riverwest (start off at Fuel Cafe and walk Center Street and then down to the Riverwest Co-op. 3) Bay View (start off at the Hi Fi Cafe and head down KK then east to the Lake and see if you can find the Pryor Avenue Iron Well and then visit South Shore Park). 4) Walk the whole lakefront from the mouth of the Milwaukee River (the red lighthouse) all the way north to Bradford Beach–the most amazing urban waterfront walk I’ve seen anywhere in the world. And many more!
The key to this emerging walkability is the human-scale architecture and pedestrian-orientation of the streetscape. Care and respect for pedestrians is key–and difficult to achieve in a car-oriented culture, but it is possible. The neighborhoods that are realizing that surface parking lots are not the answer will be the winners in economic vitality.
@Andrew Thanks for the Milwaukee write-up… I enjoyed it quite a bit.
Would love a link to a map for non-local awareness. I lived near Milwaukee years ago… But neighborhood names are not familiar. And I’ll be visiting milwaukke next month. So some research help would be greatly appreciated.
I have some maps and photos on my MKE Album page on my Web site (http://www.december.com/places/mke/album.html) — the left column of the table, “Place Area,” has many of the neighborhoods mentioned with places of interest marked and photos. Email me if you have other questions.
Thanks for the comments everyone. And John, thanks for posting that link. That’ll be a great resource when I go to visit Milwaukee soon!
The people going to Chicago for business are all men?
Except for the 75-85% or so that is a no go zone. Oakland and North are getting to be rather perilous.
While I can’t explain the destructive forces that have laid siege on Oakland and North, the area is still very walkable. As for the rest of the city…yes there are many square miles that were developed in a suburban manner and will never be a walker’s paradise, but the areas that are walkable cover a considerable portion of the city. (More square miles than the average person would care to walk.) At the same time, many of the areas that you might consider to be “no go zones” are still built with the same fabric as the more walkable parts. As more people explore the walkable nature of the city and as more people move downtown, it won’t take much for new areas to become more walkable. Look to the transformation of MLK Drive that was driven by the gentrification of Brewer’s Hill, or to the recent transformation of Lincoln Village, and even 27th St South of Highland Ave (the SOHI district) is seeing new businesses as Avenues West struggles to recreate itself.
Milwaukee has a great set of nice, solid, business districts ready to get in on all of this action. It’s just a perception issue that needs to change.
The forces increasing strong arm robbery in the shadow of UWM have been quite obvious. Look at the robbery stats and locations, what comes up in the news about the perps, and especially the drug houses and dealers that show up in the DA’s community prosecution lists. The increased student population has been a menace to walkers since they bring their cars far too often and are prone to fast driving on residential streets. They also attract muggers and burglaries by being both victims and complicit consumers and retailers in the drug market.
Where does the “it’s just a perception issue” come from? I’ve heard it for years, and it makes no sense. Perception is reality, and even the massaged perceptions of what police officially classify as a countable crime will tell you that much of Milwaukee is made of places you don’t want to go walking. Better luck with bike paths.
You can look closely at the crime profile of specific neighborhoods and districts to get a good idea of what’s going on even if you don’t live there. A significant level of crime that brings down the quality of life even when the overall crime rate is decreasing is definitely not an illusion. Neighborhood level trends may even be downward overall but increasing in certain categories that turn heads and make people leave. General theft rates for example are very high, but this doesn’t cause much outcry. A single digit spike in violent crime and burglary does cause an outcry–more so in higher value, well connected blocks and neighborhoods. Those spikes can happen within a general decrease in crime stats, so if you have a police chief telling residents with real problems next door that his numbers are going down, that is the ultimate cop out. Unfortunately that’s been how it is.
If there is a mis/perception problem about crime in Milwaukee, it is that a lot of people simply don’t understand crime victims’ behavior as risky when it is. If anything serious happens to a white person who is not obviously a bum or a crook, the media and public will treat it as a terrifying (because random) act that could happen to anyone. Generally this is not true, but when girls get their heads smashed with bottles on Oakland in broad daylight instead of the customary “give me your purse,” it doesn’t help make this case.
What you say about the potential for growth in walkable areas is true, but it really comes down to money. You could clear up the crime and make things more attractive, but it will still take investment.
The key word you’re using now is “struggling.” Yes places like SOHI and MLK Drive are struggling. The south end of King is the nicest, but it is still largely vacant. The new development north of North may prove to be catalytic of sustainable growth, but it seems like a long shot. So far small “anchors” like the Ponderosa or Walgreens on North have not been able to stay in business, and why should they? Halyard Park and Brewers Hill are not really being catered to in what’s available in the commercial strip, and they are the only proximate neighborhoods with the stability and wealth to support nearby businesses.
The “gentrification” of Brewers Hill took 20-30 years to reach a point where residents often pay $10K+ in property taxes to become a burglar’s destination, which seems typical in high residential areas here. In bar areas you get muggings; in high rental areas you also get burglaries, and the same seems true to a somewhat lesser degree in residential clusters of single family homes. Planning needs top be more comprehensive, including thought to design that encourages desired behaviors and discourages undesirable behaviors.
@Dan
I think you’re missing the point. Yes, there are crimes, just like in any city. That doesn’t change the fact that Milwaukee’s urban form encourages foot traffic. I mentioned the areas of MLK and SOHI as examples of areas similar to the ones already gentrified that have the potential to push the walkability of Milwaukee beyond the core.
As for crime, I’m not sure where you’re getting your data from, but if you can match up incidents with population density you’d find that a very small percentage of people who live and work on the East Side, in downtown, and the Third Ward have experienced any random criminal acts. In most areas there are far too many eyes on the street for them to happen at random, and usually the victim was doing something they shouldn’t have been. This is, as you mentioned, not always what’s reported but it is reality. The crime that happens near the university is being watched carefully by UWM and is a very serious problem, but that area is hardly dangerous to walk through most hours of the day and it’s a very small corner of the city. The deranged, drunken college students aren’t wandering the Lower East Side, Yankee Hill, East Town (except for Water St), Westown (except for 3rd St), the Third Ward, and Bay View.
Lastly, just because the gentrification of Milwaukee is much slower than many cities in the US does not mean that nothing is happening. Milwaukee has consistently ranked in the top ten cities for poverty for years. Despite that, the city continues to offer a quality of life unmatched in value to almost any city in the country. I’ve lived in a two bedroom apartment, five blocks from a supermarket, on three transit lines, a short walk to the beach, with more bars and restaurants than I can imaging for ~$300/month for over five years now without getting mugged or robbed. You can’t beat that in most cities.
I was responding to your comment that MLK has been “transformed.” It doesn’t look all that transformed. Six thugs opened fire and killed someone in a shoe store on the 2200 block of MLK Friday. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38498191/ns/local_news-milwaukee_wi/
I was also responding to your earlier comment that older parts of the city that are in good shape for walking will be discovered and redeveloped if downtown residential growth increases. That could and should happen to areas touching downtown, but there are serious countervailing forces at work, like thugs opening fire in stores.
And it doesn’t say anything about most of the rest of the city, like central north and south side neighborhoods. That’s what was behind my original comment–you’re vastly overselling walkability and its effects, especially with a county and school system that are going broke.
I didn’t say anything about chances of people being random victims of crime, and I wasn’t referring to just robberies alone. Burglaries are the crimes that happen somewhat more “randomly”–they can happen to anyone and are assured to happen at certain benchmark rates in many residential neighborhoods where there are not many eyes on the street because people are at work or asleep. If you park in the street, your car will be broken into and/or stolen sooner or later. (If you make it 5 years without a break in and don’t live in a million dollar mansion, you’re doing well.) If you have a garage, it will be broken into sooner or later.
The correct response to that stuff is not to minimize it or blame the victims. The impact of those crimes is on quality of life–crime happening near you damages peoples’ peace of mind and property values. John Norquist said once that a lot of neighborhoods just beyond the downtown area and a little further would really grow if the number of murders went down enough. Well they did, and now they’re coming back up. You need to drive the violent crime and burglary way down and keep it down–probably for a decade–and then if the economy can sustain it, there will be greater investment in redevelopment. That’s a long, hard road.
It’s great to boost the city and walkability, but it’s wrong to take it to the point that it’s an inaccurate depiction of value and cost of living for average residents citywide. When you say “the city continues to offer a quality of life unmatched in value to almost any city in the country,” that’s just taking it too far. Milwaukee never shows up in the rankings like that for very solid reasons that need to be addressed head on or else we’re just going to start talking about two different cities: the greater downtown and east end areas–white, educated, and affluent vs. the other 90%–geographically and demographically.
A city with high poverty, unemployment, widespread low educational attainment, and college graduates that don’t stay will also have elevated crime and more bad neighborhoods than good ones, with many of the good ones fighting an endless battle with disorder. Gentrification and downtown redevelopment is not the main chance for really changing the game and getting on the path to stability and growth. It’s one thing that can help if it’s sustainable, but it’s not a war-winning strategy.
Re. sources, I’ve used pretty much everything that’s available beyond extensive informal networks, because there has been such a boom in public data availability since 2000 or so. You might find this heatmap interesting, since it’s based on scoring four-block segments for severity and frequency of crime: http://areyousafe.innovationgeo.com/HeatMaps/2008/MKE_CrimeHeatMap.KML This is based on 2008 data unless they’ve been able to update it recently.
A city with high poverty, unemployment, widespread low educational attainment, and college graduates that don’t stay will also have elevated crime and more bad neighborhoods than good ones, with many of the good ones fighting an endless battle with disorder. Gentrification and downtown redevelopment is not the main chance for really changing the game and getting on the path to stability and growth.
Awesome work over again. Thank you;)