BUILD IT AND THEY WILL COME?

The new Milwaukee mayor, Cavalier "Chevy" Johnson, aspires to a city (not metropolitan area, city proper) population of a million inhabitants.  I'm not sure pursuing population in the pursuit of taxes is the best strategy.  "It is not just that Johnson wants Milwaukee to grow. He needs population and business growth to help relieve enormous pressure on the city’s long-term finances."

Both the city council and the county board recently authorized sales tax increases, to take effect at the start of 2024.  Tax revenue projections never survive their first encounter with taxpayers, and the short run substitutions such as shopping in stores outside Milwaukee County, and the long run migrations of businesses dealing with additional crime while collecting taxes on dwindling sales are likely, if of unknown magnitude.

That's not to say there aren't organic forces of some sort at work.

In some places, it looks and feels like the city is growing. The city saw an explosion of new apartment buildings and condominiums in the last two decades. The apartment building boom continues. Right now, construction is underway on a 44-story tower near the Milwaukee Art Museum. A 31-story apartment building is rising on the northwestern edge of the city’s Third Ward.

Yes. I've not been downtown since before the corona tyranny. The view toward the cathedral from the roof of the Grohmann Museum now looks like this.

It's not quite as jarring as the Tycho Monolith rising behind Notre Dame de Paris, and yet the cathedral spire is lost in all that.  The Cudahy Tower apartments have long been along the lakefront, while the former First Wisconsin tower now has a lot of company, and one of those high-rises will have a streetcar loop serving it.

That apartment block on the northwest corner of the Third Ward is also a surprise.

It looks like a parking structure is going to take the place of the Milwaukee Ale House, and the apartment tower is replacing one of the old warehouses that later became home to the sort of stores that cater to the trendy types.  This time, the surface parking lot gave way to construction.

That was as of October 2018.  Note the Starbucks on Water Street that I used as an oasis after a train trip in those days has also closed.  For the moment, somebody is making do with the dead space under an elevated expressway that might be the next object of creative destruction with pickleball courts.  I don't know if the new construction will have the same sort of public space to hang out, quaff beer, and watch trains and boats that the old Ale House complex did.  There's a new Ale House complex along the Milwaukee River in Grafton, not the same sort of boat and train watching possible.

There's more residential construction along the rails and rivers, with a warehouse converted into apartments with a view of the confluence of the rivers, and some balconies offering a view of the trains, complete with all the horn and stack talk.  Further south, there are several new buildings with balconies and the like in the Baran Park neighborhood, which is to say west of Bay View and east of Koscziuszko Park, and the boat yards that used to service the commercial fishing fleet now serve the recreational fishing fleet, and the sort of pleasure boaters that prowl the rivers.  Will those be space enough for those million people?  In addition to the waterfront area, apparently the old Cold Spring Shops neighborhood near Milwaukee Hamilton remains a draw.  There's value in those old tract houses.

The city can start by continuing to encourage development where people want to live. Low vacancy rates indicate demand is still strong for housing in the downtown, east side, Walker’s Point, and Bay View areas.

When possible, the city should encourage refugee and immigrant settlement. Parts of the far south side have seen population growth, in large part because of higher birth rates among immigrant families. For example, Buffalo attributes some of its recent population growth to new international arrivals in the city. Given shrinking household sizes among native-born Americans, immigration by larger families is the main way neighborhoods can grow without building more houses.

Milwaukee can increase domestic migration by offering newcomers a city that is more pedestrian and bike-friendly, with more public spaces and easy access to transit options. Zoning changes can increase density in areas that have experienced population loss because of shrinking household size.

The Third Ward itself? In the past six years, most of the remaining produce warehouses that we've called attention to have been repurposed.  "Once the Jennaro Bros. building conversion is done next year, the only undeveloped former warehouse on the block will be a three-story, 8,500-square-foot building at 339 N. Broadway."  That's since been spruced up and put into use.

There is a downtown improvement plan that envisions bringing more residents into downtown.  It strikes me as longer on aspirations and bromides than on concrete plans.  "Sustainable, diverse, vibrant, inclusive."  OK.  That's also on the mind of the reporters, er, editorialists, as they expand on the mayor's wishes.

The community, including the broader metro, must reduce racial disparities. The city could stem much of its population loss if more residents — increasingly those of color — chose to remain in Milwaukee. Public investment should be prioritized for neighborhoods that have experienced decades of disinvestment and population decline.

Somewhere, somebody is going to have to talk about those mostly peaceful weekends and those road-racers in the declining neighborhoods.

The city has seen an epidemic of reckless driving and just recorded its third straight year of record homicides. Perhaps not surprisingly, the areas hit the hardest by the violence in Milwaukee have seen the greatest population decline. While some growing cities such as Kansas City and Indianapolis also have higher rates of violent crime, public safety plays an important role in why people choose to live in a city. It is worth noting that three of the most dangerous cities in America — Baltimore, Detroit, and Memphis — experienced some of the greatest population loss in the last decade.

That might do more than selling the temperate conditions, where Lake Michigan takes some of the sting off the winters and the heat off the summers.

Milwaukee can play to its other strengths. Our climate and access to abundant freshwater may blunt some of the worst effects of climate change. The quality of life available to middle class families is superior to that in many of the fastest growing cities, where cost-of-living increases outstrip the wages of most workers.

That "climate change" argument crops up everywhere, including discussions of the city's heat islands. "In one of the country's most racially segregated cities, where historical redlining has pushed communities of color into more industrial areas, urban heat islands perpetuate these inequities, said Young Kim, the executive director at Groundwork Milwaukee."

Ultimately, though, addressing those inequities might be a fool's errand.

The city is drafting a climate change and equity plan that says one of the ways it will address climate change and racial disparities is by adding more green space and accelerating the growth of green jobs.

Provided by whom?

But as organizations, like Groundwork Milwaukee, work to add more green space and "beautify" the city, the balance lies in making sure these efforts don't increase taxes or "unintentionally kick off gentrification," Kim said.

Too late: those new downtown apartments, including the ones with river and rail views, don't look cheap, and, to repeat, the city and county governments both voted to raise sales taxes at the start of the new year.