1 Million Milwaukeeans. A DC comparative.
1 Million Milwaukeeans Series: Earlier this week, I had the opportunity to speak with the Mayor of Milwaukee specifically on the topic of growing Milwaukee to 1 million people. The Mayor seems really in tune and willing to say: it’s not enough for there to be growth in the region, we need growth in the city limits itself. Over the next few weeks, I am going to be working on a series of comparatives for this substack to dive into the topic of 1 million milwaukeeans.
(Other Comparatives: South Bend)
One Million Milwaukeeans.
On the one hand, it is a lofty goal for a 570 thousand person city that’s had population declines for 6 decades and counting. On the other hand, decline is not a permanent condition. Case in point: for 170 years, Milwaukee and Washington DC tracked closely in population increase then decrease. Only in the last decade did DC shake its cobwebs and begin growing again. Milwaukee could too. There’s nothing that says Milwaukee’s destiny is perpetual stagnation and decline.
A DC comparative:
I bring up DC as a comparison point because I happened to live there during this recent (re)growth phase, am very familiar with the pattern of growth, and think there are some instructive lessons for Milwaukee.
Intensive growth through infill.
Similar to Milwaukee, DC has fixed city borders and was considered “built out.” They did not have the option of annexing suburban and rural land to build car-oriented sprawl. They needed to figure out a growth model that could reverse decades of core decline and stagnation. And they did this even while continuing to work on big issues with gun violence, poverty, and homelessness. In my diagnosis, they’ve done it through 4 major breakthroughs:
Intensive transit-oriented development near multiple transit stations.
Intensive growth in former waterfront industrial sites with substantial public quality of life enhancements like riverwalks and piers.
Intensive re-development of the large navy yard site, including building Nationals Park and developing around it.
Intensive development over I-395/Center Leg Freeway in downtown DC.
What can Milwaukee learn from DC?
Addressing every social issue & trauma isn’t a prerequisite to growth. And in fact, growth can make addressing other issues a bit easier.
We don’t have a metro system like DC (yet). But there’s still ways we can leverage the bits of transit capacity that we do have. The Hop corridor and future extensions can prioritize easy housing and job growth. The BRT network that’s being built out can also be leveraged to allow larger and by-right development near stations. And we can continue to work and agitate for funding capacity to expand transit. Minneapolis passed a 0.5% sales tax to support transit not that long ago and has leveraged it to build a growing network of light rail and BRT. These are well within the realm of possibility for the Milwaukee region if we keep pushing toward it.
Milwaukee is pretty good on improving its waterfronts, but there’s a lot left to go. I don’t think we can wait for every hold out on the Milwaukee River to be built before we think about a responsible high growth vision for the Menomonee & Kinnickinnic Rivers and even Lincoln & Wilson creeks.
Milwaukee has larger sites, including around the Brewer’s Am Fam Field. It’s not a perfect comparison, but it is notable the distance from Am Fam to Milwaukee downtown is very similar as the distance from Nats Park to Washington DC’s traditional commercial core near 16th Street.
And then we have a downtown highway trench (I-43). DC did a major public-private partnership to develop the air rights over their downtown highway trench. This helped meet their growth needs while also stitch back together neighborhoods. It’s a good model. We need to be thinking creatively about how similar things can move forward in Milwaukee.