Winning the 2020 Democratic National Convention is a coup for Milwaukee, Mayor Tom Barrett and a host of allies.
And for a downtown river revival rooted in former Mayor John Norquist's New Urbanism which correctly predicted that people wanted to live and work near water and to be able to get where they needed to go on a bike, by rail, or on their own two feet.
(Full disclosures: I worked for Mayor Norquist for about six years. And this is why the city rail isn't as extensive as it could have been, but that's what happens when suburban interests are hostile to the cities which boost and define the region and entire state's culture and economy.)
I assume that Republicans from Donald Trump to ask the way down to Wisconsin's defeated Gov. Scott Walker will by the summer of 2020 still be rabidly red-baiting on right-wing talk radio and social media about the evils of socialism, as they choose to distort and demonize it.
Convention visitors, however, if they do a little Googling, will learn that Milwaukee had socialist mayors until the 1960's who left behind publicly-spirited legacies from clean government, to beautiful parks and miles of open space within walking distance of downtown on a Lake Michigan shoreline that already has its own, special glow.
Welcome, visitors.
And for a downtown river revival rooted in former Mayor John Norquist's New Urbanism which correctly predicted that people wanted to live and work near water and to be able to get where they needed to go on a bike, by rail, or on their own two feet.
(Full disclosures: I worked for Mayor Norquist for about six years. And this is why the city rail isn't as extensive as it could have been, but that's what happens when suburban interests are hostile to the cities which boost and define the region and entire state's culture and economy.)
I assume that Republicans from Donald Trump to ask the way down to Wisconsin's defeated Gov. Scott Walker will by the summer of 2020 still be rabidly red-baiting on right-wing talk radio and social media about the evils of socialism, as they choose to distort and demonize it.
Convention visitors, however, if they do a little Googling, will learn that Milwaukee had socialist mayors until the 1960's who left behind publicly-spirited legacies from clean government, to beautiful parks and miles of open space within walking distance of downtown on a Lake Michigan shoreline that already has its own, special glow.
Welcome, visitors.
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| The Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum on Milwaukee's Lake Michigan shoreline. |