Beautiful But Ugly
-
5/10/2020
Grew up and lived in Madison for over 30 years before leaving it behind. In all honesty, it's a beautiful little capital city nestled between lakes and seeing respectable growth.
Pros:
- Nature. Lot's of conservation efforts. Great parks and lakes inside the city. Just a short drive to even more natural beauty to the north and west.
- Farmers market. Top 5 in the U.S. imo. Access to farm CSA's is amazing too.
- Some amazing city neighborhoods. Near west side has Greenbush, Vilas and Regent neighborhoods, and the Atwood and Jenifer neighborhoods on the east side are all beautiful, walkable and safe.
- Economy is still small but growing fast.
Cons:
- Expensive. Housing has shot through the roof. Taxes are really high. While the economy is growing, it's nowhere on par with costs of living. Only luxury condos/apts have been built in the last 20 years, mostly on the outskirts of town where its unwalkable. Nearly the entirety of downtown housing is university students in converted single family homes. This has pushed housing costs unreasonably high in the surrounding city neighborhoods.
- Sprawl. Continuation from above, the consequence of not improving density is massive sprawl. Farm land is being bought and paved by the day. Obviously, not unique to Madison alone, but a shame given the opportunity and need. Watching Sun Prairie and Verona boom like they have this past decade saddens me. Madison is following the same failed path as other urban cores. Lose their tax base, failing schools, increasing infrastructure costs to support suburban growth, rising crime, horrible traffic... ugh. East to west on the beltline used to take 40 minutes tops in rush hour. Last year, before I moved, it took me over an 1hr 30mins. Middleton to downtown used to take 15-20 minutes when traffic was busiest. Now takes upwards of 40 minutes.
- Government. Part of the high cost of living is due to blunders on part of the City. City planning and the Mayors office has done a really poor job managing the growth on multiple levels. The ban on multi-family zoning and building taller than the capital has forced runaway housing costs and rapid suburban sprawl. Crime is also way out of hand and no serious plan has been put forth. Burglary's, car jacking's and armed robberies were rare in the 80's, 90s and early 00's. These are crimes of poverty, which tells you a deeper story of "liberal" Madison.
- The people and culture. Lot's of great, community active people. Lots of really snobby, unfriendly people too. Something about the culture being centered around the capital and university that created an elitist vibe to most of the more liberally minded people. Maybe it's the strong Scandinavian and German roots, or the long bitter winters. However, Madisonians are not very warm or relatable folks. Then you have those who wear camouflage to dinner and ask for juice when they want a Mountain Dew... this is still Wisconsin after all.
- Racism. Building on the last point, Madison has not been very friendly to it's black population. Madison is REALLY NOT a diverse or liberal place, despite their belief that LGBTQ rights = those things. Madison is much closer in terms of culture to Boise, ID than to Berkeley, CA or Ann Arbor, MI. The achievement gap between whites and blacks is (I think) the worst in the United States. Lots of them proclaim liberal values but act as staunch conservatives when it comes to the things that really matter. Nearly all of that growth has been young white professionals from rural parts of Wisconsin. Trust me, I work in tech and these younger whites are even more racist than their parents. They moved to Madison BECAUSE it's mostly white.
Jacob | Madison, WI