When I moved to Madison in the mid-1980s, I was shocked by the reactions I got.
To some Madisonians, I was immediately suspect. I was from Milwaukee, after all, which they saw as a backward city of beer, ba-bushkas and bowling, with racial problems and a reactionary government. I was treated more than once to someone’s imitation of a Milwaukee accent, a dumbly provincial, “We go down by Schuster’s” way of talking that was so stereotyped and thirdhand, I was dumbfounded.
A writer who covered classical music for Isthmus, the weekly where I was arts editor, once informed me that Milwaukee was just a “dirty little city.” True, Milwaukee had industrial pollution you’d never find in Madison, but it was several times larger, with a top-caliber symphony orchestra and two nationally notable opera companies, something this classical critic wouldn’t encounter in Madison.
Meanwhile, I got similar razzing from some of my old acquaintances in Milwaukee, who saw Madison as a politically correct back-water of vegetarian, tree-hugging, wine-sipping, liberal bureaucrats. Madison was hopelessly clueless, a town of pretentious twits who thought they had all of the answers. It was the land of perpetual full employment because the major university and state government were there, with no poverty, few minorities and little understanding of big-city problems. An alternative to reality indeed.
It was bizarre. Two cities just 75 miles and minutes away from each other seemed more like different continents, separated by the state’s own Mason Dixon-styled line of misunderstanding. The caricatured view each city has of the other can be amusing but in the long run has hurt the state.
Wisconsin is often compared to Minnesota and Milwaukee to Minneapolis. But the Twin Cities combine state government and its main business city, strategically connected by its top university, in one metro area. Such proximity allows for more synergy, for more understanding between public and private sector and ultimately helps fuel a more powerful state economy.
By contrast, Wisconsin’s business hub, Milwaukee, might as well be across the ocean from the state capitol, there is such a vast gulf of misunderstanding between the two. Paul Purcell, chairman of the investment firm Robert W. Baird & Co., told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he found the rivalry between Madison and Milwaukee “mystifying.”
This state, of course, is home of the Wisconsin Idea, the notion that the best thinkers at the University of Wisconsin should help solve the citizens’ problems. But that concept has mostly connected university to state government, with historic Wisconsin innova-tions like the income tax, primary elections and workmen’s compensation. The idea seldom seemed to connect UW to Milwaukee’s businesses or people.
In the meantime, the two cities are becoming more alike. Today, Milwaukee is less blue collar, with fewer industrial smells and smokestacks and more coffeehouses, cool bars and restaurants. Madison is getting bigger and grittier, with more businesses, congestion, diversity, poverty and crime.
Yes, the cities are still very different. Madison has a much higher percentage of college graduates and much less poverty. Milwaukee has more Fortune 1,000 headquarters and less university research spending.
But in the push to make Wisconsin a more high-tech state, the two cities may have much to gain by cooperating. Madison has be-come the Midwest’s hothouse of biotech patents and spin-off businesses. But Milwaukee, too, is getting into the game, having created some 10,000 high-tech jobs in the 1990s, making it the state’s leader during that period.
Investors from Milwaukee have helped bankroll Madison start-up companies. Greater Milwaukee-area companies like GE Healthcare Technologies and MatriLab have benefited from UW-Madison research. Milwaukee’s still-strong corporate community could help commercialize the research taking place at UW-Madison.
Perhaps the most underrated opportunity exists in manufacturing. This state, and especially this metro area, remains a manufacturing powerhouse and has already made strides in using high-tech innovations to increase efficiency. UW-Madison-generated research could speed up this progress.
But how can the wall between Madison and Milwaukee be broken down? It’s a nice sign that the two cities’ mayors, Tom Barrett and Dave Cieslewicz, have pledged cooperation. But the Legislature, governor, state Commerce Department and Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce need to make this a priority, too.
Nothing would do more to unite the two cities than building a high-speed rail link. Talk about synergy. Once the two cities are just 40 minutes apart, the possibilities are unlimited. This would connect the state’s two biggest cities, its main business and government hubs and could help foster the creation of a high-tech corridor from Downtown Milwaukee to Dane County.
It wouldn’t hurt tourism either. Madison folks could easily get to Milwaukee to see the Bucks, Brewers, symphony or art museum. Milwaukeeans would be a quick ride away from a Badgers game or the Capitol Square farmers’ market. People from both places might begin to see each city as the congenial places they truly are. When that begins to happen, who knows what kind of cooperation might be possible?
