Starting the Conversation: Leaders Pledge Milwaukee-Chicago Economic Cooperation

A majority of people in Wisconsin support the idea of more economic cooperation between Milwaukee and Chicago. A roster of major political and corporate leaders want to see more economic cooperation between Milwaukee and Chicago. A major international organization is urging more cooperation.

But will it happen?

That was the question hanging over a provocative and timely conference Tuesday in the Appellate Courtroom of Eckstein Hall. “Milwaukee’s Future in the Chicago Megacity” was sponsored by Marquette University Law School’s Lubar Fund for Public Policy Research and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

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Milwaukee’s Future in the Chicago Megacity

Marquette University Law School and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel will host a conference next week. The conference title—“Milwaukee’s Future in the Chicago Megacity”—reflects that Chicago is one of the world’s emerging “megacities”; for example, it is ranked No. 6 in Foreign Policy magazine’s Global Cities Index (behind only New York, London, Tokyo, Paris, and Hong Kong). An expansive new report by the international Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development argues that closer ties between the Milwaukee region and Chicagoland are of singular importance. At our conference, various panels, involving business leaders, elected officials, and public policy analysts, will assess that argument, with a general eye to these central questions: how closely should the Milwaukee region connect its future to Chicago, and how might that be accomplished through public policy and business might?

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Milwaukee-Area Annexation Battles

This post is a response to several recent comments on the Faculty Blog concerning the importance of Milwaukee-area annexation battles in Wisconsin politics. These battles included a pronounced anti-urban bias, and that bias remains evident in present-day attacks on the City of Milwaukee and its residents in the context of gubernatorial recall election. However, the annexation battles themselves do not explain or clarify the attacks.

Historian John Gurda discusses the annexation battles on pages 336-45 in The Making of Milwaukee (1999). The battles were most pronounced from roughly 1948-62. While City of Milwaukee officials vigorously attempted to include newly developing, outlying areas in the City, leaders of these areas were often fiercely opposed. They sought to convert their rural towns into municipalities, to fight Milwaukee’s annexation efforts, and to annex unincorporated areas to their own suburbs. The suburbanites, according to Gurda, were anxious to disassociate themselves from Milwaukee’s poverty. Many of the new suburbanites “found it surprisingly easy to trade their ancestral loyalties for an attitude of outright hostility to the City.”

Today, these new suburbs are thriving.  

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