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Posted inUncategorized

Norquist’s Legacy and the New Urbanism

by Editor

by Sonya Jongsma Knauss

Since 1993, when Mayor Norquist signed on as a charter member of the Congress for the New Urbanism, he has been promoting its principles religiously in Milwaukee. The goal? Strengthen Milwaukee as an urban center that offers people the kinds of benefits and amenities that only a city can provide, with its dense population of diverse peoples and opportunities. . . . Norquist took an hour and a half recently to talk with us at Bean Head, a minority-owned coffee shop on Martin Luther King, Jr. Drive that he never misses a chance to champion.

The Seaside Debates: A Critique of the New Urbanism

by Erik J. de Kok

A professor of mine in the Department of Urban Affairs and Planning at Hunter College of the City University of New York recently returned from a two-week vacation on the Gulf Coast in the Florida panhandle. I asked her if she had the chance to visit Seaside, the infamous neotraditional town, featured in the movie The Truman Show and designed by a team of architects and planners who would later on become some of the founders of a movement known as the New Urbanism. She replied that she had spent several days there, walking and talking with people in the shops and others hanging out on the street or near the beach. So I asked her what she thought of the place, and she told me that she witnessed what she could only describe as “an overpriced resort where the only ‘regulars’ are minority service workers and cleaning ladies, who can’t even afford to live in the town.” In fact, she said that most of the original single-family buildings were quickly converted to rental housing for vacationers, once the owners realized their income-generating potential.

Posted inFurther Down Stream

October 2003

by Editor

Riverwest hosts all-city gathering potluck – Common Council news – Empty Bowls Project, MATC – Progress on Baby Park Makeover – Greens Fundraiser – National Latino Heritage Month – La Escuela Fratney expansion/renovation – DNR festival – Johnson Controls tests Weil-Auer lot – Picture Milwaukee Places – Mandel adds path from North Ave to bike trail to RiverCrest condo plan – Progress on plans for Reservoir – River Revitalization Foundation, Mayor and MMSD secure land purchase for Beerline Bike Trail – Proposals for Post-Teledyne Building

Posted inMusic & Events

Support Our Right to Travel at Bush Protest 10/3

by Editor

This Friday, Oct. 3rd, George W. Bush will appear in Milwaukee at the Italian Community Center, 631 E. Chicago St., for a luncheon fundraiser for his re-election campaign. The Milwaukee Coalition to Normalize Relations With Cuba invites you to join in their demonstration. The overall focus of the demonstration, which involves many other groups, will be against the war policies and the shifting of expenditures from domestic needs, but defense of our civil rights is one of the overall demands.

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Community Means Holding on for Life

by Editor

by Tom Tolan – epilogue to a 6 part series

There is a poem that says, “There is nothing you can really know/ Only holding on for life, and letting go.”

Some people know quite well how to make commitments, but could use some practice in letting go. In this neighborhood, though, and in American society today, it seems to me that it is the holding on for life we need to learn. Some people who write about the social atmosphere of America say that lifetime commitments are hard to make today, in these times of turmoil. What is needed, then, is commitment in the face of doubt and peril. What is needed is a leap of faith. This kind of faith, if enough people practice it, can build strong communities, and strong communities can make the world into a place that people will want to save.