What is happening to Wisconsin Avenue?
I try not to drive down Wisconsin Avenue. Don’t get me wrong - it can be quite a scenic trip. The houses along Wisconsin are incredibly beautiful, the lawns impeccably manicured, and on a nice sunny Friday morning there are even some really good rummages sales. But ultimately Wisconsin Avenue ends in the dreaded downtown, land of constant construction, orange road cones and terrible traffic, and so for that reason I make every effort to avoid Wisconsin Avenue in its entirety.
On Saturday, however, I decided to take the trip from Highway 100 all the way down to 35th Street via Wisconsin Avenue, and I was awestruck by the number of “For Sale” signs on houses in the nicer parts of Wisconsin Avenue. Shorewest, First Weber, For Sale By Owner - nearly every block had someone’s tag on the lawn, and more than just a few blocks had multiple properties for sale.
What happened to Wisconsin Avenue? Did I miss something?
When I was a student at Marquette, I obviously spent a lot of time on Wisconsin Avenue. Those houses were always very desirable, and with good reason. They are beautiful, large, single family homes with a lot of character. So why is everyone leaving?
I won’t pretend to have the answer to that question. I’m still too astounded to really form a reasonable opinion on it. Is the neighborhood “transitioning” to something less desirable? Are these homes becoming unaffordable due to increasing mortgage rates? Is everyone leaving for warmer weather? And if so, why have they waited so long?
I wouldn’t want to be trying to sell a house in today’s market, but obviously something on Wisconsin Avenue is motivating a whole lot of homeowners to risk the market and put their homes up for sale.
And what is this mass migration from Wisconsin Avenue going to do to that area in the coming years?
Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Urban, Home Selling
October 16th, 2007 at 12:43 pm
Its called white flight.
October 16th, 2007 at 1:26 pm
Just in case any one was wondering, white Flight (from wikipedia) is defined below.
**White flight is a term for the demographic trend where working- and middle-class white people move away from increasingly racial-minority inner-city neighborhoods to white suburbs and exurbs.
The phenomenon was first named in the United States, but has occurred in other countries as well. Some scholars have noted the impact of red-lining, lending discrimination, and racially restrictive covenants on white flight: these factors denied or increased the cost of services, such as banking and insurance, to residents in minority inner-city neighborhoods.
Today, a new phenomenon is occurring in many of America’s largest cities, black flight, which is very similar to the concept of white flight.
In some of the largest cities in the United States, the trend started to reverse itself in the 1990s.**
October 16th, 2007 at 1:36 pm
I never understood why they spent months fixing one side of the road, only to tear it up two months later when they did the same to the other side.
October 16th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
I had considered the white flight theory, and it certainly is possible. But on Wisconsin Avenue? Maybe the demographics of the area have changed much more than I had thought.