What's in a name, the Bard had Juliet ask Romeo?
Turns out for the characters in "Romeo and Juliet," star-crossed lovers, it was plenty.
Apparently, we can ask the same question in today's New Berlin real estate market, where development located in a suburb within sight of farmland a "City Center."
Reminds me of a housing complex on Madison's east side next to a rail yard called "Camelot."
The Journal Sentinel devotes big space to a take-out on the Murphy Oil refinery expansion issue in Superior, and delves into the Canadian tar sand pipelines, too.
Part II is tomorrow.
The package is the work of Great Lakes specialist Dan Egan, and as we've come to expect from Egan, the work is comprehensive and important.
It's not pegged to the news, as sources have said for months, and I've mentioned this while blogging on the subject, that the possible Murphy expansion seems to be hold for two reasons, both financial;
The capital costs of a major refinery expansion - - perhaps $6 billion - - in an economy where borrowing any sum is problematic.
Also the falling price of crude oil with shrinking demand worldwide makes extracting the gooey tar sand oil in Alberta too expensive to turn much of a profit.
Not to mention the environmental damage to Alberta.
Several months ago, one state regulator told me nothing was coming into the office from the company on the permit or application front, and that while the company had done preliminary work and some land purchases, it seemed as if the project was on the back burner.
It's good to have the state's major paper following the issue, especially since Superior's daily paper, the Telegram, has gone online exclusively and will have a diminished audience.
An old pal has some good ideas about what to get Pres. Elect Barack Obama for the holidays.
And about a few other things, too.
Mark Greenside is an old friend and former college roommate, a teacher and published short story writer, and now author of a smart and funny book - - I'll Never Be French (no matter what I do) - - and after reading an advance copy I have but one thing to say to you fellow holiday shoppers and lovers of good writing:
Buy This Book, especially if you have traveled to Europe and wondered, as you walked through little, picture-postcard-perfect towns, "What would it be like to buy a little place here?"
Then imagine you are my friend Mark: you have never owned a home anywhere - - in fact, you eschew owning property of most any kind.
Also, you 'speak,' shall we say, little actual French (this I witnessed during a summer more than 40 years ago when a group of us UW undergrads hitchhiked and free-loaded through Europe), and because you have held socially-redemptive, but low-paying jobs, you have no money to acquire a complete house that nice neighbors you met on another vacation to France decades later have decided you shall acquire.
What do you do with this improbable tale after ending up with a cool house in a cool spot - - Brittany, France! - - that all your friends now want to visit so they can continue their freeloading ways?
You write a book about it - - how it happened, what you learned along the way, and what it's like to now have a foot in two cultures.
So congratulations to Mark: it's a long way from Elm Drive C and Mendota Ct., oui?
Update: The New York Times Book Editors like it.
You knew this was coming.
In another life, John Kovari was an undergrad majoring in Philosophy at Marquette while interning in Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist's office where he soaked up New Urbanism and grassroots policy-making firsthand.
Kovari, now a Ph.D candidate in Poli Sci at UW-M, is also affiliated with the Public Policy Forum, on whose blog he weighs in with a solid piece on regional development.
It's great to see the PPF connecting to local talent, and to John, welcome to the blogosphere.
Those of us following this issue will not be surprised.
I now sit back and await the return fire.
About 20 years ago I wrote a series for the then-Milwaukee Journal about drug use in suburbs and small towns.
The point was to illustrate that drug use knows no boundaries, but somehow there was and still is a persistent myth that only city residents are at risk.
Recent news reports indicated that a spate of heroin overdoses in Pewaukee had opened eyes there to drugs use west of 124th St.
Another account is here.
Maybe these things run in cycles, or denial can be community wide, or both, but the sad truth is that drug use isn't limited to urban areas only, and the sooner the broader community grasps that, the closer we all are to better information, and approaches leading to solutions.
Streetsblog is the new one-stop site coordinating information about sustainable development, the urban form and other good things. Check it out.
At first I thought someone had hacked onto SEWRPC's homepage, but closer examination reveals a refreshing bit of IT creativity:
The Regional Transit Authority's link on SEWRPC's homepage actually takes you to a site filled with some color, interactive options and eye-catching graphics and text.
The effect is similar to flipping through the channels on an old black-and-white TV, then suddenly landing on a color channel.
Dazzling!
Check it out, here: it's a radical departure from SEWRPC's monochromatic, jargon-laden pages and snoozy formats, suggesting that someone realized that SEWRPC's internet presence could really=truly serve the general public and not only a handful of planning and engineering insiders.
Business leaders in Racine, Kenosha and Milwaukee made their pitch at a Thursday Public Policy forum gathering for a financed regional transit authority, commuter rail and dedicated county sales tax scheme for transit operations of up to five cents on the dollar.
The push for a three-county regional solution (Milwaukee, Racine, Kenosha) comes as Milwaukee County's bus system is getting closer to complete implosion, trapped by County Executive Scott Walker's disdain for transit, and by the escalating political and fiscal impossibility of using regressive property tax dollars to run it.
So it's looking more and more as if some sort of fix is coming from the State Capitol in the form of county/regional sales taxes and a new transit agency's taxing authority, but there are still problems with the scheme, ranging from the desire of the City of Milwaukee for a piggy-backed fractional sales tax for public safety to political opposition by Milwaukee County Board Chairman Lee Holloway.
And let's not forget that talk radio is waiting in the wings to pounce, since it considers taxes, rails and the freer movement of people throughout the region toxic. For the talkers, a regional transit authority funded by new sales taxes - - even if they are paired with a reduction in property taxes - - is porterhouse tosed to hungry wolves.
But the threat of a shutdown of the County bus system will probably result in some sort of a fix, and if a regional transit authority can be structured and operated equitably, the new system could also include the long-stalled Kenosha-Racine-Milwaukee commuter line, too, since the KRM has growing support from development-minded business leaders and transit advocates.
And these are the people who will have to take on talk radio, a negative force which has already spooked Waukesha County to remove itself from the three-county RTA.
Take a bow, Waukesha: any further lobbying from you on behalf of regional cooperation should be laughed out of the room, perhaps along with your Lake Michigan water diversion plans.
Unstated at the Thursday session: the political obstacle that could be added unnecessarily to all this political work if the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission is handed a management or governance role in the operation of an RTA.
The agency is already seen as overtly pro-highway-and-suburban, unrepresentative of urban interests and hopelessly disconnected from taxpayers.
A SEWRPC role in future RTA operations would be a stake through the heart for transit progress in the region.
If you are looking for a metaphor to capture the scene in Washington, DC these days - - GM execs pleading for a bailout from its arrogance and failures, yet begging for our money from government institutions that enabled our collective arrival at the brink of national bankruptcy (corporate tax breaks, minimal vehicle fuel efficiency standards, and ideological deregulation across the board) - - look no farther than the so-called "Hummer Tax Break" that subsidized the sale of perhaps GM's gaudiest dud.
Remember this?
I'm not surprised to read that the Obama team is energizing its campaign structure and lists to organize support for key issues, in this case, health care reform.
With millions of names and thousands of activists (read: "Community Organizers!") already having worked in a successful and historic election campaign, it makes sense that the networks are being tapped to garner input and help bring campaign goals to fruition.
I think this also changes the playing field for other groups, from political parties to non-profits to traditional lobbying organizations because the Obama network can either be a new contributing player, the go-to playmaker, or the general manager calling the shots.
Savvy groups will figure out how to align themselves with the Obama network, and that network and its leaders, including Obama himself, will have to decide how and when to best use this unprecedented resource.
I suspect this new relationship will be seen in Wisconsin, in Milwaukee, and elsewhere, as activists and groups feel their way politically, into the next Congressiobnal session and the 2010 election cycle.
Last observation:
We sure are already light-years away from Karl Rove's permanent Republican majority, but it's up to the Obama team to determine how durable their grassroots organization and influence can and will be.
The ACLU of Wisconsin has filed a discrimination complaint against the Wisconsin Department of Transportation, alleging that the $1.9 billion north/south rebuilding and expansion of I-94 harms low-income and minority residents of Milwaukee to the benefit of whiter, wealthier suburbanites.
Here is a summary release about the complaint, which I will post later.
The Milwaukee Common Council earlier this year formally objected to the project, but WisDOT and the feds have done what they do - - turned a deaf ear to the Council - - because the highway agencies first serve their contractors, and then, perhaps, the general public.
You may recall that the ACLU earlier this year filed two separate complaints with federal regulators against the Southeastern Wisconsin Regional Planning Commission that alleged discrimination in hiring, committee representation and regional highway and transportation planning - - again claiming that public resources, whether jobs or construction dollars, are being allocated so that the benefits disproportionately benefit wealthier, whiter taxpayers.
These complaints are important for four reasons:
1. They raise awareness of issues and realities that need more visibility.
2. They point policy-makers in the direct of institutional reforms that should be made so that our agencies and larger society continues to override discrimination.
3. They remind us that SEWRPC and WisDOT are closely linked: WisDOT paid SEWRPC $1 million to draft the regional freeway plan, and that alliance has worked against the environment and reduced the tax base in Milwaukee.
4. They offer remedies.
Everyone owes the ACLU their gratitude, because the value and integrity of our rights is dependent on their being equally available to us all.
For two straight days, drive time AM righty squawker Mark Belling has ranted about teachers: they whine...they are overpaid...they get summers off...they teach too few students per classroom...they are keeping taxes high, and so on.
I've got friends, and an in-law, who teach or have taught in big city school systems, including MPS, and it occurred to me that Belling wouldn't last a week in your typical city school.
A week? Not even a day:
Teachers should get medals for earning relatively low pay, getting up at the crack of dawn, handling/managing/teaching loads of kids from diverse backgrounds and from families with problems few of us can even imagine, working on lessons and grading papers in the evening, paying for extra supplies out-of-pocket - - day in and day out.
I'd challenge Belling to work out an arrangement with an MPS school for a week of guest teaching. I guarantee he couldn't handle it.
Scape-goating teachers is talk radio bottom-feeding.
Remember these numbers the next time you hear some knucklehead say one vote doesn't matter.
MilwaukeeWorld.com blogger Michael Horne showed up for a Milwaukee County Board meeting to look into how $1.9 billion in state transportation spending ripple across the county, and guess what?
The transportation people, invited to speak, have yet to show up.
No surprise there, really. When it comes to Milwaukee, WisDOT does, says, thinks, executes and otherwise decides on its own what, where and when it will deign to interact with the public.
Thanks to Horne for trying to keep the agency honest.
When Democrats take over the legislature, the public interest can be elevated above special interests.
Bill Christofferson, having a good memory and an archived blog, reminds us that Mark Belling's politicking for Scott Walker is something of a broken record.
And that Belling isn't much of a political prognosticator.
