On Sept. 11, I wrote about a Sept. 14th event at Club Majestic, 115 King St, in Madison that was to explore this question, "How to Keep Madison from Becoming Milwaukee?"

I didn't make it to the event, but Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who recently met with Madison Mayor Dave Cieslewicz to talk about collaboration, sent a great letter to the editor to the sponsoring organization, Madision's alternative weekly newspaper, The Isthmus.

The mayor's office provided us with a copy of the letter. It's pretty darn good. Read it below. Good work, Mayor! On Milwaukee!

Dear Editor,

Recently you brought together a group of people under the banner of a discussion about how Madison could avoid becoming like Milwaukee. Well, I'd like to help you out with this top 10 list, just for starters.

The Top 10 Ways Madison Can Avoid Becoming like Milwaukee

1. Don't hold the world's largest music festival during the summer on your lakefront and don't feature the best in national and local music acts on eleven stages. Milwaukee attracts visitors and excitement to its lakefront for Summerfest and its ethnic festivals, held each weekend throughout the summer. This is one of the reasons Milwaukee is considered by Forbes to be a hotspot for singles.

2. Don't build a year-round public market to promote and sell Wisconsin products, including a diverse range of products that showcase your city's ethnic diversity. This catalytic project is attracting people to Milwaukee and is sparking additional development in our downtown and Historic Third Ward neighborhood.

3. Avoid creating and enhancing public access to your waterfronts. Milwaukee brought life to its riverfront and city by creating a 3.2 mile stretch of public Riverwalk that runs the length of the downtown and Third Ward neighborhoods. Now the activity along the river brings new vitality in the form of cafes, condos, residents and visitors. Chicagoans are purchasing condos along our riverfront because they like the accessibility and affordability of waterfront condos that come with boat slips. As a result of this activity, downtown living has increased by 46 percent since 1999.

4. Don't add world-class cultural attractions to your lakefront and by all means, do not invite an international architect from Spain to design his first US commission for your city. Milwaukee just opened the doors on a dramatic new addition to its lakefront, Discovery World, situated next to the striking Santiago Calatrava addition to the Milwaukee Art Museum.

5. Don't embrace or promote the cultural and ethnic diversity of your city or the heritage of your historic neighborhoods. From the continued revitalization of the historic Bronzeville neighborhood to the growing Latin Quarter on Milwaukee's near south side, we celebrate the diversity that enriches our city.

6. Don't promote your city as an advantageous place to locate a Fortune 500 headquarters. The Milwaukee-area is home to eight Fortune 500 companies.

7. Don't promote homeownership in all neighborhoods of your city. By promoting homeownership and guiding private developers into neighborhoods of the central city, Milwaukee's single-family homes are nearly 90 percent owner-occupied and have remained so for the past ten years.

8. Don't have major league sports teams. We've got something for everyone here in Milwaukee. Not only do we enjoy great college basketball at Marquette University and with our UWM Panthers, but we also have our very own NBA team, the Milwaukee Bucks; our hockey team, the Milwaukee Admirals; our indoor soccer team, the Milwaukee Wave; and of course our Major League Baseball team, the Milwaukee Brewers.

9. Don't put 1,000 kids to work next summer. Without creating another layer of government bureaucracy or any additional burden on our taxpayers, we put 1,000 kids to work this summer in city government, non-profit organizations and the private sector. Kids were able to earn a few bucks while taking advantage of the opportunity to have an up-close look at jobs and careers they might not otherwise have considered.

10. Don't make your city friendly to entrepreneurs or seek business who may want to locate or expand in your city. We utilize resources to create opportunities for businesses of all sizes to be successful here in Milwaukee. Whether it's a Fortune 500 global company like Manpower, Inc. or a small, family-owned neighborhood bakery like La Flor de Trigo, we reach out to business owners, CEOs, entrepreneurs and their employees to make sure that Milwaukee continues to work on ways we can promote investment in our city.

So, there you have it. These are just a couple of ways Madison could avoid becoming another Milwaukee. And don't worry, I'll be sure to mention these to your great mayor, Mayor Dave, the next time we get together.

Respectfully,

Tom Barrett
Mayor, Milwaukee

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