Scott Walker says the rest of Wisconsin shouldn't become another Milwaukee. Here's why it should.

[hue]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/08/05/1319353/-Scott-Walker-says-the-rest-of-Wisconsin-shouldn-t-become-another-Milwaukee-Here-s-why-it-should?fb_action_ids=10204173369830378&fb_action_types=og.likes#

According to Gov. Scott Walker, people do not want to see Wisconsin "become another Milwaukee." He made that assertion about the state's largest city more than once during his gubernatorial campaigns. However, Walker would do well to rethink that view because, according to experts, Milwaukee is among a handful of cutting-edge cities worldwide that are consciously remaking themselves into survivable, humanistic habitats that are not only urban and livable, but -- get ready for a new word -- biophilic.

On Earth, the magazine of the National Resources Defense Council, lays out the details in the current issue's feature story entitled, "Milwaukee Sees the Light". Author Richard Manning describes how, in a 1984 book, noted biologist E. O. Wilson came up with a hypothesis he called biophilia: "Wilson argued that love of nature makes humans more attentive to their surroundings, just as affection allows attachment to and knowledge of a loved one’s face. In evolutionary terms, attentiveness and attachment confer fitness."

The article recounts how Tim Beatley, a landscape architect at the University of Virginia, has developed a list of criteria describing the biophilic city and came up with a worldwide list of examples. Among them: Milwaukee; Portland, Oregon; San Francisco; Phoenix; Singapore; Wellington, New Zealand; Oslo; Vitoria-Gasteiz, Spain; and Birmingham, England.

Heady company for a supposed Great Lakes rust-belt city. It's true that Milwaukee, to this day a major industrial center, lost tens of thousands of jobs in the economic upheavals of the 1980s, creating a newly poor segment among its former middle class, especially impacting black residents. But in the past decade the city's population has restabilized and -- although the Great Recession chilled many hard-won gains -- vibrancy has returned to the downtown and even some of its more modest neighborhoods. Milwaukee improbably has even become something of a magnet for young urban professionals, the "creative class" that propels further change.

For all those reasons, Milwaukee is the very kind of place where the application of biophilic principles might do the most good, the most quickly. Given disturbing trends in the planetary ecosystem and plain old economics, new connections arguably needed to be made. Where they have been made, positive change has become evident.

Read on below the fold for the details on why Scott Walker is dead wrong, except perhaps in assuming he can benefit politically through rhetoric that further divides Wisconsin.

[unionthug777]

1. walker should

just STFU !!! beady-eyed POS !! when is someone going to haul him off in handcuffs???

[AleksS]

2. Oh come on, you know he didn't mean it that way...

Oh come on, you know he didn't mean it that way...

He just meant Milwaukee was full of "those people," and his base sure wouldn't want "them" running around all over the state. 'Cause you know, Milwaukee is filled with those "Urbans" and those "Blah" people.

I hate to toss the racist label around casually, but his "Milwaukee" bogeyman was the least disguised dog-whistle I've ever ever ever seen from a politician.

Walker truly is a disgusting piece of work.

[ewagner]

3. ov--er---look----ing!!!!

Walker was Milwaukee County Exec and PRESIDED over destruction of the City of Milwaukee any way he could because of the rather unique realtionship between Milwuakee County and the City of Milwaukee.

Walker personally did more damage to Milwaukee that anybody or anything in the last 30 years.