Schlemiel! Schlimazel! Hasenpfeffer Incorporated!
As a Wisconsinite, it brings me no satisfaction to concur with Donald Trump’s assessment that the state’s largest city, Milwaukee, is a “horrible city.” What exactly he meant by “horrible” has been the subject of debate, with various Republicans offering their best Trump hermeneutics and coming to a host of conclusions. But whatever Trump did or didn’t mean with his Haiti throwback, Milwaukee also happens to be one of the best cities in North America.
It is a city of extremes, as beautiful as it is broken. It’s where incompetent city government chases after the wealth of those in turn-of-the-century waterfront manses, where the school district can’t file its financial records or teach kids to read, yet the city’s marvel of an art museum opens its steel wings each morning.
It’s a city where, when you shop for a car, you need to ask the salesman about which cars are especially likely to be stolen . . . but a drive along the lakefront chases away the bad thoughts as you marvel at the inland sea that you can enjoy from a house that, at least until 2020, cost under $300,000.
Murders are common enough to land Milwaukee on murder-capital charts, yet those killings are almost entirely contained within several blocks that a tourist or middle-class resident would never see.
If you’re a black kid growing up on the northwest side of the city, Milwaukee is horrible. You shouldn’t expect to know how to read, do math, or make a life for yourself once you’re auto-graduated from one of the area’s failed schools. But if you’re a Marquette-educated city planner who grew up in Whitefish Bay and now has a place, a goldendoodle, and a job in the Third Ward, Milwaukee is everything a man could ever want. Ride the white-collar novelty streetcar that cost tens of millions to build and bask in how good it is to be anywhere that isn’t steeped in crime-and-grift-maintained poverty.
It just so happens that those moaning about Trump’s assessment of Milwaukee are the latter. Everyone else is fighting for their lives.