Monica brings up some excellent comments about why the downtown corridor might be missing a lot of what families want in their housing needs, not to mention the significant number of affordable housing alternatives not too distant from the downtown (and remember not everyone works downtown...sprawl has been caused by the new job nodes that have spread around the perimeter of Madison like wildfire in the last 5-10 years). When a similar proposal of figuring out how to get more families downtown and pursue a school were brought up during conversations with projects in City Committees and the City's Downtown Coordiniating Committee, of which I'm a member of and also the chair of the "Living Downtown/Land Use" subcommittee...it was clear that the reality of the marketplace and demographics, and the goal, to bring more families to live downtown, new school etc did not really connect. Look at the attached link to census data and notice that the three main downtown census districts..16.01 and .02 and 17.01 have less than 1.5% of aged 17 and under residents; http://www.ci.madison.wi.us/planning/unit_planning/census/2000/Table03_2000_ct.pdf Should we be planning policy that is more in tune with market realities? Or creating policy that fits the problem...that's my vote. Should we be discussing Impact fees for education on all new suburbs that have been the main genesis for the education cost pressures for schools, especially on the south and southwest sides? Why should developers be obligated to pay for roads, sewers, intersections, police, fire and parks...but not schools? It would even be a win win...if those who created the "impact" paid the fees, let's say making the homes $5kish more expensive as a result, then the residents who move there would have better funded schools...or might be more inclined to save some money and move into more established school areas...reducing sprawl. In the end, Madison, as much as people like to complain that it isn't affordable actually is, just not all in the downtown...for a city our size and with the accoutrements that we have, it's amazing that the average cost of a home is slightly above national averages. Always remember that statistics can be misused...as D'israeli was famous for saying...but in our community's case...we have much to be thankful for. And, oh by the way, don't even get me started with the overblown "perception" of bad traffic here....people from other cities think we're crazy when they hear that. Let's get more bike lanes in the right places, improve Metro with park and rides and look into light rail...the new trolley around downtown plan doesn't solve anything to do with traffic jams....let's buy all those downtown dwellers it helps free bus passes or free bikes instead...it would be much cheaper. (although I LOVE the idea of redirecting the bus's off of state street...they operate fine on the spoke streets as the construction of blocks in the last few years has shown) What we really need to do is use TIF to create more employment in our center core and entertainment/shopping options, rather than losing those jobs to our suburban competitors (doesn't it feel like we're just now getting to the suburbanization of the Rust belt cities that hit everywhere else a decade or two or three ago?) or elsewhere...Central park would be well funded if it included a couple of thousand jobs around it....the Overture would be great if it was smack dab in the middle of an Cultural Arts District that brought us a new Central Library, New State Museum, 1st Run Film Cineplex, Arts Incubator and more residential to help the numbers work...diversifying the draw, and the affordability of the draws-have you seen Overture prices?- for downtown. Wouldn't it be swell to ride the bike or take the bus for dinner and a movie rather than have to shoot out to the far west/east/fitchburgsides?...other similar cities have used this strategy to great effect and it would help make our downtown more "adult" and thus even more attractive for infill residential...which is what we all want to see. Random thoughts of a crazed ex council candidate, and I agree to disagree, and will attempt to do so civilly...what kind of world would this be if we always agreed? Boring that's what...and Madison sure ain't boring.
Troy Thiel
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