(This is not my home)....but it is within a few blocks of where I'm living. I'm finally getting very familiar with my neighborhood in Wauwatosa, WI. With the exception of roughly a year back in my mid-20's when I lived on Grandin Rd. in Roanoke, I've never lived in a city setting. It has either been suburbs or rural. What I'm about to write may will likely seem so simple and uninteresting to many...but I've never lived in a setting like this before and I find it all very interesting. My apartment is nothing special...maybe 600 square feet. It fills the need for now while our house in Montana is on the market (and not drawing any interest).
Wauwatosa is immediately west of the city of Milwaukee. It has three business districts...the 'Tosa Village, North Avenue and the Mayfair Mall area. I can walk to the first two areas in minutes. I can even walk to work...it's just in the Milwaukee city limits a mile away. Big deal? Well, I've never lived anywhere where I could walk to work, grocery stores, restaurants, movie theatres, etc... So, that's all great, but I'm more impressed by the diversity and the character of the neighborhoods within a few blocks of my rental. Specificially how they change from block to block.
Milwaukee is one of the most notoriously segregated cities in the US. The radio station is located in one of a handful of areas where you may actually see blacks and whites living side-by-side. Go a few blocks to the east, and it's all black....a few blocks to the west, and it's pretty much all white. And as you walk block to block, you notice something else - the significant changes from one block to another. One block may be mostly duplexes and the next single family homes. One may be full of 1,000 square foot cottages and the next could have larger homes with the next having mansions. One block is brick homes...the next siding....One block has upstairs porches, the next does not. In addition, no single home on any block is like another. The 1900 block of N. 64th street feels different than the 1900 block of N. 65th street. The 2000 block of N. 72nd feels different than the 1900 block does. In most of east Wauwatosa, huge trees canopy the street. I've been caught in the rain a couple times and barely gotten wet as I stayed under the cover of 100 year-old trees.
You can find cottages and fixer-uppers for under $200,000. Most of the homes in east 'Tosa would sell for between $225,000 - $350,000...but get into the Washington Highlands or Milwaukee's adjacent Washington Heights neighborhood and many of the homes are on the National Historical Registry and sell for up to $ 1 million. Property taxes are very high (by my standards) even the cheapest homes have taxes in excess of $4,000 annually...the homes in the Heights that may sell for $500,000-750,000 have annual taxes between $12,000 and $15,000. You don't want to get homeowners here started in a property tax conversation!
So, I'm here for now...I love the character of the neighborhoods...I love walking to dinner and a movie in 15 minutes...or the grocery store in 5. I didn't see myself in my mid forties living like this, but it's up to me to make the best of it until something more permanent can be worked out.
