Welcome to the Change

Conversations over the past couple weeks have raised questions - frustration might even be the word - at the pace of change in achieving the city we want to see. Subscribers to urbanist content on YouTube or Nebula see video of resilient, human-friendly cities elsewhere - often outside North America - and this stuff is, at once, inspiring and infuriating. Maybe you’ve visited such places and felt the difference. Milwaukee has the bones to be that kind of place. Indeed, Milwaukee *must* find a way to get there.
This is not new. Our local conversation has talked about this since we started over three years ago. The answer has always been to persist, make connections, get a win, and build future wins on top of the past ones.

That’s still the plan, but take a wider view and you see that the change we seek might be happening faster than we thought. If it was online content that brought you here, consider that most of it didn’t exist a dozen years ago. Strong Towns itself has only been around since 2008-ish, and it would take several more years from there before before it gained significant traction.

I get to write this today to welcome newcomers to ST Metro MKE. We’re used to getting a handful of names at these events, but this time it was literally dozens of you who visited us at Locust Street Fest on May 31. We’ve never had that level of curiosity before, and it is really something to have community members we’ve never met echo back the same terms, concerns, and topics we’ve talked about for years. We don’t think this was a fluke. There’s awareness out there.

So welcome to all who have landed here, however you did so, and know that we need your talents and energy. We’re all volunteers and no one person has all the answers. You have something to teach us; let’s figure out what that is.

If you haven’t already, find us on the socials or Discord (links below), and we’ll see you at an event soon.

Meet the PRN