Bad Role Models

The Census Bureau estimates that Buffalo's still bleeding population but we do have company.  Since 2000, Milwaukee County's lost about the same number as we have.

If you can imagine a typical baseball crowd leaving Miller Park and never returning, then you can grasp the decline in Milwaukee County's population during the early years of the 21st century.

Between 2000 and 2006, Milwaukee County lost 25,067 residents, according to new estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau.

While the decline isn't surprising - the county still had 915,097 residents - the numbers provide the broadest brush strokes yet to how we live, not just in Wisconsin but around the country.

So along with Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Baltimore as cities we might do well not to emulate, how about we add Milwaukee to the list?  In fact the next time Milwaukee's former Mayor comes to town to explain to us yokels how we can improve our lot, maybe someone could ask him why, if his ideas are so good, his city's still shrinking as fast as our little burg.

If growth is what we're looking for, then we should really stop our hero-worship of failure.  I mean, does Barack Obama derive inspiration from George McGovern's campaign?  Should the Bills steal the Detroit Lions' game plans?   And would you ever even consider steering your daughter into a career-path that resembled Lindsay Lohan's?

If we were really interested in growth and success, we'd be asking the mayors of Houston, Charlotte, Las Vegas and Phoenix for ideas.  Their cities are exploding in population and business growth.  That we haven't tells me that our leaders are just a teensy bit more interested in preserving their government subsidies and in placating their well-to-do voters than they are in actually doing something that might turn things around.

Don't get me wrong, I hear Milwaukee's a lovely place (and getting nicer all the time,) but people are dying to leave it.  Something's missing -- opportunity -- and all the waterfront parkways on earth won't create that.   How long can we keep pretending they will?