EMPLOYMENT JUSTICE
Like other Rust Belt cities, Milwaukee experienced a drastic decline in manufacturing jobs throughout the latter half of the twentieth century—reported figures indicate a loss of 91,000 jobs between 1963 and 2015. Thousands of these jobs were located in the 30th Street Corridor, an industrial stretch running along the eastern boundary of Sherman Park. The corridor was home to many of the city’s manufacturing giants, most notably water heater manufacturer A.O. Smith, and was responsible for the influx of intercity and intracity migrants to Sherman Park in postwar years. For several decades, Sherman Park residents flourished; many residents were able to purchase their own homes in close proximity to their places of work.
MISMATCHED OPPORTUNITIES In the years since manufacturing began to decline, the corridor has fallen into disrepair, leaving residents—and particularly those residents without reliable access to transportation—in the lurch. According to 2015 American Community Survey (ACS) data, whites occupy 74% of the available jobs within the city limits, despite making up only 37% of the city’s population. By contrast, Reggie Jackson estimates that over 28,000 black workers leave Milwaukee every day to go to work, creating a spatial mismatch that leads to longer commutes, bleak job landscapes, and perpetuated segregation. Coupling these challenges with reduced funding for public transit means that many North Side Milwaukeeans are unable to get to where the jobs currently are, in office parks and industrial complexes in the suburbs and exurbs. At the end of 2018, funding sunset for the JobLine bus routes 6 and 61, which ran from inner-city Milwaukee out to job centers in Waukesha and Washington Counties. Another line that runs between Intermodal Station downtown and nearby Germantown, positioned as a stopgap after the JobLines shut down, only has secure funding through August 2019.
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We've talked about civil rights, but we need to talk more about economic rights in our community. Taking together this spatial mismatch and limited transit, it becomes abundantly clear that, for Milwaukeeans in search of work, place matters as much as opportunity. These geographic disadvantages tend to reproduce in future generations, creating an enduring achievement gap between groups living just a few miles apart. In a recent report for the Center for Economic Development at UWM, Marc Levine notes that, “The lowest level of education attainment in Waukesha County provides an essentially comparable economic well-being as a college education in [Milwaukee’s poorest zip code,] 53206.”
A NEW CENTURY In July 2010, the 30th Street Corridor experienced drastic flooding that caused over $32 million worth of damages to adjacent properties, and that killed a 19-year-old man, when his car was washed into the nearby Lincoln Creek. The news sparked renewed interest in stormwater management in the area, an infrastructural solution that may garner companies’ interest in returning to the corridor. Sherman Park residents and their neighboring communities are fighting back against these thick injustices, revitalizing the job landscape through re-evolution and small business ownership. The former A.O. Smith plant, which closed in 2006, has been rebranded as Century City in efforts to re-evolve the neighborhood. A 2016 short film by local filmmakers Adam Carr and WC Tank titled “Seeking Century City” articulates the crossroads at which North Side residents are finding themselves. November 2018 marked the opening of the Sherman Phoenix, an economic incubator and retail space for small businesses-of-color. The Phoenix literally rose from the ashes of the 2016 uprising, taking root in a former BMO Harris bank building that had been damaged by fire. Today, the 30th Street Corridor is both a marker of blight and a beacon of hope for the city. In the words of Reggie Jackson, “We've talked about civil rights, but we need to talk more about economic rights in our community.” Only through reinvestment, reeducation, and a commitment to the neighborhood from all stakeholders—residents, job seekers, and municipal authority—will this landscape change. |
For further reading:
Levine, Marc V., "Milwaukee 53206: The Anatomy of Concentrated Disadvantage in an Inner City Neighborhood, 2000-2017" (2019). Center for Economic Development Publications. 48.
EPA's Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool, https://ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/
Milwaukee Co Land information Office Interactive Mapping Application, https://lio.milwaukeecountywi.gov/Html5Viewer/index.html?viewer=MCLIO-Map
A Dream Derailed, https://graphics.jsonline.com/jsi_news/projects/2004/A-Dream-Derailed.pdf
Levine, Marc V., "Milwaukee 53206: The Anatomy of Concentrated Disadvantage in an Inner City Neighborhood, 2000-2017" (2019). Center for Economic Development Publications. 48.
EPA's Environmental Justice Screening and Mapping Tool, https://ejscreen.epa.gov/mapper/
Milwaukee Co Land information Office Interactive Mapping Application, https://lio.milwaukeecountywi.gov/Html5Viewer/index.html?viewer=MCLIO-Map
A Dream Derailed, https://graphics.jsonline.com/jsi_news/projects/2004/A-Dream-Derailed.pdf