All have been part of one of the epic population movements in history-the upsurging out of the slums toward the middle class which has swept our cities since the turn of the century and which is still going on. In Milwaukee it has been northward along Lake Michigan and westward toward Granville. We could do much worse than Lubell to briefly sum up Milwaukee's Northwest Side, a sprawling, ill-defined area just starting to fill with people when he wrote his book. Over the course of five decades, the Northwest Side developed, almost haphazardly, a distinctive appearance different from most other areas within the city limits. It's a land of strip malls and wide streets, built for the automobile right from the start.
Many sections feature tract housing of varied quality, and sprawling, single-level factories.
Unlike, say, Sherman Park, it's not an area people are likely to get nostalgic about after they've left it. It doesn't have the feel of old Milwaukee. Interviews with several people who know the Northwest Side reveal an area that has largely overcome some questionable planning decisions in the 1970s and economic blows in the 1980s as it became the most racially integrated area in the city. But the decline of Capitol Court and Northridge shopping centers, and the former supermarkets and discount stores that sit vacant or are occupied by forlorn resale shops, give some commercial sections a dated air. Just driving through such areas can give a false impression, Snyder maintains.