Last week on the Young Professionals of Milwaukee aka FUEL Milwaukee web site I found an event that related to attracting young professionals to Milwaukee. Upon trying to reserve a spot to attend this event I was told that it was for HR executives only. I understand that corporate HR executives play a role in attracting young professionals to Milwaukee but in order to change the trend of an ageing work force in Milwaukee I don’t believe we should be looking to our corporations first.
After graduating from UW-Madison in 2001 with a degree in Finance, Investments and Banking I decided that no amount of salary or benefits would be worth coming to Milwaukee for. I opted to move to Chicago because I knew that in order to test my financial derivative knowledge I would need to work closely to the futures exchanges, a geographic concept which was discussed this weekend in the New York Times.
Having spent time in Austin, San Fransisco, Chicago, and New York I can attest that there are some key attributes missing in Milwaukee which would attract young professionals:

  • Public Transportation - Of the cities listed above Austin is the only one without a subway system but their bus system is very reliable and highly utilized. There is no larger burden after going out and having a good time then to try and figure out how you are going to get home. If we had a subway system or beefed up bus system in a Boston style T that linked the east side, downtown, Bay View, and west through Miller Valley to the zoo we would be well on our way to attracting young minds to Milwaukee.
  • Music/Arts Scene - Of the cities listed above all have a vibrant music undertone. Whether you follow the next up and coming bands or not, having a good music scene will attract top notch forward thinking technology and intellectual minds. I don’t know where to start building this music scene but the radio stations in Milwaukee are a starting point. Besides 102.1 there are no radio stations that play songs which aren’t in the top 20 or were made after 1990. What effort do our local radio stations play in promoting local bands besides The Gufs, Violent Femmes, Willy Porter, the Bodeens?

The commuter metra plan by Doyle will be a good start towards public transportation and hopefully its success will translate into more public transportation opportunities. As far as music is concerned we need to take some of our eggs out of the Summerfest basket and concentrate on music which is not made for the mass populace in order to attract younger more diverse professional Milwaukeeans.