Milwaukee’s Far Northwest Side: Where we’re going
Part 3
This is the third of a three-part blog series intended to depict how we got here and the world we want to see. Part one covered geographical and historical markings of Milwaukee's Northwest Side as context for Part Two’s outline of the narrative shifting and investment opportunities revealed by AART’s Northwest Side Asset Map. In this final part, what’s left is to illuminate the world that AART and like-minded Northwest Siders foresee.
As mentioned in part two, residents miss a more communal feeling in their neighborhoods and desire thriving and safe communities. AART’s Northwest Side Imagination Session gathered residents at the Havenwoods State Forest Park, many for the first time and others we’ve been building with since 2021, to engage their senses and identify what a thriving Northwest Side would consist of. One resident said, “A thriving Northwest Side smells like grills going, tastes like Wildwood sodas and sweet tea on the front porch, feels like the love of neighbors and the joy of seeing your neighbors…” Other residents spoke to wanting something likened to Northridge Mall to return to the Northwest Side or home economics taught again in schools. The sense of nostalgia that immerses these residents’ imaginations is one of five themes residents dreamed up. Others include food access (farmer’s markets and local grocery stores with healthy, real food), transportation access (bike and other trails, rails, busses), green spaces (community gardens, Havenwoods, local trails), and a people-affirming economy (affordable, creative, and locally-owned enrichment spaces and social hubs that support residents’ health – think 3rd Street Market, movie theaters, fitness facilities, fine dining, etc.).
To identify how to make these themes come to fruition, AART held a visioning session, where returning and new residents explored questions of what needed to be true to achieve the Northwest SIde they’d imagined and what work they were willing to contribute to that achievement. In this second session, residents brilliantly named an abundance of work that several stakeholders needed to collaborate on to reach our goals. If I had to summarize the pages of notes we received, I’d say residents are ready to join AART’s membership (a political home from Black Milwaukeeans) and participate in our volunteer opportunities. Through these programs, residents are ready to support working in schools, outdoors, and even in community awareness programs to build solidarity and expose others to both information and new habits. This is work that we can begin today if we’re not already doing it in our day-to-day lives.
AART's recent visioning session depicted a key tenant of abolitionist projects and movements, the active practice of the world we want to see as we're building it. Residents expressed joy to see each other again, looked after one another’s children, helped each other in small ways, and committed to collective work to build a community safety campaign alongside AART, fellow neighbors, and Northwest Side leaders. AART refers to “community safety” as the ways that people keep each other safe by building and maintaining relationships and helping to meet one another’s needs in order to prevent harm, exist among each other, solve problems, and thrive. We can refer to the communities that practice this form of safety as “communities of care,” and this is ultimately what AART aims to build: a Northwest Side community of care. What a joy it was to experience our neighbors not only working toward this future, but practicing it in real time!
With all this considered, it’s evident that a thriving Northwest Side will be a bustling environment where people feel safe enough to live and be. Area residents and frequenters will have a variety of travel means throughout creative, green, social, and local business spaces with plenty of access to healthy and real food. Its economy will be people-centered and life affirming, and the whole thing will feel nostalgic or reminiscent of the thriving Northwest Side that elder residents once experienced. A world where these things are true is the world we want to see. It is a world that Northwest Side residents are steadily producing in community together and that AART invites you to join! Keep an eye on AART’s social media platforms, sign up for our monthly e-newsletters, and mark your calendar for our last visioning session, happening on March 12, 2025, where we’ll propose the campaign we’ll launch in summer 2025 toward our thriving Northwest Side dreams.
Ryeshia Farmer serves as the African American Roundtable’s Community Program Manager.
