David Michael Miller
You’ve probably seen the bumper stickers: “Keep Austin Weird.”
There’s a lot packed into those three words and the fact that it’s not too hard to find one of those stuck to a bumper around Madison, some 1,200 miles away, gives us a pretty good indication of how effective that is as a marketing strategy.
Madison has often been compared to Austin, although in my mind these days that’s kind of a stretch. For one thing, Austin has grown much faster and now it’s the 11th largest city in the nation. For another thing, Austin is a small patch of deep blue in a deep red state while Madison is blue on purple.
Still, I’ve always liked the sentiment in “Keep Austin Weird” and I’ve wished that we could come up with something of our own that captured the same spirit. Some tag line, or better yet a whole marketing campaign, that acknowledged what everybody already knows: We’re different and quirky, but in a fun and accessible way.
My concern is that our cultural, political and economic differences with the rest of the state are fueling an ever wider divide that is making us look, not just like your crazy uncle with the bad jokes, but like the brother everyone’s disowned after he got a fancy degree, an expensive car, a new set of snobby friends, and a lot of attitude.
The UW political science professor Katherine Cramer has documented this divide in her widely read and influential book, The Politics of Resentment. And my Isthmus colleague Marc Eisen has touched on it in some of his extensive reporting on the Dane County economy.
As Madison becomes more affluent it looks more like a coastal city than a part of Wisconsin. We’re wired, young and well educated while much of the rest of the state is wedded to the old economy, much older demographically and has a much lower percentage of folks who have completed college, much less hold an advanced degree.
Now, we could be hard-edged about it, shrug our shoulders and just accept the resentment. But it does do harm. One of the surest ways for legislative candidates outside of Dane County to win votes is to run against “Madison.” They know they benefit by just leaving it at that. A voter might hear Madison as in “big government” or she might hear Madison as in “elite, out of touch liberals,” but it doesn’t matter. Running against Madison works.
And here’s the thing. It doesn’t just work for Republicans. When we had a Democratic governor and Legislature, Madison took a hit in our state shared revenue payments and they took away our ability to raise the minimum wage in direct response to an ordinance we had just passed to do exactly that. Democrats did that.
I always thought it would make sense for the city to join forces with the Chamber of Commerce, the Greater Madison Convention and Visitors Bureau, Dane County and the UW to come up with a concerted marketing campaign to rebrand Madison as, well, more like that crazy uncle with the loud ties and the stupid jokes. Maybe a relative to be endured, but a part of the family nonetheless.
I posed the following question to the candidates running for mayor. Their answers follow. Candidate Nick Hart and write-in candidate Toriana Pettaway did not respond.
In a piece on the “two Wisconsin economies” in late 2017 my Isthmus colleague Marc Eisen wrote, "Meanwhile, Dane County’s role in propping up the Wisconsin economy comes at a price for Madison: Serious resentment outstate and in Milwaukee for Madison’s outsized share of tax dollars going to state employees and in support of UW-Madison.”
In his story Eisen quotes Chamber of Commerce President Zach Brandon who points to Austin and its relationship with the rest of Texas as an example of how a prosperous university town can have a healthy relationship with the rest of a state. Do you agree that the relationship between Madison and the rest of Wisconsin needs improvement? If so, how would you do it?
Satya Rhodes Conway: I'm not sure about the framing of this question. There's good data that suggest that urban areas in Wisconsin do not receive a disproportionate share of tax dollars. And UW is actively working on communicating how it benefits the entire state, not least through the Wisconsin Idea. Also, while some resentment is directed at Madison as a city, more is directed at Madison as the seat of statewide government, which is a key distinction. Nonetheless, it is important for Madison's leadership to have good relationships with other local leaders around the state, and for us to cooperate on preserving and restoring local control. One obvious example is the restoration of Regional Transportation Authorities. For the past several years, I've been working with local leaders around Wisconsin on health and environmental issues, so I have good relationships with mayors, city council members, and staff in many communities around Wisconsin, as well as the League of Wisconsin Municipalities and the Wisconsin Counties Association, and look forward to working together with them on our shared priorities as mayor.
Raj Shukla: Madison's relationship with the rest of the state — both rural communities and urban peers like Milwaukee — needs to be strong for the good of Wisconsin and the region. We are an increasingly important piece of the Wisconsin economic engine. That comes with real responsibilities. Our leaders should not shy away from engaging with elected officials in Eau Claire or Wausau or Appleton or Racine to advance common goals. Our mayor should lead the push inside the Capitol for local authority to build transportation options. Our mayor should work to ensure the prosperity we've experienced here in Dane County is as widely felt across Wisconsin as possible. Our mayor should use the bully pulpit to advocate on behalf of the public schools that make this community so desirable. But we need leadership that is willing and capable of doing the work. Mayor Soglin has shown neither the inclination nor the ability to bring Democrats together, much less the Republican legislators we need to sway, on a host of issues. In my role as executive director of a statewide water policy organization, I've worked with local and state elected officials from every political stripe to advance ambitious water policy goals and programs. And I have built a reputation locally of doing the same. I've crafted legislation that's earned the support of both the local utility and environmental activists to commit Madison to 100 percent renewable energy. The ability to listen and lead is precisely what we need most in Madison, in Wisconsin and across the nation. Those qualities are exactly what I will bring to the mayor's office.
Mo Cheeks: As mayor, I’ll be a champion for our city, our people, and the future of our economy while having the humility to acknowledge that other communities have strengths of their own that we can learn from too. Earlier in my career, as Director of the Wisconsin Innovation Network, I had to do just this sort of collaborative economic development work all across our state. While there are some misguided politicians in the Capitol building who discount, dismiss, and disparage our city, the reality is Madison is the economic engine of the state. And when I’m mayor, I won’t feed into the ugly “us” versus "them” attitude that perpetuates a hostility among ordinary people.
Paul Soglin: At a recent US Mayor's conference, Austin Mayor Steve Adler was introduced as “the mayor most hated by his state legislature." Columbus Ohio does not fare much better. So much for admiring Austin and Texas. The way to make improvements is to follow the path of common interests. Madison Region Economic Partnership (MadREP), which covers eight counties with our common regional objectives, is one effective strategy. The other strategy is to build alliances with the Fox River Valley over common ground such as Regional Transit Authorities (RTAs). Or, as we did with Milwaukee and Green Bay when the Legislature adopted our Expenditure Restraint Program, which provided more shared revenues to cities.
