I lived there, in the 1970s.
What’s it like, today, or recently?
I lived near there till 95’ and still get around those parts a couple times a year since my brother lives in Big Bend. It’s grown quite a bit and sort of merged into part of the Milwaukee metro area between Brookfield and Pewaukee. Those back roads between the smaller towns have become major roads over time. My brother said they’re in the beginning stages of a highway to attach I94 to I43.
I guess just typical urban sprawl there with strip malls popping up and farmland being sold off for housing developments.
You’d probably be more surprised at the commercial development along Bluemound road in Brookfield.
What’s it like?
Waukeshitty.
[sub]sorry, old joke. the Mrs. went to college there[/sub]
I live in the next county over. Like any other big city, it’s got plenty of great and not so great places.
Overall, it’s probably perfect fine and safe. There’s big malls, tons of shopping and a lot of nice cities and more farmland than people from outside the midwest are used to seeing.
A lot of people, even from around here, have no idea how big it is.
For people in Milwaukee that don’t venture that far west very often, they’re usually surprised to find out everything from Muskego/Mukwonago all the way to Menomonee Falls is all Waukesha. Most of them are even more surprised to hear that New Berlin is in Waukesha and not Milwaukee.
Joey P is referring to Waukesha County in reference to those names of places, not the city of Waukesha. You also have the town of Waukesha neighboring some of the city. In high school a girl I knew moved to Waukesha with her parents and the neighborhood they were in was like the ex-urbs, very large houses not close to one another. What I didn’t know was the difference in that they moved to the town not the city, off highway 59 not far from Genessee Depot.
The thing about the county of Waukesha that is surprising to me is Old World Wisconsin is located there. We went on field trips there starting from the northwest side of Milwaukee and you wouldn’t think it would be only one county over.
I was just there, trying to find a shortcut to a “rummage sale” (like “bubbler”, it’s a regionalism). I was struck by how the “downtown” area hadn’t been improved since the 80s. Glad it hasn’t been absorbed by Milwaukee, but something should be done with the ol’ place.
Case in point:
Whenever I (accidentally) wind up in Waukesha, I get lost.
I mentioned that to my mom, who’s in her 90s, and she laughed. “Your dad and I got lost there a number of times. One time, we ended up late for a wedding. We could SEE the church, but every street we tried ended up feeding us onto a street that was one way taking us away from the wedding!”
(That was fifty years ago. The fundamentals haven’t changed…)
Aside: Worked with a woman named Waukesha, except she pronounced it wah-KEE-shah. It annoyed me.
OK, anybody else.
I live next door in Milwaukee. But my dentist is in Waukesha and I’ll go to Waukesha when we want to shop at Woodmans.
There are several major roads going through it. But even on the regular streets traffic is rather heavy.
There are one or two neighborhoods there I definitely wouldn’t live in, and several that I would.
I don’t know what property values/tax rates are.