Milwaukee Fights for Representation in a Bitter Redistricting Year

A vein trailing east from I-41, North Avenue stretches from Milwaukee’s western suburbs, through the heart of the city, and all the way to the shoreline of Lake Michigan.

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In Wauwatosa, the street is lined with office buildings defined by sharp lines and modern exteriors cut into precise rectangles, their olive-tone sheens too new to be dulled by the sun. Manicured landscaping is browned by a late November chill. A Radisson and Walgreens puncture the suburban stillness of a newly minted business district.

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Community organizer Sheila Smith is driving a teenaged passenger through the suburbs, to his home on the northwest side of Milwaukee, and he keeps asking the same question.

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“Where are we?”

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“We’re on North Avenue,” she answers every time.

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The modern buildings bleed into a residential stretch. Brick rectangles of single-family homes grow into old Colonials divided into apartments. Next come expansive, two-story houses with large yards and ornate bay windows.

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“This is not the North Avenue I am used to seeing,” the teen finally says.

Smith understands what he means. She works with the Northwest Side Community Development Corporation, a neighborhood group focused on economic development.

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“Let’s think about it—where is your North Avenue and where do we see the beautiful trees and the beautiful houses and clean streets as we get closer to your house?” Smith asks him.

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As North Avenue continues into Milwaukee, yards and grassy spaces between sidewalks and road are replaced with concrete, cracks radiating out in every direction. Scuffed brick buildings and weather-worn signs sit side by side. Where North Avenue intersects Sherman Boulevard, fluorescent murals of a child’s building blocks cover the boarded-up windows of an empty storefront. Discarded masks, crumpled fast food cups and forgotten wrappers join the drying leaves at the edge of the road.

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“Where do we see dilapidated buildings?” Smith says. “There’s no place to go shopping, no place to play, no pool, none of [that here]. So, let’s be clear, your whole North Avenue could look like this, but there are choices that have been made about disinvesting in certain neighborhoods.”

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Even along the same street, community resources are tied to the influence of local and state representatives whose voting districts get hashed out every ten years. Again in 2021, it’s all about redistricting—all about the maps. 

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Sheila Smith and her fellow community organizers, Danitra Jones and Raymond Monk from Northwest Side Community Development Corporation have been watching the 2021 map drawing process closely. They know that how a district is drawn can determine how much of a voice communities have.

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“Some of the proposed maps separate and divide the numbers of people who have a commonality of lifestyle,” Monk said. “A large strength of our district is that the majority of the people live similar lives. They have a lot of the same interests, and that’s really where the power lies. When you take that away, you kind of weaken the voice of a community.”

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