Cities with Class?

Abstract

Nicknaming his city “Dear Old Lady Thrift,” Milwaukee Journal writer Richard Davis chastised city leaders for failing to build a “great city.” His unflattering portrait pictured post–World War II Milwaukee as a “plump and smiling city . … [sitting] in complacent shabbiness on the west shore of Lake Michigan like a wealthy old lady in black alpaca taking her ease on the beach.” He continued, “All her slips are showing, but she doesn’t mind a bit” (Davis 1947: 189, 191). Reprinted in the Milwaukee Journal two weeks before voters went to the polls to decide if the city would reverse its debt-free policy to finance postwar development, Davis’s depiction warned that Milwaukee was a chaotic andin efficient metropolis in danger of falling behind(“Not So Fair Is America’s Fair City” Milwaukee Journal [hereafter MJ], 16 March 1947). Her thriftiness bordered on stinginess, her complacency slipped into indolence, and her neglected femininity bespoke disorder. City leaders’ frugality, rooted in a tradition of cautious municipal fiscal policies, big city problems mismatched with small town attitudes, and public “indifference,” Davis contended, threatened the postwar city.