Regret moving to Middleton!

[Chelito23]

To be fair, Madison always had crime issues as does any city of any size. A lot of people were just walled off and unaware of it. It has become more in your face and more advertised now with 24/7 news cycles and constant updates on phones and tv.

Additionally, I believe the covid situation has a lot of people just hanging out and getting into trouble all over the US...crime is going up everywhere as it usually does in summer...and add covid stay at home and it's a recipe for higher crime.

[ranger17]

We’ve been in the Madison area since the mid 80’s; for a long time many of the more serious crimes were in pockets and certain neighborhood areas. And yes there were occasional shootings as well. We moved out of state in ‘09 and came back in ‘14; even then we noticed spikes in violent crimes. But the past couple years, especially this year? Definitely worse. We can go thru stretches where every day has shooting incidents. And it seems thugs realized Madison is small and easy to cross town, so now a shooting on the south side leads to one on the north side shortly after, etc.
Auto theft is a big problem, as is frequent theft from cars as well. I can imagine at schools (whenever they open up) it will get worse as well once SRO’s are no longer present.
Lots of reasons and excuses thrown around for spikes in crime, just not sure there are enough legit plans to solve the problems. Here and in many areas around the US.

[badger74]

The location, nature and direction of crime has become a danger to anyone near the UW. Guns are frequently used. That was unheard of BITD.

[BBMW]

Did you drink the Cool Aid and become conservative?

Originally Posted by BoopBoopBoop

For anyone who has come across this (now old) thread, this is the original poster. I wanted to update my thread to say that I really appreciated all of the comments and feedback that people provided. We didn't end up moving and things improved immensely. We now feel very much at home in Middleton. It just took time to really start to feel at home!

[CityDude79]

Wow... after the events of 2020-21, I can’t even imagine viewing Middleton as “conservative.” There are conservative peppered throughout both the town and city of Middleton, but overall this suburb increasingly feels like Madison West to me. An increasing number of University folks moving here “for the schools” and importing the same politics that have Madison less attractive to them.

You have to remember that just 30 years ago, Middleton was a small, largely rural community geographically separated from Madison. It has been a relatively recent development that Madison and Middleton are now nearly fully contiguous. A lot of “old Middleton” persists, and its inhabitants are generally much more conservative than the average Vilas resident.

I suspect in the decades to come, Middleton will become only more politically similar to Madison—though always with a more suburban feel. Waunakee, Cross Plains, Verona, etc. will all follow similar trajectories. With the rare exceptions like golf course communities, most conservatives will be relegated to the far outskirts of Dane and surrounding counties like Jefferson and Columbia. The oppressive and far-reaching nature of Dane politics is becoming increasingly intolerable for anybody but true left-wing ideologues.

[InnovativeAmerican]

Originally Posted by CityDude79

Wow... after the events of 2020-21, I can’t even imagine viewing Middleton as “conservative.” There are conservative peppered throughout both the town and city of Middleton, but overall this suburb increasingly feels like Madison West to me. An increasing number of University folks moving here “for the schools” and importing the same politics that have Madison less attractive to them.

You have to remember that just 30 years ago, Middleton was a small, largely rural community geographically separated from Madison. It has been a relatively recent development that Madison and Middleton are now nearly fully contiguous. A lot of “old Middleton” persists, and its inhabitants are generally much more conservative than the average Vilas resident.

I suspect in the decades to come, Middleton will become only more politically similar to Madison—though always with a more suburban feel. Waunakee, Cross Plains, Verona, etc. will all follow similar trajectories. With the rare exceptions like golf course communities, most conservatives will be relegated to the far outskirts of Dane and surrounding counties like Jefferson and Columbia. The oppressive and far-reaching nature of Dane politics is becoming increasingly intolerable for anybody but true left-wing ideologues.

"Nearly fully contiguous" is right. I think Biden received 79% of the vote in Middleton and 84% of the vote in Madison. In 2012, Obama received 70% of the vote in Middleton.

[katharsis]

Originally Posted by Rynldsbr

Unfortunately the admission is in your own words. You "assumed" certain expectations would be met anywhere in the Madison metro area. You admit that the people are "not unkind", yet are looking for reassurances that there are "nice" people in Middleton. The reality is that the people there are quite nice, they just aren't like you.


The telltale sign is in the statement "When we go down to the Regent/Monroe/Vilas area, we feel like we fit right in and it is quite easy to talk with people -- we just feel so at home. The moms all work, and the families share our values." The issue isn't the people around you, it is your own discomfort and feeling out of place. You've already identified the differences in transplant population versus native population in the neighborhoods, now you must decide where you want to live.

I know that this is an old thread, I just have to give MAJOR kudos to the above post!

As you stated so well, just because people aren't like you and share the majority of your "values" (and/or opinions) does NOT mean that they aren't "nice". In my opinion, anyone who is kind and polite and honest and responsible -- with heavy emphasis on kind -- is "nice", whatever their political outlook.

I must admit that I do get a very heavy "Madison" holier-than-thou vibe from the OP.

[guidoLaMoto]

Yea, this old thread was bumped up and I took notice. I just read the OP and had to laugh.

When I did my Psych rotation in med school, the prof and a half dozen of us students were watching another student interview a patent via a two-way mirror set up.

A middle aged woman had presented with an hysterical conversion reaction. She had develped a non-physiological paraluysis of her left arm...Durng the course of the session, in discussing her various problems, she became more and more agitated, gesturing emphatically, including using that parlyzed left arm...

...I asked the prof if the interviwer should point that out to the pt...No, he answered. The woman is gettin by in ife without use of her left arm. ..If we "cure" her problem withiut getting to the root psych cause, then she will possibly start using her left again, but move on to a more serious conversion, like, say, paralysis of her legs, for instance, which would prove to be a bigger difficulty for her in her life. She will eventually come to grips with the real problem leading to her discomfort and things will work themselves out.

The moral is that those who live in some sort of fantasyland are getting by, and will eventually come to their senses, face The Real Wiorld and their problems will solve themselves when they no longer need the crutch of the imagined infirmity.

...so I won't give any advice about the perceived prolems of living in a conservative neighborhod, except that maybe you should stay in your Protected Space at the university until you're strong enough to face the world.

[ManApplet]

Originally Posted by guidoLaMoto

Yea, this old thread was bumped up and I took notice. I just read the OP and had to laugh.

When I did my Psych rotation in med school, the prof and a half dozen of us students were watching another student interview a patent via a two-way mirror set up.

A middle aged woman had presented with an hysterical conversion reaction. She had develped a non-physiological paraluysis of her left arm...Durng the course of the session, in discussing her various problems, she became more and more agitated, gesturing emphatically, including using that parlyzed left arm...

...I asked the prof if the interviwer should point that out to the pt...No, he answered. The woman is gettin by in ife without use of her left arm. ..If we "cure" her problem withiut getting to the root psych cause, then she will possibly start using her left again, but move on to a more serious conversion, like, say, paralysis of her legs, for instance, which would prove to be a bigger difficulty for her in her life. She will eventually come to grips with the real problem leading to her discomfort and things will work themselves out.

The moral is that those who live in some sort of fantasyland are getting by, and will eventually come to their senses, face The Real Wiorld and their problems will solve themselves when they no longer need the crutch of the imagined infirmity.

...so I won't give any advice about the perceived prolems of living in a conservative neighborhod, except that maybe you should stay in your Protected Space at the university until you're strong enough to face the world.

You can't get colder than absolute zero (-273.15 C) . You can't go faster than the speed of light (299792458 m/s) ... and you can't ever help anyone by not telling them the truth.

[madison999]

Originally Posted by ranger17

We’ve been in the Madison area since the mid 80’s; for a long time many of the more serious crimes were in pockets and certain neighborhood areas. And yes there were occasional shootings as well. We moved out of state in ‘09 and came back in ‘14; even then we noticed spikes in violent crimes. But the past couple years, especially this year? Definitely worse. We can go thru stretches where every day has shooting incidents. And it seems thugs realized Madison is small and easy to cross town, so now a shooting on the south side leads to one on the north side shortly after, etc.
Auto theft is a big problem, as is frequent theft from cars as well. I can imagine at schools (whenever they open up) it will get worse as well once SRO’s are no longer present.
Lots of reasons and excuses thrown around for spikes in crime, just not sure there are enough legit plans to solve the problems. Here and in many areas around the US.

This all got rolling about 20 years ago. I only need one word to tell you the answer: Chicago.

It's not going to be solved, it will continue to get worse and worse.

Remember the girl who tried to say white supremacists lit her on fire in her car down by University Drive?

Police pulled the surveillance tapes. She was lying. They let her get away with it. Madison and it's uber liberalness will be exploited for everything it's worth.