Will Milwaukee and Chicago ever be one metro area ?

[mukade]

...there will be a solid mass of cities and villages from SE Wisconsin, through NE Illinois and into NW Indiana...

And into Michigan... barely. There is a town called Michiana that would be in the blob of incorporated areas. There is a small gap to Grand Beach, MI from Michiana. This assumes my Rand McNally NW Indiana street guide is correct and not outdated.

[mgk920]

The City of Kenosha and Somers Twp. have a boundary agreement in place.

Mike

[triplemultiplex]

The City of Kenosha and Somers Twp. have a boundary agreement in place.

Still, they might jump on the incorporation bandwagon that swept SE Wisconsin in the last decade or so.
Mt. Pleasant, Caledonia, Bristol, Rochester, Richfield, Summit, the duplicate Pewaukee...
For now Somers is still pretty rural, though, except where it buts up against Kenosha.  They do have UW-middle-of-nowhere.  (UW school with no bars anywhere nearby? That ain't right!)

[Jordanah1]

  (UW school with no bars anywhere nearby? That ain't right!)

good thing im going to Sloshkosh! 

[kendancy66]

As for the Los Angeles-San Diego metro area, which I traveled via train last April from LA to San Diego and back, does Southern California count?

I'm thinking a good name would be Los San Diegoles 

IIRC, hasn't this been done in Demolition Man as San Angeles?

I thought that was referring to a combination  of San Franciso/Los Angeles that occurred after a great earthquake in between drew them together.

[DaBigE]

Interesting Milwaukee JournalSentinel article on the topic: Inefficiency holds back Chicago-Milwaukee metroplex

[mukade]

I think it is pretty clear there are way too many municipal governments in Chicagoland, NW Indiana, and SE Wisconsin. That said, with all the corruption in Illinois and Lake County, Indiana (not sure about Wisconsin), I can understand the desire to get away from the machine politics. OTOH, the way it is is pretty inefficient and contributes toward the polarization that exists (or at least used to exist) in the area. If there were more visionary leadership and less corrupt leadership the future would be a lot brighter for that whole region.

[mgk920]

I think it is pretty clear there are way too many municipal governments in Chicagoland, NW Indiana, and SE Wisconsin. That said, with all the corruption in Illinois and Lake County, Indiana (not sure about Wisconsin), I can understand the desire to get away from the machine politics. OTOH, the way it is is pretty inefficient and contributes toward the polarization that exists (or at least used to exist) in the area. If there were more visionary leadership and less corrupt leadership the future would be a lot brighter for that whole region.

There is a very bitter, mufti-generational city v. suburb divide in metro Milwaukee that, IMHO, would not be there if the metro area was one city.  The Wisconsin legislature slammed the annexation door on Milwaukee in the mid-late 1950s and it has been downhill on that ever since.

Mike

[Brandon]

I think it is pretty clear there are way too many municipal governments in Chicagoland, NW Indiana, and SE Wisconsin. That said, with all the corruption in Illinois and Lake County, Indiana (not sure about Wisconsin), I can understand the desire to get away from the machine politics. OTOH, the way it is is pretty inefficient and contributes toward the polarization that exists (or at least used to exist) in the area. If there were more visionary leadership and less corrupt leadership the future would be a lot brighter for that whole region.

There is a very bitter, mufti-generational city v. suburb divide in metro Milwaukee that, IMHO, would not be there if the metro area was one city.  The Wisconsin legislature slammed the annexation door on Milwaukee in the mid-late 1950s and it has been downhill on that ever since.

Mike

In addition, it is very easy to incorporate a village in Illinois (oddly, a bit more difficult to incorporate a city).  Hence, there are many, many villages in the Chicagoland area (even as big as Bolingbrook and Arlington Heights, both over 70,000 in population).  Many villages are incorporated because the locals do not want to be subject to the whims of a surrounding municipality, i.e. Homer Glen.  Homer Glen incorporated to control their area (about 2/3rds of Homer Township, Will County) in opposition to Lockport and Orland Park.

Annexation laws are fairly lax as well.  Some municipalities have annexed large swaths of land to be developed (Joliet, Minooka) with border agreements far outside the current incorporation limits.  Then, you also have the ability to annex land on the other side of a forest preserve.  However, the forest preserve is not a part of the municipality.  Ditto with railroad rights of way.

[hobsini2]

Yeah I always found it strange that Joliet know goes well into Kendall County when even just 15 years ago it was not west of Route 59.  Plainfield has been doing this too. But the most egregious offender in the last couple decades in Chicagoland IMO is the village of Woodridge. Prior to the annexations of the late 90s, the village was completely north of 87th St/Boughton Rd. Then when the land grabs between Bolingbrook, Plainfield, Romeoville and Woodridge occurred, Woodridge jumped the annexing gun on Bolingbrook by 3 weeks to get land that would later become the Internationale Pkwy Business Park (Pro Logis Woodridge) and connecting it with about a mile long strip along Woodward Ave to get south of I-55.  Realistically, Romeoville should have been the village to claim it because of it being closer to their limits (Bluff Rd) than Bolingbrook or Woodridge.  Woodridge has since filled in the area south of 87th and north of I-55 with a subdivision.

[Brandon]

^^ Yeah, that annexation by Woodridge pissed off Bolingbrook.  The Community Development Department was planning on annexing that area until Woodridge pulled its sneak attack annexation maneuver.  The CDD Director at the time (who I know very well) wanted to place a building just east of I-355 on Boughton that would look like a middle finger pointing directly into Woodridge.

[hobsini2]

I'm not surprised Brandon. I know Roger (Mayor Claar) was really pissed because he was hoping to have more commercial taxes coming into the village.

[mukade]

That is what happens when the state law is weak and there is no real regional master plan.

One thing Indiana did (though recent annexations around Hamilton and Hendricks Counties seem to ignore it) is that any annexation must have the contiguous border of that new area must be a certain percentage of the entire border of the new area. I think it was 20%. Therefore, for a while at least, any newly annexed area was usually a nice block. If a city or town could not prove they could service the area, the annexation could be rescinded so that added some sanity to the situation.

When it comes right down to it, why shouldn't Bolingbrook, Woodridge, and Romeoville be combined into a single city (and maybe Naperville, Lisle, Darien, etc.)? What is the benefit to the ridiculously high number of suburbs there? When I lived there, people did not really have allegiance to these new, artificial suburbs. Heck, you didn't even necessarily know what village a place was in because of the bizarre borders. I understand no one wants Chicago itself to annex any suburbs because of corruption and mismanagement. Wouldn't a goal of consolidating down to 50 (or some realistic number) of suburbs be good?

[hobsini2]

That is what happens when the state law is weak and there is no real regional master plan.

One thing Indiana did (though recent annexations around Hamilton and Hendricks Counties seem to ignore it) is that any annexation must have the contiguous border of that new area must be a certain percentage of the entire border of the new area. I think it was 20%. Therefore, for a while at least, any newly annexed area was usually a nice block. If a city or town could not prove they could service the area, the annexation could be rescinded so that added some sanity to the situation.

When it comes right down to it, why shouldn't Bolingbrook, Woodridge, and Romeoville be combined into a single city (and maybe Naperville, Lisle, Darien, etc.)? What is the benefit to the ridiculously high number of suburbs there? When I lived there, people did not really have allegiance to these new, artificial suburbs. Heck, you didn't even necessarily know what village a place was in because of the bizarre borders. I understand no one wants Chicago itself to annex any suburbs because of corruption and mismanagement. Wouldn't a goal of consolidating down to 50 (or some realistic number) of suburbs be good?

Actually there are some well established "rivalries" between some of the suburbs you have mentioned. Just ask anyone from Naperville their opinion about Aurora and most will say something along the lines of it being a drug induced gang stricken city (which is not too far off base but better than back in the 80s.)People in Bolingbrook, myself included, up until about 10 years ago looked at people from Naperville as being rich snobs. Now we have some rich snobs in town too. As for your statement about not knowing where one suburb ends and another begins, that is more toward places closer into the city like Berwyn, Cicero, and Oak Park or Maywood, Bellwood and Hillside.

[mukade]

Back in the 1980s I lived in Woodridge. On the south side, Bolingbrook and Woodridge were tangled up while on the north side Lisle and to some extent Downers Grove were tangled up with Woodridge. By tangled up, I mean Bolingbrook went way up to 83rd and Woodridge went way south of there (now more so). It seemed like there was little planning. Back in the 1980s, Naperville and Aurora along Rt. 59 were getting all jumbled up. You never really knew which city you were in as Aurora began to annex land in DuPage County.

I know what you're saying about the inner suburbs - they all look the same, but I thought most of them were roughly rectangular in shape. You generally knew where the boundaries were.

The other thing that makes Chicagoland more confusing than cities in some states is the way annexations happen across County lines.

[hobsini2]

Just because a suburb is a perfect shape does not mean that those should be able to remain on their own. I side more on the feel of an area. Yes there are some entanglements the farther out you go but you can find those as well inside 294. Look at the boundaries for  Forest View, Bridgeview, and Melrose Park. And let's not forget how oddly shaped the city of Chicago is.

[mukade]

I don't care about a perfect shape. I am just saying some Chicago suburbs have very convoluted, artificial borders. Look at Woodridge here.