Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 84. Sunrise is 6:38 AM and sunset 6:59 PM for 12h 21m 45s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 86.6% of its visible disk illuminated. This day in 1787, the Framers at the Constitutional Convention sign their final draft of…
Demographics
Daily Bread, Demographics, Economy
Daily Bread for 8.17.21: Decline in Trump-Supporting America
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning. Tuesday in Whitewater will be sunny with a high of 80. Sunrise is 6:04 AM and sunset 7:52 PM, for 13h 48m 01s of daytime. The moon is a waxing gibbous with 70.7% of its visible disk illuminated. Whitewater’s Common Council meets at 6:30 PM. On this day in 1945, George Orwell’s novella Animal…
Daily Bread, Demographics, Wisconsin
Daily Bread for 8.13.21: Wisconsin’s 2020 Census
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Good morning. Friday in Whitewater will be partly sunny with a high of 82. Sunrise is 6:00 AM and sunset 7:59 PM, for 13h 58m 20s of daytime. The moon is a waxing crescent with 26.3% of its visible disk illuminated. On this day in 1961, East Germany closes the border between the eastern and western…
City, Culture, Demographics, Economy, Education, Local Government, Politics, School District
Local 2021 Races in the Whitewater Area
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Update: this post about local politics, with an optimistic final sentence, was published before the morning and afternoon events in Washington. It has always been true – and always will be true – that what harms the country harms the city; what stains the nation stains the city. Every moment of opposition to Trump and…
Budget, City, Demographics, Government Spending, University, UW System, Wisconsin
UW-Whitewater’s Budgetary Challenges Require a Studied Approach
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Whitewater is a college town. If a college town, then a college: the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. I’ve written about the university now and again. A simple summary of my views would be that Whitewater benefits from having a university, but that the school’s leaders (notably Telfer and Kopper) have failed both individuals and the community.…
Demographics, Diversity
America Grows More Diverse, Integration as Important as Ever
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
William H. Frey writes that The nation is diversifying even faster than predicted, according to new census data: The U.S. Census Bureau has just released its last batch of race-ethnic population estimates in advance of the 2020 census, with data indicating that the national headcount will reveal a more diverse nation than was previously expected. The…
City, Culture, Demographics, Local Government
Quick Observations on Whitewater’s Demographics
by JOHN ADAMS • • 1 Comment
It’s common in films and books that small towns, even small college towns, are described as homogeneous. There may be a few eccentric characters here or there, but the town so described (and imagined) is seldom a diverse one. Whitewater is more diverse than those places, and diverse in a way that leaves no group…
City, Demographics, Television
Broadband Gaps
by JOHN ADAMS • • 3 Comments
There’s a story over at Wisconsin Watch that reports on the broadband gap in rural Wisconsin communities. Peter Cameron reports Broadband gap leaves rural Wisconsin behind during coronavirus crisis (‘Wisconsin’s dearth of high-speed internet in rural areas makes virtual schooling, remote health care and working from home even more difficult’): Already, Wisconsin lags behind the…
Babbittry, CDA, City, Demographics, Development, Diversity, Economy, Local Government, That Which Paved the Way
Rural Population Drain
by JOHN ADAMS • • 2 Comments
Thirteen years ago, local notables in small-town Whitewater, Wisconsin insisted that Whitewater was the very center of the universe. When that claim didn’t entice newcomers, these same men began to claim the very opposite, that Whitewater wasn’t doing better because no one knew where the city was. (Both of these claims are silly: billions of…
Babbittry, Beautiful Whitewater, CDA, Culture, Demographics, Diversity, Economics, Economy, Good Ideas, Lifestyle, Local Government, WEDC
‘Migration Key To Wisconsin’s Workforce’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
For many years – and despite nearly a decade of corporate welfare and crony capitalism from the WEDC and local versions of it – Wisconsin has seen a decline in younger workers and families. Shamane Mills writes Report: Migration Key To Wisconsin’s Workforce (“State Has Seen Large Drop in Net Migration Of Families With Children…
City, Culture, Demographics, Ethnicity, Police
Accreditation in Context
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
There is a liturgical tradition in which parishioners reflect on what they have done and what they have left undone. A secular equivalent for Whitewater would ask a policymaker to consider not merely what has been done so many times before, but what might – and should have been – done, years ago and now.…
Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Demographics, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Local Government, Mendacity, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Foxconn: When the Going Gets Tough…
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
The national press has reported extensively, and critically, on the Foxconn project. National technology site The Verge (part of Vox Media) has also noticed how local officials who flacked this project day and night are now, well, quieter. Nilay Patel writes Let’s all watch the Wisconsin local news desperately try to get answers about Foxconn:…
Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Demographics, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Local Government, Mendacity, Politics, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, Trump, WEDC, Wisconsin
‘Inside Wisconsin’s Disastrous $4.5 Billion Deal With Foxconn’
by JOHN ADAMS • • 4 Comments
The published case against Foxconn – with reporting & analysis from some of America’s finest journalists and economists – is overwhelming. Their careful, published work has set out the plain facts for well over a year. And yet, as a multi-billion dollar public failure, there are even more startling accounts still emerging. Austin Carr reports…
Bad Ideas, Business, CDA, Corporate Welfare, Demographics, Economics, Economy, Foxconn, Local Government, Mendacity, Politics, Scott Walker, State Capitalism, State Government, That Which Paved the Way, WEDC
Foxconn: The ‘State Visit Project’
by JOHN ADAMS • • Comments
Willy Shih, of Harvard Business School, writes that Foxconn’s Wisconsin Factory Is What The Chinese Call A ‘State Visit Project’: Last week I wrote that Foxconn’s giant flat-screen factory in Wisconsin was facing an economic reality check, and might not get built after all. On Friday, after a call between Foxconn chairman Terry Gou and President Donald Trump,…