Home improvement across Milwaukee County

The core is pre-war. In the City of Milwaukee the median home dates to 1953 and 34% of units were built before 1940; the Encyclopedia of Milwaukee records that by 1911 the duplex was the city's most common house type. The first ring of suburbs followed close behind, with medians of 1954 in Wauwatosa and 1956 in West Allis, which doubled in size when it annexed its west side in 1954. That is where two-flats, bungalows, lath-and-plaster walls and lead paint are ordinary working conditions; see the Milwaukee page and the West Allis page.

Farther out, the county filled in after the war. Hales Corners became a village in 1952; Franklin, which the Encyclopedia says began turning from farmland to suburb in the early 1950s, became a city in 1956; Greenfield incorporated in 1957 as part of a suburban wave. Greendale is its own story, a federal greenbelt town begun in 1936. The newest stock is in the south: the median home in Franklin dates to 1990 and in Oak Creek to 1991. Muskego sits just across the county line from Franklin; Hales Corners is about 7 road miles from Muskego and the middle of Milwaukee about 20.

Unlike Waukesha and Racine counties, Milwaukee County has no towns and no unincorporated land. All of it lies inside 10 cities and 9 villages, so every address answers to a city or village building office. Lines can still surprise people. The state reassigned 700 residents from Franklin to the City of Milwaukee in its population base, and old place names such as Carrollville and Oakwood (in Oak Creek) or Saint Martins (in Franklin) do not tell you which office to call. A property tax bill does.