Wisconsin has a weakness on its borders. Don't alert the Department of Homeland Security, but where Interstate 94 crosses the state line isn't exactly welcoming.
Sure it's not like driving into Gary, Indiana from Chicago, but it could be better.
As Wisconsin continues to place importance on its connection with Chicago to Milwaukee, they need to make the transition from one to the other as appealing as possible. When it comes to mass transit, Milwaukee has taken a huge step by rebuilding and rebranding the train station as the
Milwaukee Intermodal Station.
We need to do something for the people that drive though. Something that pleases those that have been to Wisconsin before, and those that are coming for the first time.
I talk to a lot of people that come to Milwaukee and Wisconsin from Illinois and elsewhere in the country for the first time. In fact, I'm hosting one at my house next week and will gauge her response to this very issue. They also like to tell me about the first thing they did or saw in Wisconsin.
Usually their comments revolve around how they felt like they were going to a poorer state, after leaving the sprawling the metropolis of Chicago. They talk about how they just saw Six Flags before crossing the border. They also talk about stopping at the "Mars Cheese Castle". A significant number of them say they stopped somewhere upon entering Wisconsin, but aren't sure where.
Not a single one of them seems impressed with the state until they reach the Milwaukee area.
I have an idea.
Let's build a really big THING right at the border. When you hit that first exit the first thing you should see is this big, amazing THING.
St. Louis has the arch. South Dakota has Wall Drug (okay, it's not on the border). New York has everything. Wisconsin has THE THING.
Our THING will be amazing. It will improve land values in the area and make people want to stop. Creating jobs in the short0term in construction and in the long-term for the surrounding businesses. We'll connect the KRM train line right to it, so that people that come to Milwaukee from the west can still take the short ride down to admire our THING's glory. Democrats and Republicans will both support this THING for its amazing social and economic benefits.
Now, some idiot out there will be quick to say we should build the biggest cow ever and light it only in the direction of Illinois so they can't sleep at night. Which is brilliant, except this is 2007.
Our THING can not be a cow. That's a tired idea, especially if you want someone ever to come back to Wisconsin.
Here is my idea for our THING....
We build it at the first I-94 interstate exit. We connect it by train and bus. We make sure businesses can develop by it. We make sure everything looks pretty and uniform around it. We make sure it's 100 percent visible from the interstate, in fact let's put it on a hill, since Illinois doesn't have any of those.
We call it? CELEBRATE WISCONSIN. Our THING will be a huge structure/living museum/rest stop open 24 hours a day to celebrate every single thing we do in Wisconsin. We'll give away a free glass of milk so that everyone will want to stop there just out of pure curosity.
We'll make it look all trendy, modern, and hip, kind of like the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame meets the Milwaukee Art Museum. It'll have some fancy moving parts like the Art Museum and Miller Park, so that it won't look the same all day.
What will be put in CELEBRATE WISCONSIN? Everything Wisconsin.
Harley motorcycles, our beer history, our Badger pride, our professional sports teams history (complete with a wax statue of Hank Aaron), our progressive political history, a P&H mining shovel, the smaller cousin of that big fish in Hayward, a Suburban from Janesville (okay, maybe not), artifacts from The Hold Steady, the Violent Femmes, Citizen King, and the Steve Miller Band (if they've had any connection to Wisconsin let's take advantage of them), cheese, a live cow (just for fun), more beer, airplanes from EAA (although with the number that crashed these past few days, we can just wait for one to land close by and steal it), bratwursts, a Generac generator, some fancy Tomo Therapy cancer thinger, and a Native America casino.
If it's cool and has something to do with Wisconsin, get it in there!
We'll of course sell the rights to put your stuff in there, just so we can keep the costs down.
So now that we people coming in and seeing our big wonderful thing, how do we make them come back? Give them free coupons to all kinds of out of the season things. Summerfest, Oktoberfest, Brat Fest. Give them more coupons for free stuff the further in the state it is and then jack up the price of gasoline the closer you get to those things (the Wausau economy will explode).
All with one goal.
So that when people enter Wisconsin they know we mean business. We want them walking away saying "that was amazing" and "the Bears still suck."
