Residential Real Estate in your city

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Ridiculous.

Hard disagree there.



My cousins raising their families in regular old middle class neighborhoods of Cincy are both 100% non-religious and have never once mentioned a single thing about this hyper-religiosity that you allege pervades every corner of the city.



In like for like areas, homes cost less in Cincy than they do in Seattle.

That is not a controversial statement.

[DCReid]

Originally Posted by Crawford

NYC and DC are pretty affordable, with not particularly high income-to-housing cost ratios. Both have high incomes and tons of relatively affordable areas. If you compare to intl. equivalents, they're almost laughably affordable. Compare incomes and housing typologies in London and Berlin to NYC and DC.

The most unaffordable U.S. areas are generally on the West Coast and in South Florida.

But my point was more nuanced. Housing preferences are frequently tailored to avoid black areas, thus exaggerating the relative affordability of metros with large black populations. Metro Detroit is relatively cheap, but most homeowners will automatically eliminate the most affordable third of the metro, so basically all the areas with comically cheap homes.

But so do most West Coast cities with regards to income to housing costs. Housing preferences have most always been tailored to avoid black areas and even the US government encourages it through redlining. But some black areas especially close to downtowns were not avoided when they became too 'cheap' to ignore and were gentrified. DC certainly stands out in that regard but I think parts of even Chicago (near north and near south) also fit the bill.

[ColDayMan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Clearly you're getting far more house for you money in a Cincy than, say, a Seattle. But IMO it's a bit deceptive.

I recently stayed in Cincy, in the Mount Adams neighborhood. This is an all-white, non-trendy, in-town neighborhood, with few amenities. Not a single decent restaurant, but great location and views. Homes in move-in condition are well above $1 million. The all-white, upscale neighborhoods east of Mount Adams are all generally pretty pricey, all the way out to the sprawl mansion area around Indian Hill.

There are plenty of cheap in-town neighborhoods, but they tend to be black or Appalachian, broken-down, with 🞵🞵🞵🞵 schools and safety issues, and without the govt. supports you'd get in a Seattle.

There are interesting cheapish areas in Newport/Covington (took a whole day walking around), with kind of a weird mix of gentrifiers, blacks and Appalachians, but I saw nothing really "wow" except for that Mansion Hill area in Newport. Most of it just looked like any old housing along the Ohio River.

And obviously most people in Cincy area just live in prefab suburban housing, like most Americans. If you want this housing, yes, Cincy will allow one to have massive housing buying power relative to a Seattle.

But there are other factors. I'm secular, bordering on irreligious, and would have a hard time living somewhere where religion is very in-your-face, from a Creation Museum/Noah's Ark, to some of the biggest suburban megachurches I've ever seen. There's even some giant Jesus statue on I-75. We're also a trilingual family, foreign-born and my wife looks very "ethnic" and I don't think I heard someone speaking anything other than English in five days, and the only accents I heard were some Indian parents at the Union Station museums.

I don't even know where to begin with this foolishness and I've stayed quiet for years on this forum.

I'm secular, bordering on irreligious, and would have a hard time living somewhere where religion is very in-your-face, from a Creation Museum/Noah's Ark

- Both are in Kentucky, a state where it and Cincinnati are vastly adversarial in a lot of ways, including religious affiliation. The most obvious? Cincinnati is Catholic, not Protestant like those "museum" venues you mentioned. If you had been to Cincinnati, including Mt. Adams, you'd know a large Catholic church is basically in every neighborhood. But of course, there are plenty of non-religious/secular people in Cincinnati and they are living just fine, as Steely pointed out.

This is like saying I couldn't live in Chicago because the steel mills of Gary are unsightly. Irrelevant.

to some of the biggest suburban megachurches I've ever seen

- I can't think of ANY "suburban megachurch" in Metro Cincinnati except for where Touchdown Jesus is/was in Monroe 30 miles away. I've seen more in Metro Detroit and I'm not even saying Detroit is the home of large suburban megachurches. Cincinnati Metro is traditionally Catholic, who tend to already have established churches and not go big in general.

There's even some giant Jesus statue on I-75.

- Which has been mocked, locally and nationally, for decades. A roadside attraction, much like a Uniroyal Tire on I-94 or a giant steel cross off I-70 in Illinois. And BTW, it's a majority black church so I'm pretty sure you're white friends will be, uh, satisfied with that church's "diversity."

I don't think I heard someone speaking anything other than English in five days, and the only accents I heard were some Indian parents at the Union Station museums.

- *Insert anywhere in America outside of South Florida and NYC here* I was just in Southern California for a WEEK and didn't hear a single person NOT speak English but that doesn't mean Southern California doesn't have people with accents and/or speaking non-English. Of course it does. As does Cincinnati.

There are interesting cheapish areas in Newport/Covington (took a whole day walking around), with kind of a weird mix of gentrifiers, blacks and Appalachians, but I saw nothing really "wow" except for that Mansion Hill area in Newport. Most of it just looked like any old housing along the Ohio River.

- There are neighborhoods in Covington (Mainstrasse, Riverside-Licking, etc) that are better than most neighorhoods in the Midwest and far more unique/intersting than you're leading on to. Unless, of course, you didn't see it. And I assure you, there aren't many/any blacks/Appalachians living in those neighborhoods. Newport is more of a mix.

There are plenty of cheap in-town neighborhoods, but they tend to be black or Appalachian, broken-down, with 🞵🞵🞵🞵 schools and safety issues, and without the govt. supports you'd get in a Seattle.

- Most cheap in-town neighborhoods in this country are either black or poor white. That's obvious.

Somedays man, somedays...

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

The rust belt bucks that trend, largely due to the extremely high levels of racial segregation found in the region's major cities.

Here in Chicago we have thousands of extremely affordable housing unit on the market right now, all within a relative stones throw of the largest central business district in the interior of the nation.

The reason? A giant percentage of our nation's populace will not live in neighborhoods that are 90%+ black, at any price point.

We have that here too, there are huge swaths of Houston that are dirt cheap (skewing overall market in affordability) but most middle class home shoppers don't even consider these areas.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

- Both are in Kentucky, a state where it and Cincinnati are vastly adversarial in a lot of ways, including religious affiliation. The most obvious? Cincinnati is Catholic, not Protestant like those "museum" venues you mentioned. If you had been to Cincinnati, including Mt. Adams, you'd know a large Catholic church is basically in every neighborhood. But of course, there are plenty of non-religious/secular people in Cincinnati and they are living just fine, as Steely pointed out.

NKY is Catholic too. There are Catholic churches & influences everywhere. There's a Catholic church in Covington that might be one of the biggest/grandest I ever seen in N. America.

I doubt there's an enormous difference between people living directly on either side of the Ohio River. It's all Cincy metro. They love the Bengals, the people are pretty big and friendly, the working class speaks with a drawl. And yeah, it has a very in-your-face Christian feel, something you wouldn't get in Columbus or Cleveland. Our friends (who are longtime Cincy residents) said the same. They love the city but are also realistic about that issue.

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

- I can't think of ANY "suburban megachurch" in Metro Cincinnati except for where Touchdown Jesus is/was in Monroe 30 miles away.

There are at least three or four enormous megachurches right along I-75 between Cincy and Dayton (went to AF museum last week). I believe all were Baptist. The first was somewhere north of Sharonville, then they came every few miles. And no, I don't see that in other metros. Can't think of one equivalent along Metro Detroit freeways. No, I don't care if one or more were black either. They're a poisonous influence.

But it's more than megachurches. There's an overt religious presence. We went to the Krohn Conservancy, and the tour ends with a big Nativity scene. There was a theatre showing some clearly right wing Christmas play. You wouldn't commonly see that elsewhere. Maybe in the Bible Belt, but I'm not expecting Cincy to be like Tulsa or Birmingham. It's obviously avoidable and hardly the Taliban but I wouldn't feel comfortable raising a kid in that environment.

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

Insert anywhere in America outside of South Florida and NYC here* I was just in Southern California for a WEEK and didn't hear a single person NOT speak English but that doesn't mean Southern California doesn't have people with accents and/or speaking non-English. Of course it does. As does Cincinnati.

I think most observers would agree that Cincy, for metropolitan American standards, is not particularly diverse. It's pretty much a white and black metro. I think the Census numbers would bear this out. Columbus feels like Toronto compared to Cincy.

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

There are neighborhoods in Covington (Mainstrasse, Riverside-Licking, etc) that are better than most neighorhoods in the Midwest and far more unique/intersting than you're leading on to.

Oh, no doubt. I think Cincy, at it's best, (places like OTR) arguably has the best street-level feel of any metro in the interior U.S. Some fantastic urbanity, just very limited in scope, and there are many other issues (no bike infrastructure, limited transit, etc.) But the best intact legacy urbanity is A+. If I were a single guy I'd definitely live in Cincy over most other midsized interior metros.

[Crawford]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

My cousins raising their families in regular old middle class neighborhoods of Cincy are both 100% non-religious and have never once mentioned a single thing about this hyper-religiosity that you allege pervades every corner of the city.

If they have kids, I bet if you asked, they would agree that Cincy is generally a pretty religious town, with overt conservative-leaning Christian influences you wouldn't see somewhere like Chicago.

[Six Corners]

Originally Posted by The North One

Not sure what you think is satirical about it. That home also just got a 25K price cut so clearly they're having trouble selling.

It's not always obvious why homes don't sell as fast as you'd expect. Sometimes the owner is just looking for the right person. Anecdotally, some friends just bought a stately home in the western suburbs of Chicago (LaGrange) that had been sitting on the market for some time. There was nothing wrong with the house; the owners were just set on getting their asking price for it as they felt they had meticulously cared for it. The house turned out to have quite a bit of asbestos upon inspection and so our friends offered a little less than asking with some part of the balance going toward asbestos removal. The previous owners gave in.

All that said, this St. Louis house is a special house in a special neighborhood. You can buy pictures of it and the other painted ladies to hang in your living room. I'd imagine the current owners are being a bit picky and not interested in selling it to just anyone.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

If they have kids, I bet if you asked, they would agree that Cincy is generally a pretty religious town, with overt conservative-leaning Christian influences you wouldn't see somewhere like Chicago.

They each have two young children, and I'm very close with both of them (in fact, one of them and her family just stayed at our house for four days over Christmas last week), and in the 4+ decades I've known the two of them, I can't recall either of them (or their husbands) ever saying a single word about anything regarding this alleged hyper-religiosity of Cincinnati.

I think you're making something out of nothing here.

[ColDayMan]

NKY is Catholic too. There are Catholic churches & influences everywhere. There's a Catholic church in Covington that might be one of the biggest/grandest I ever seen in N. America.

Northern Kentucky is primarily Baptist, not Catholic. The Basilica in Covington is from a time when Cincinnati's Catholic influence was across the river but that died out decades ago.


https://i.insider.com/

I doubt there's an enormous difference between people living directly on either side of the Ohio River. It's all Cincy metro.

Well, there is an enormous difference, especially in regards to two states in two different regions. It's not exactly NY-NJ.

They love the Bengals, the people are pretty big and friendly, the working class speaks with a drawl. And yeah, it has a very in-your-face Christian feel, something you wouldn't get in Columbus or Cleveland. Our friends (who are longtime Cincy residents) said the same. They love the city but are also realistic about that issue.

Aside from the obvious Catholic churches around town, there is not an "obvious Christian feel" in Cincinnati. I don't go to Rhinegeist in Over-the-Rhine and think "Wow, it feels like Kiryas Joel for Christians here!" I think you're projecting what you want to see wherever you go. I can easily go to, say, Royal Oak and think "Wow, the segregation in Metro Detroit is STARK here!" while eating at Leo's. But I don't. That's SSP talk, not reality.

There are at least three or four enormous megachurches right along I-75 between Cincy and Dayton (went to AF museum last week). I believe all were Baptist.

Again, there are no "megachurches" along that corridor except for Butter Jesus. Unless you think ANY church is a "megachurch" in which we can all go back and forth with Google Streetviews and 🞵🞵🞵🞵. Again, irrelevant and non-factual.

The first was somewhere north of Sharonville, then they came every few miles.

Gonna need receipts. Unless you think the tacky 80's mosque north of Sharonville is a "megachurch." Or the IKEA.

And no, I don't see that in other metros. Can't think of one equivalent along Metro Detroit freeways. No, I don't care if one or more were black either. They're a poisonous influence.

So you're not familiar with Marvin Winans' church off Van 🞵🞵🞵🞵 which is larger than ANY "megachurch" in Cincinnati? Or that Word of Faith off 9 Mile in Southfield? Again, larger than any church in Metro Cincinnati. How is it I know Metro Detroit better than you?

But it's more than megachurches. There's an overt religious presence.

Again, need receipts.

We went to the Krohn Conservancy, and the tour ends with a big Nativity scene.

So one of the nation's oldest conservatories...had a nativity scene...during Christmas-time?

There was a theatre showing some clearly right wing Christmas play.

Umm...

You wouldn't commonly see that elsewhere. Maybe in the Bible Belt, but I'm not expecting Cincy to be like Tulsa or Birmingham. It's obviously avoidable and hardly the Taliban but I wouldn't feel comfortable raising a kid in that environment.

Not sure if this is parody or not...?

I think most observers would agree that Cincy, for metropolitan American standards, is not particularly diverse. It's pretty much a white and black metro. I think the Census numbers would bear this out.

I never claimed Cincinnati was the capital of diversity. I do question the fact that you didn't "hear any accents" and then proclaimed it must be the whole metro...when in fact Mt. Adams is about 1.5 miles from a Guatemalan neighborhood full of said "accents."

Columbus feels like Toronto compared to Cincy.

Columbus is more diverse than Cincinnati, yes.

Oh, no doubt. I think Cincy, at it's best, (places like OTR) arguably has the best street-level feel of any metro in the interior U.S. Some fantastic urbanity, just very limited in scope, and there are many other issues (no bike infrastructure, limited transit, etc. But the best intact legacy urbanity is A+. If I were a single guy I'd definitely live in Cincy over most other midsized interior metros.

I mean, I'll "take" that as a compliment, just to be nice. I know, me being nice is...well, it doesn't feel right.

I think SSP mentality when going to places drowns out reality. No rational person going to Cincinnati "feels" it's a religiously Christian city. If anything, the only "church" they go there are converted bars or wedding venues next to some yuppie bistro. Just as I don't pull a SSP 🞵🞵🞵🞵 thing and go to Detroit, go to a Chicken Shack in Livonia or something and think "JESUS this place is segregated compared to Indianapolis!" I don't go to Koreatown in Los Angeles and pull a SSP Card Trick and think "This place isn't remotely as dense as the Tenderloin! Shove it, Craig!" Or go to Chicago and think "Jeez, Steely Dan is wrong! This pizza place I went to in Wicker Park 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 so all of Chicago's pizza is overrated and is inferior to New Haven. Pizza Gods be damned here!"

That's just not reality, folks.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Six Corners

It's not always obvious why homes don't sell as fast as you'd expect. Sometimes the owner is just looking for the right person. Anecdotally, some friends just bought a stately home in the western suburbs of Chicago (LaGrange) that had been sitting on the market for some time. There was nothing wrong with the house; the owners were just set on getting their asking price for it as they felt they had meticulously cared for it. The house turned out to have quite a bit of asbestos upon inspection and so our friends offered a little less than asking with some part of the balance going toward asbestos removal. The previous owners gave in.

All that said, this St. Louis house is a special house in a special neighborhood. You can buy pictures of it and the other painted ladies to hang in your living room. I'd imagine the current owners are being a bit picky and not interested in selling it to just anyone.

I remember at maybe age 10 tagging along with my house-hunting parents. There was a tremendous deal on a humungous house within a short drive of the Hamptons. It had been on the market for a long time, though, and we found out why when we met the owner. He looked directly at me and asked "Boy, do you want to be a farmer?" I looked at my parents and they said to go ahead and give an honest answer. Needless to say, our offer was rejected. They only wanted to sell the house to a family that was dedicated to farming the land behind the house.

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

I think SSP mentality when going to places drowns out reality. No rational person going to Cincinnati "feels" it's a religiously Christian city. If anything, the only "church" they go there are converted bars or wedding venues next to some yuppie bistro. Just as I don't pull a SSP 🞵🞵🞵🞵 thing and go to Detroit, go to a Chicken Shack in Livonia or something and think "JESUS this place is segregated compared to Indianapolis!" I don't go to Koreatown in Los Angeles and pull a SSP Card Trick and think "This place isn't remotely as dense as the Tenderloin! Shove it, Craig!" Or go to Chicago and think "Jeez, Steely Dan is wrong! This pizza place I went to in Wicker Park 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 so all of Chicago's pizza is overrated and is inferior to New Haven. Pizza Gods be damned here!"

That's just not reality, folks.

Correct, that is not reality. I don't think you can put every forumer in a box regarding how we travel.

Here on the forum, we discuss population statistics, transit, urban planning, and other nerdy things. In meatspace, however, the vast majority of people don't discuss those things at all. So traveling is necessarily about something else, everything else. Personally, I have loved visiting every city I've been to, with a single exception that I won't go into. I love seeing the sights, good food, architecture, people-watching, and visiting natural attractions near every city I visit. I love cities--and not just one particular kind of city. Again, only once in my life did I visit a place and fail to find the experience mostly positive.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by Crawford

But IMO it's a bit deceptive.

You're moving/erecting preposterous goalposts - according to you the much-cheaper Midwest would somehow deprive you of essential cultural nutrients or even...make you a victim. Nobody sits higher on the 21st century American totem pole than the self-declared victim, so if you really want attention, by all means move to the Midwest.

[jmecklenborg]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

Gonna need receipts. Unless you think the tacky 80's mosque north of Sharonville is a "megachurch." Or the IKEA.

To be fair, the original Crossroads in Oakley was originally a Builder's Square. That was one of the hardware chains that was killed off by the Home Depot/Lowe's duopoly.

So one of the nation's oldest conservatories...had a nativity scene...during Christmas-time?

That is a historic live nativity scene sponsored by the family-owned Western-Southern Insurance. The nativity scene was donated around 1935~ and I presume that somebody at the insurance company (which is still owned by the same family) is "in charge" of it. I have no idea where it is stored off-season.

Dude was straight-up triggered by some donkeys:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQwMFcF-zBc

I doubt there's an enormous difference between people living directly on either side of the Ohio River. It's all Cincy metro.

It's probably one of the starkest cross-state cultural changes to be experienced anywhere in the United States. It's really amazing that it has held on so stubbornly when there have been four toll-free interstate highway bridges connecting Cincinnati with the NKY counties for about 50 years.

the working class speaks with a drawl

...working class Appalachians. There are more or less zero working class Jews, Catholics, or Episcopalians in Ohio. You will not hear any Kentucky accents in the Cincinnati Catholic neighborhoods or their schools. Many if not most Catholics in Cincinnati speak with something similar to a Philadelphia or Baltimore accent.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by jmecklenborg

You're moving/erecting preposterous goalposts - according to you the much-cheaper Midwest would somehow deprive you of essential cultural nutrients or even...make you a victim. Nobody sits higher on the 21st century American totem pole than the self-declared victim, so if you really want attention, by all means move to the Midwest.

Nobody on this forum plays the victim card more than you do. Nobody.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Crawford

Cincy is generally a pretty religious town, with overt conservative-leaning Christian influences you wouldn't see somewhere like Chicago.

FWIW, this list of mega-churches from wikipedia identifies 1 mega-church in metro Cincinnati and 6 mega-churches in Chicagoland.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_megachurches_in_the_United_States


OMG!! I had no idea that the Christian Taliban had taken over Chicago too! I must be some kind of wretched child-abusing monster for raising my kids in such a terrible environment. What a monumental disservice I am doing to them!

<head hung low in appropriate shame>

[Centropolis]

Originally Posted by Steely Dan

FWIW, this list of mega-churches from wikipedia identifies 1 mega-church in metro Cincinnati and 6 mega-churches in Chicagoland.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_megachurches_in_the_United_States


OMG!! I had no idea that the Christian Taliban had taken over Chicago too! I must be some kind of wretched child-abusing monster for raising my kids in such a terrible environment. What a monumental disservice I am doing to them!

<head hung low in appropriate shame>

Because of where our friends live, I spend more time in Naperville now than the City of Chicago - sometimes just spending an entire weekend in Naperville...ANYWAY Naperville has multiple megachurches. I think in sprawly, newer suburbs (yes I know Naperville has a pre-war core, lol) people gravitate to these large churches to quell physical and social alienation and the phenomenon isn't limited to the south anymore. They aren't listed on wikipedia but any church that has a stage production and looks like a repurposed best buy is a megachurch to me, lol.

[Centropolis]

My old profile picture is from MOTHER OF GOD Catholic church in Covington, one of those huge urban catholic churches on the Kentucky side.

[Six Corners]

Originally Posted by ColDayMan

[...] Or go to Chicago and think "Jeez, Steely Dan is wrong! This pizza place I went to in Wicker Park 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 so all of Chicago's pizza is overrated and is inferior to New Haven. Pizza Gods be damned here!"

This sounds like a reference to Piece Pizza (New Haven style pizzeria in Wicker Park). If so, I'm sorry you didn't like it. It's personally my favorite pizza in Chicago. So much so, my wife and I had them cater our wedding.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Crawford

But my point was more nuanced. Housing preferences are frequently tailored to avoid black areas, thus exaggerating the relative affordability of metros with large black populations. Metro Detroit is relatively cheap, but most homeowners will automatically eliminate the most affordable third of the metro, so basically all the areas with comically cheap homes.

You are perceiving the long tail of redlining practices in expensive coastal cities. It's not driven by a "preference" of white people, but by the hangover of racist government policy and insurance practices. In NYC, the neighborhoods with the steepest housing price appreciations in the 21st century have been neighborhoods that were previously redlined: Fort Greene, Williamsburg, Bedford Stuyvesant, among many others. You could buy affordable houses in all of those neighborhoods as recently as the 1990s, but good luck finding one in those areas for less than several million dollars today.

The article in this link talks about redlining in Brooklyn and also has a map which shows neighborhoods that were redlined starting in the late 1930s: https://www.brownstoner.com/history/redl...n-neighborhoods-bed-stuy-williamsburg-2/



The redlined areas are easily the most booming neighborhoods in the entire country right now, and some of the biggest urban success stories of recent decades. Redlining arbitrarily and artificially depressed the real estate market for areas that otherwise had strong fundamentals (location, transit, amenities). The market is still healing from that in many cities.

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Six Corners

This sounds like a reference to Piece Pizza (New Haven style pizzeria in Wicker Park). If so, I'm sorry you didn't like it. It's personally my favorite pizza in Chicago. So much so, my wife and I had them cater our wedding.

Smart man!

Piece is silly delicious.

Great 🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵 beer too!


I pity the fool with faulty enough taste buds to say it "🞵🞵🞵🞵🞵".

[Steely Dan]

Originally Posted by Centropolis

Because of where our friends live, I spend more time in Naperville now than the City of Chicago - sometimes just spending an entire weekend in Naperville...ANYWAY Naperville has multiple megachurches. I think in sprawly, newer suburbs (yes I know Naperville has a pre-war core, lol) people gravitate to these large churches to quell physical and social alienation and the phenomenon isn't limited to the south anymore. They aren't listed on wikipedia but any church that has a stage production and looks like a repurposed best buy is a megachurch to me, lol.

Yes, Napeville's old pre-war core is relatively tiny.

Naperville 1950: 7,000
Naperville 2020: 150,000

As cute as the little old downtown area is, 95% of it is literally just bog-standard post-war sprawl.


It's funny how our personal connections can dictate what we experience. I live in Chicago, but have been in Naperville maybe 5 times over the course of my life.

You don't live in Chicago, but are now likely FAR more familiar with the place than I am.

I've got a similar situation with Milwaukee. My wife's parents, her two sisters and their families all live in the western suburb of Brookfield (metro Milwaukee's version of Naperville, minus the cute old downtown). We go up there maybe 10x per year to visit them, and 9x out of 10 we never actually venture into Milwaukee itself to do stuff because we're usually just hanging out at one of family members' houses.

I'm likely way more familiar with Brookfield now than many people who live in metro Milwaukee, but rarely venture out to its far west suburbs.