I work on Milwaukee's East Side. There are three direct ways to get out- North Avenue-->HWY 43, Locust Street---->HWY 43, Lafayette--->Lincoln Memorial---->I94. I have to use one of the first two to get to Cedarburg at the end of the day to pick up my kids. North Ave and Locust Streets look like they were shelled by artillery, Lafayette, isn't any better. I broke the front sway bar on my Grand Prix on North avenue one day(the say bar is about 3/4" dimeter steel bar). To top that off, a huge chunk (40-50' diameter iirc)of Lucust street fell into a sink hole one day- about an hour after after I drove over the same spot.
And once you get out of the 3-4 marginaly decent blocks of "Riverwest" where the last remnants of East-Side "college/bohemian" gives way to plain old "ghetto", when going west on those streets towards I-43, it's
nowhwere you'd want to break down.
I almost have to wonder if shall-issue CCW might provide a minor boost to the inner-city economy.
Monkeyleg knows first hand from almost being lynched at a community meeting, that much of the Inner City views shall-issue CCW as "hunting licenses" on their habitually criminal children. However, I wonder if a modest percentage of travel and suburban money might start making it's way through Milwaukee's north-side core again, if people weren't afraid to actually cross it, or actualy patronize whatever business actually is there.
The slightly smaller south-side Hispanic-dominated core at least has some businesses and economic activity like the popular Mexican resturaunts, and the retro-shopping on Mitchell Ave. And while it's still noticably depressed as compared to the burbs, downtown, the East Side, or the Third Ward, that seems to keep it from devolving into complete blight/flight.
CCW
might just give a teeny boost to the north side in the same way.
Or they can fill the potholes and maybe people will feel less likely they'll break down in the worst part of town...