A new online tool is putting hard numbers behind something Milwaukee residents have felt for years: some neighborhoods are hollowing out while others are pricing longtime families out. The Displacement Risk Dashboard, built to compare local conditions in 2014 against 2024, shows one Washington Park-area census tract lost 35% of its homeowners over the decade, with only three new mortgages originated there during that entire period. Just a few miles away in Bay View, median home values jumped 93% and rents roughly doubled.
The dashboard was created by the nonprofit Data You Can Use with support from the Community Development Alliance, according to tmj4.com. It pulls together Census figures, property ownership records, zoning and land-use data and other public information to examine four categories of neighborhood change: divestment, abandonment, displacement and gentrification. As Urban Milwaukee reported, the dashboard tracks eight data points by census tract across those four areas, including vacant homes, the number of new mortgages issued, changes in property values or reported rents, shifts in area incomes and changes in a tract's racial composition.
A Family Home That Has Watched the Block Empty Out
Virginia DuPriest has lived the numbers firsthand. Her parents bought the family's Lindsay Heights duplex, built in 1902, in 1956; it has remained in the family for seven decades. She plans for her oldest granddaughter and grandson to receive the home. DuPriest recalls that her block had at least 30 houses when she first moved there; fewer than 10 remain today.
DuPriest's own census tract lost 22% of its homeowners between 2014 and 2024, while a neighboring tract lost 46% over the same period, the station's report notes. Her tract lost about 1% of its housing units in that window, compared with a 29% loss in the neighboring tract. Teig Whaley-Smith said abandonment and housing loss are major drivers of displacement in the area around DuPriest, even though the dashboard showed relatively low gentrification risk there. DuPriest, who serves on the Community Development Alliance's resident advisory council on housing, also received a city loan for a $30,000 roof repair that she still must repay. “It's a loan. I still got to pay that $30,000 back,” she said, per the same account.
Washington Park's Steep Losses, Bay View's Rising Prices
The dashboard's Washington Park-area findings illustrate how divestment and gentrification can strike different tracts in sharply different ways. Beyond the tract that lost 35% of its homeowners and saw just three new mortgages issued, another nearby tract lost 16% of its housing units over the same decade.
Those gentrification pressures are most visible in Bay View, where a Midtown-area example separately showed median home values rising 134% from 2014 to 2024. In Bay View itself, median home values climbed 93% over the same period, compared with roughly 50% countywide, while rents in the neighborhood roughly doubled, according to tmj4.com's reporting.
Vacant Properties and a City Crackdown on One Landlord
Abandoned and neglected properties carry costs beyond the families living near them. The issue of neglected properties has played out publicly this year as the Milwaukee City Attorney's Office filed major public nuisance actions against Highgrove Holdings Management and related companies, alleging widespread property neglect, vacancy, building-code violations and unpaid taxes, with the properties in question located primarily on Milwaukee's north side.
Introducing the Tool and What Comes Next
The Community Development Alliance introduced the dashboard to a capacity crowd of more than 200 community, business and elected leaders and affordable-housing advocates at its annual conference on Sept. 16, according to wisbusiness.com. At that same event, Mayor Cavalier Johnson said that for the first time in several years, more new homes were built in the City of Milwaukee than were demolished, and that homeownership in the city is increasing. The alliance has emphasized homeownership and racial equity in efforts to close Milwaukee's racial housing divide.
Whaley-Smith expects the public to have access to the dashboard in about a month, after adjustments based on feedback from residents and housing partners. The tool compares conditions in 2014 and 2024. The dashboard is intended to help communities assess displacement risks and neighborhood change.
