What's So Great about Madison, Wisconsin?

We interrupt your regularly scheduled program for an important announcement: Madison, WI is the best city in the Midwest. In the south-central section of the great state of Wisconsin in between two shimmering lakes there lies a truly unique and spectacular gem of a city. This blog post is an ode to Madison.

Madison sits on a strip of land in between Lake Monona and Late Mendota. (Source: Getty Images via Inc.com)

Why Madison?

Yeah, yeah, we’ve all heard the jokes about the Midwest before. But in reality there’s nothing “flyover” about the city of Madison. This small-sized city of about 250,000 people is home to an exceptionally active, creative population. It boasts a very high quality of life—despite cold winters it’s actually consistently rated as one of the top places to live in the country. If you spend a little time there, you’ll see how easy access to beautiful lakes, nature preserves, and biking trails play an important role in the lives of Madisonians. The University of Wisconsin-Madison brings 45,000 students to Madison and a lot of jobs to boot. Madison isn’t a sad old rust belt town. In Madison, people go about their work in busy university research labs, successful tech companies, and thriving cultural institutions... and then go and enjoy their lives in a kayak on the lake.

The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s campus. (Source: UW-Madison News)

A little history

For the first 12,000 years of Madison’s history, it was called “Taychopera,” meaning “land of four lakes” to the Ho-Chunk Native American people that called it home. In the early 19th century, a large swath of this swampy land was bought by a judge named James Duane Doty. He spent $1,500 and wanted to build a city—go figure. But through some aggressive persuasion, he founded it, named it after president James Madison, and made it the capital of the new state of Wisconsin. The railroad routes through the Midwest and surrounding farmland brought wealth and stability to the area, and the university brought a forward-looking vision and a robust counterculture as well.

Madison in the 1850’s. (Source: Wisconsin Historical Society)

Small-town ingenuity

One of the central parts of the philosophy of Madison is the “Wisconsin Idea,” or that the university should support the community. The tradition is rooted in the agricultural research & development that fed the families in the region, but continues today through the university’s global contributions to science and the humanities, as well as the infusion of new ideas into the local economy. Sustainability and livability projects from former students keep life in Madison great, and free courses and tutoring to low-income adults lift up everyone in the city. Support for homegrown business is something important to our hearts: Madison, Wisconsin is the home to the original Gotham Bagels. The extremely popular producer-only farmer’s market on the capitol square is another example of the excellence that Madison boasts in making its city a beautiful, rich, and sustainable place to live. Oh, and the beer is good, too.

The Dane County farmer’s market, held every Saturday in Madison. (Source: Channel 3000)