New Geographies of Eviction in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

Keywords: Eviction, Housing, Carceral State, Racial Regimes of Property, Policing
Abstract Type: Paper Abstract

Abstract

Situated within historical and ongoing patterns of racism in housing, new patterns of eviction are reconfiguring the boundaries of race and housing in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The city’s protracted housing crisis, produced and maintained through racial and carceral regimes of property, is taking new forms following the collapse of pandemic-related supports, a lack of affordable housing, and an increasingly investor-driven housing market. Even as the Mayor seeks to double the city’s population and boosters promote its midwestern affordability, Milwaukee was recently named as the third most competitive rental market in the county (Heffernan, 2024) and one of the worst cities for in the nation renters as they face rental prices up more than thirty percent from pre-pandemic levels (Hall, 2024). These twinned realities are mutually produced, buttressed by uneven patterns of urban (dis)investment shaped by deeply entrenched patterns of racial and class segregation, the state’s withdraw from affordable housing, and expanded funding for policing. The presentation builds from new research on emerging geographies of eviction in Milwaukee. In addition to examining shifting boundaries of eviction, we also consider the role of property managers and the carceral state in maintaining those margins.