By IKE BRANNON | Fall 2020

There is strong evidence the COVID-19 pandemic is causing people and companies to flee the nation’s metropolitan areas, including Milwaukee. The reversal of a century-long urbanization of American begs a question: Where is everybody going?

A recent Harris survey found that nearly a majority of urban dwellers in America have considered moving to a less-crowded community. And why not with a virus that has made life in close quarters unhealthy and has walled them off from the amenities that drew them to cities in the first place? Add to that threat from people who consider assault and looting in your neighborhood an honorable form of political protest.

Companies that have spent billions to headquarter in downtowns are now considering making permanent their remote work arrangements, potentially freeing millions to live and work wherever they want. The cost savings for everyone involved is staggering. 

The Badger Institute wondered if smaller cities in Wisconsin might be the beneficiaries of this COVID-19 flight. We contacted Troy Streckenbach, Brown County Executive; Mason Becker, city council president of Fort Atkinson, a city of 12,000 people midway between Madison and Milwaukee; and Jeff Bruss, chairman of Three Lakes, Wisconsin, an unincorporated resort community of about 3,000 people just south of Eagle River.

None of them reported any overt evidence of an urban migration—at least not yet. Demand for homes in their already heated real estate markets, however, has markedly increased in the last few months, at the same time overall moves across the U.S. have dropped, according to a COVID-19 migration report.