Can you guess the 2 non-English languages for which the following are true? 1. at least 50k U.S. residents speak this language 2. the number of speakers has grown over the last 20 years 3. 90% or more of the speakers were born in the U.S. Answer: bluebookmke.substack.com/p/americas-o...

Wonderful article about the reintroduction of wild turkeys in Wisconsin.

In my latest newsletter I investigate what domestic migration patterns show about where Americans are choosing to live (and leave). Interestingly, the patterns often correspond better to ecoregions than political boundaries. Some of them surprised me. Read more:

2025 birth counts from Milwaukee show a 5% drop since 2024. This resumes a sharp decline after a couple more stable years in 2023-24. The decline is larger than what I'd expect from declining fertility rates alone, suggesting that out-migration of future parents is a big contributor. More here:

Ever wonder how likely jury duty actually is? I unexpectedly got my hands on a court report with detailed statistics, with which I made this diagram. Read more, including stats on jury pool representativeness, in my latest newsletter: bluebookmke.substack.com/p/the-odds-o...

I use to hear so many horror stories about long daycare waiting lists, but my experience--and that of some friends--has been the opposite. Some highly rated places have active vacancies right now. According to census data, the number of kids under 5 living in the county is down 10% since 2020.

Most Milwaukee's houses were built 1890-1960. I got curious about how much it cost to build them & who could afford to buy them. In 1910, a basic house cost 3.8x a carpenter's salary. In 1929, 2.7x. In 1952, 2.5x. In 2025, 5.6x salary. Here's more: bluebookmke.substack.com/p/the-cost-o...

Trump's job approval on 10 major issues. In Nov., 11% only approved, 23% only disapproved, and 66% approved on some issues and disapproved on others.

I wrote a brief blog post summarizing some recent studies about legalized mobile sportsbooks. I hope the discussion about legalizing mobile betting in Wisconsin will reckon with the growing literature about how badly this can go. law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/...

shout out to the University of Missouri Library's website collecting primary sources on historical prices and wages. Great stuff here: libraryguides.missouri.edu/pricesandwag...

I'm no athlete, but I ride my commuter bike every day all over my city. In the thousands of miles I've ridden, I've been hit by a car twice. Each time, my helmet prevented a concussion or worse. Wear a helmet, you might save your life.

Actual Blueskyism is people having typical differences within the left-liberal coalition getting into insane flame wars over minor stuff because there are no Republicans to get mad at here.

Personally, I wouldn't categorize this as a "niche athletic" gear and I don't think anyone sees it as such.

A recent NYT op-ed "Inside the Rise of the Multiracial Right" used Milwaukee as its example of where "the unity of the Black Democratic vote is splintering." As evidence, it quoted five (5) people who don't like the Democrats. There were no statistics...

In new cities I often wonder where the people live. How far did the baggage handlers at the airport have to commute? Do the finance workers in the towers downtown live in condos nearby, or do they all come in from the outer 'burbs? Here are LAX employees vs Warner Bros (pics from LODESmap.com)

I'm pleased to share LODESmap.com, a website @mitchellhenke.com and I built that lets you explore an extremely detailed dataset of American worker flows over 21 years in spatially integrated geographies. You can seamlessly move between counties, county subdivisions, census tracts, & block groups.

This map shows how diverse the agricultural economy of each county is. Purple = 1 commodity makes up the lion's share of sales Green = ag sales are spread across many products I think this helps explain why Wisconsin's small towns are doing so much better than those in Illinois

The Pew feature on trust and distrust among Americans is good. It's really worth your time. www.pewresearch.org/2025/05/08/a...

Something that surprised me a bit in our latest national poll is that all 7 of the Supreme Court decisions we asked about from this term had majority support.

WI's supreme court recently rejected 2 attempts to replace our congressional maps. A 3rd attempt was just filed in Dane County circuit court by the same law firm that got the state legislative maps tossed in 2023. It might have more legs. I broke it down: bluebookmke.substack.com/p/will-wisco...

I took a look at how the April election broke down in WI's legislative districts. Crawford got 55% of the vote: which worked out to 54 assembly, 19 senate, & 4 congressional seats. It includes some "fun" inside baseball about how these numbers are calculated. open.substack.com/pub/bluebook...

I have an article recapping the contentious & serpentine 2020s redistricting cycle in Wisconsin in the latest edition of the Marquette Lawyer magazine. Just in time for the process to possibly begin again, this time for the congressional map! today.marquette.edu/2025/05/the-...

MPD just fulfilled my records request by giving me some data on a CD-ROM lol

I made a tool where you can toggle between detailed maps of Milwaukee from 1856, 1897, 1934, 1958, and the present day. It is remarkable how much better georeferencing software has gotten in the past few years. johndjohnson.info/posts/2025/h...

I finally resurrected my tufte-inspired weather graphs, updating daily w/the latest from NOAA. Jan/Feb were extraordinarily dry, but recent rainfall has actually pushed us above average for the year. Latest graphs: johndjohnson.info/weather-grap... Code/Docs: github.com/jdjohn215/mi...

These 4 houses were built in Milwaukee last year at a cost of ~$400k. The goal was to prove that market-rate housing could be built in Midtown--a place w/lots of empty lots. Instead, the first 1 sold this month (324 days after listing) for $281k. 1/2

better late than never: mulawpoll.org now includes the results of the 2024 november election. See lots of tables and graphs for every county/municipality in Wisconsin, covering 2000-2024.

Awhile ago I started wondering, where's the point in Milwaukee County furthest from a road? Answer: a corn field in Franklin owned by the county parks dept. Now I'm trying to visit each county's remotest point. I wrote about it for the A Wealth of Nature blog. awealthofnature.org/where-is-mil...

Me watching the results come in last night.

More bad news for Schimel in these quickly-reporting towns, in very different parts of the state. Crawford is running 11 points ahead of Harris even in the two tiny, ruby-red Wood County towns of Cameron and Hiles. Wipeout stuff.

Great results for Crawford in the first Dane Co reports

Please stop putting AI images in your newsletters. This isn't some artistic purity statement. I just hate looking at them.

In my latest, I try to answer an old question in Wisconsin politics. How many Wisconsin adults lack a photo ID? law.marquette.edu/facultyblog/...

Got an unexpected delivery of data I put in a public information request for in January. Everything's coming up Milhouse

In an effort to be the change I want to see in the world, I've resuscitated my personal website to be a central home for stuff I've also published elsewhere. It's about as simple as they come: static HTML, made with Quarto. Check it out: johndjohnson.info

What did birders do to this journalist??

Last night Trump & Elon fired 18F, which you've probably never heard of. This was the group of technologists who worked to improve government data & services, like getting a passport & filing taxes. In other words, the people who made government more responsive & efficient.

Handsome tilework on this old Milwaukee building, 25th and Vliet

Good, detailed reporting here. Many people misunderstand the big threat from lead. It's paint, not pipes. And specifically, paint on the sills of windows that are regularly opened and closed--pulverizing the lead into chips and dust. www.wpr.org/news/milwauk...

There were 3 more state legislative special elections yesterday. Democrats overperformed in 2 and underperformed in 1. Across 9 races so far, the average shift has been +8.4 D, with 78.4% lower turnout than Nov 2024. I'm tracking these in this repo: github.com/jdjohn215/sp...

What to make of turnout in yesterday's nonpartisan primary? Feb '25 (DPI primary): 467,235 Feb '23 (SCOWIS primary): 961,665 Feb '21 (DPI primary): 326,074 I'd say this points to high turnout in April.

Special elections were held a few days ago in two safe-blue Delaware state senate districts. Both races were contested. The Democratic candidates improved over Harris' performance by 3 and 14 points. Turnout was 87-89% lower than November. I'll be tracking these specials all year

Milwaukee's 3rd alder primary featured a candidate endorsed by the mayor (Bauman), a DSA-endorsed candidate (Brower), & another DSA member (Kostal) who ran on his support for single-family zoning in the campaign. There were 5 also-rans. Brower: 29% Bauman: 28% Kostal: 27% Brower & Bauman advance.

I set up a github repo to track state legislative and congressional special elections this year. github.com/jdjohn215/sp...

I don't think I could participate in a democracy if I thought my fellow citizens were just "spoon-fed dopes"

Our latest poll includes another set of open-ended responses to the questions, "What do you [like/dislike] about Donald Trump?" I find these responses fascinating. You can read them all here: lubarcenter.shinyapps.io/janfeb-2024-...

Currently at a sold-out show of Hildegard von Bingen's chants. Live music is BACK

This map shows the total sales of a particular agricultural commodity, by county, in 2022. Guess which one?

Elevated urban freeways are one of those things that I usually hardly even consciously perceive, but sometimes the sheer weirdness of them hits me in the face