A (not so) Brief Review of Madison, Wisconsin

Over the last year and a half, I’ve lived in Madison in a couple different places ranging from the East side to downtown. As someone originally from the Northeast, I wanted to provide a retrospective location check for those interested in the tradeoffs associated with moving there.

Price: B Overall, I place Madison at a B. Madison is apparently 3% higher than the average cost of living in the United States. It isn’t especially cheap to live there, but it isn’t bad either. Depending on how you want to live, it can be a lot more or less expensive.

Real Estate/Housing: B During my time there I always had roommates, and as a result spent very little in rent. For context, on my most recent lease, I paid 600 a month to have 3 roommates in a house downtown with 1 bathroom, but without AC. I think if you’re strategic about where to live, it can be quite affordable

Food: C. The food in Madison is mediocre. Coming from the NYC area, the food is a major step down, and this is partially because of the water quality. In Madison, expect next to no pizza, very little Chinese food, non-existent Italian food, middling Indian food, and very little variety among Latin food. Generally, Thai and Vietnamese is really good here, and cheese curds are tasty, but it felt a little disappointing to me.

Bar Scene/Nightlife: B+ Madison is I think the most alcoholic town in the United States, to the surprise of no one. One highlight of this is that there are a lot of different types of bars with different vibes here. A couple ones I enjoyed going to: Red Rock for riding the bull, Mondays for watching my friends get blackout, Mom’s bar for watching the bouncers do karaoke, Whiskey Jacks if you want to get dress coded on a Tuesday for wearing yellow sweatpants, the piano bar if you’re in the mood for some classic music battles, Leopold’s if you want to drunkenly argue with the Phillip Roth loving owner about Goodbye Columbus, Barley Pop if you want to watch randoms do standup on Thursday nights, and Sotto’s if you want to get propositioned in the bathroom on a Saturday night. I would say there’s a lot of different choices, depending on what you’re interested in. Considering the size of the city, this would be an A, if it wasn’t for a relative lack of non-drinking places to hang out in winter.

Activities (Summer): A+. Madison has a lot of parks, sport leagues, marathons, summer concerts, state parks, and farmers markets (biggest in North America). There’s a lot to do, and you can always hang out at the terrace if you want to randomly challenge strangers to chess and lose.

Activities (Winter): D. One of my favorite pastimes in winter is waiting for it to be summer again. There are a couple things to do, including watching standup comedy, or attending Sotto’s Latin dance nights (things you can also do in the summer). Generally speaking, very little you can do outdoors, and the seasonal depression hits hard. One saving grace is that you can see a lot of people ice fishing. Overall, activities have been underwhelming in the winter.

Niche Things to do: A. If you want to get involved in something, there’s a lot you can do, whether it is participating in an active community theater scene, getting consumed by leftist politics, rock climbing, watching or participating in an active and aggressive comedy scene, or building in maker spaces, there’s people who share your passion.

Culture: C. Madison is not diverse at all, being almost entirely white and Midwestern. It feels odd when a (white) Jewish guy like myself feels exotic. There are very few people of color, or folks who don’t fit the WASPy mold. Generally, the two groups of people you’ll likely meet are university students or Epic employees. These both have unique pathologies (Epic is highly neurodivergent; Madison students are generally fratty )and redeeming qualities. If the area had more professional and intellectual diversity, I think that it would be more welcoming to people of various backgrounds.

Infrastructure: F-. Madison is the worst planned city I’ve ever seen. This is in large part due to perpetual construction projects that never seem to finish, and provide little to no value. On my way to work, Madison closed 1 lane of a two lane highway that extended at least 10 miles out. Did I mention that the city of Madison also doesn’t salt in the winter? Because Madison wraps around a lake, they want to preserve beatification, rather than take necessary safety measures when roads get extremely icy. This was overwhelmingly disappointing, and if you find yourself living in Madison, get a 4 wheel drive or snow tires immediately.

Overall: B. I don’t think Madison is an especially great place to live, but I think it can be a good place. To people in their 20s, this can be a place of growth and sentimentality, much like a high school girlfriend. She can be appreciated for what she is, without your relationship being permanent.