Cityscapes With State Parks Provide Urbanites a Valuable
Connection to Nature Tom Kroeger has quite the office view. Out
one window there's a cityscape, complete with skyscrapers,
smokestacks, shipping ports and a wastewater treatment plant.
Out another, there's a panoramic view of the fifth largest lake
in the world. "The birdlife alone is amazing," says Kroeger.
"I've got ducks of all kinds, one after another, showing up at
my doorstep right here in the city." Kroeger is the
superintendent of Milwaukee's Lakeshore State Park, which was
trumpeted by former Wisconsin Gov. Tommy Thompson in 1998 as
Wisconsin's first-ever urban state park. While it was originally
conceived as a way for the state to provide year-round access to
Lake Michigan, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources now
hopes to use the park as a means to give state residents a
firsthand education about the effects of urbanization throughout
Wisconsin's Lake Michigan shore. "This park is kind of like a
little microcosm of all the issues aff