One concept I’ve always had to explain to new reporters here at WOSH is the difference between the “Fox Cities” and the “Fox Valley”. For our purposes, the Fox Cities “start” at Neenah and head north along the Interstate 41 and Highway 441 corridors–ending in Kaukauna. The Fox Valley is a much larger geographical area–that includes Winnebago, Outagamie and Brown counties–and places like Oshkosh, Hortonville and Wrightstown–along with the aforementioned Fox Cities. But our definition of Fox Cities may have to change in the near future.
In a conversation with Appleton Mayor Tim Hanna this week, he mentioned that after the 2020 US Census, Appleton and Oshkosh will be considered part of the same Metropolitan Statistical Area. That means in the eyes of the Federal Government, Oshkosh and Appleton will be lumped together as a population.
While I doubt Appletonians will pay that much attention to the new designation, Oshkoshians are likely to not take that very well. “We’re not a suburb of Appleton!” they will say. There will also be complaints when those of us in the media refer to things like unemployment in the “Appleton-Oshkosh area last month”. “Why does Appleton always have to be first?” they will ask.
Nobody ever likes to have their “sense of place” called into question. For generations there was a clear delineation between Oshkosh and the Fox Cities. Some people are probably old enough to remember when you could tell that you had left Appleton and entered Menasha. Or when Grand Chute was just open fields west of Appleton. But as development along Interstate 41 has grown, those lines have become blurred–or almost non-existent. There is a true “urban feel” from the southside of Neenah to the northside of Kaukauna–whereas in the past you still had farm fields dividing all of those municipalities. And you can be assured that the remaining “countryside” between Neenah and Oshkosh will see the same kind of development in the next couple of decades until you can’t tell where one begins and the other ends.
What remains to be seen is what the new “metropolis” will be known as to the rest of the world. Most people heading south on Interstate 41 likely consider themselves to be “in Milwaukee” as soon as they reach the strip malls of Germantown and as they pass through Menominee Falls, Wauwatosa, West Allis and Greendale. We will refer to the new Ikea as being “in Milwaukee”–when its actually in Oak Creek. Could future travelers heading north on I-41 someday start saying they are “in Appleton” as soon as they pass the EAA Museum?
