Page 240 - Mike Ratner CC - WISR Complete Dissertation - v6

Locational Overview and City Demographic Profile

Data gathering for exploring engagement and interaction processes in my studying

deliberative groups consisted of interviewing Community Conversation participants who attended

community-based dialogues in Albany, the capital of the state of New York and most recently in

Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In order to preserve the anonymity of the dialogue participants, actual

names and personal details that might reveal the identity of the speaker were altered or replaced

with analogous that were comparable in certain respects, typically in a way that is intended to

make clearer the nature of the accounts. These changes serve to protect the identities of the

participants and the conveners. Attention and sensitivity to modified descriptions does not

compromise the overall outcomes of the analysis.

The first Red/Blue (RB) dialogue studied took place in Milwaukee this past May (2018)

and was sponsored by the Millennial Action Project and the Zeidler Center for Public Discussion.

Another evening Community Conversation is designated to take place with bipartisan members of

the Wisconsin legislature, to bridge the divide and discuss criminal justice reform in Wisconsin

and across the country. The final dialogue event studied for this dissertation was held on Thursday,

September 06, 2018 (https://www.millennialaction.org/wisconsin-red-and-blue)

Milwaukee has a population of 595,070 people with a median age of 31 and a median

household income of $38,097. Between 2015 and 2016 the population of Milwaukee, WI declined

from 600,154 to 595,070, a 0.85% decrease and its median household income grew from $37,495

to $38,097, a 1.61% increase. The population of Milwaukee, WI is 38.2% Black, 35.5% White,

and 18.7% Hispanic. 19.7% of the people in Milwaukee, WI speak a non-English language, and

93.8% are U.S. citizens. The largest universities in Milwaukee, WI are University of Wisconsin-

Milwaukee, with 5,457 graduates, Marquette University, with 3,477 graduates, and Milwaukee

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