How Milwaukee didn't grow

From a column by former Milwaukee Mayor John O. Norquist about the late Mayor Frank Zeidler, who was laid to rest today:

Zeidler had launched a plan calling (quietly) for the gradual annexation of what later became New Berlin, Brookfield, Menomonee Falls, Germantown and Mequon, not to mention most of today's suburban Milwaukee County.

Capitalizing on suburban thirst for city water and sewer services, they almost succeeded - annexing large portions of the towns of Lake, Greenfield and Wauwatosa and setting in motion the annexation of Granville (now the northwest side). But in 1955, the Legislature passed the Oak Creek Law, which allowed all unincorporated towns adjacent to Milwaukee and only Milwaukee to incorporate as separate municipalities, without losing their claim on city water or sewers. The discriminatory law ended the annexation program and set up the situation of today, where poor people live in a city surrounded by suburban enclaves zoned to exclude low-cost housing.