Madison Deserves Better: The Real Cost of Failed Leadership

by A.J. Nino Amato

Since taking office in 2019, Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway has presided over a series of policy decisions that have inflicted lasting social and economic harm on Madison residents. While often framed as “progressive,” these policies have instead produced some of the most regressive outcomes in our city’s modern history.

Today, Madison has the highest rents and property taxes in Wisconsin—a distinction that should alarm anyone who believes in affordability, economic inclusion, and neighborhood stability. These burdens fall hardest on working families, first-time homebuyers, retirees living on fixed incomes, and small businesses who are being taxed and regulated out of existence.

Equally troubling is the mayor’s ideological push for 10-story developments surrounding State Street, a decision that has eroded the area’s historic character and cultural identity. State Street was once a vibrant, uniquely Madison corridor—locally owned, human-scaled, and accessible. It is now increasingly dominated by monolithic structures that serve investors more than residents.

The administration’s aggressive rezoning agenda has gone even further, forcing mega-apartment complexes into the middle of established single-family neighborhoods, often adjacent to the mayor’s deeply flawed Bus Rapid Transit system. This approach has overridden community input, destabilized property values, and fueled confusion and chaos in the housing market—particularly for first-time buyers trying to compete in an artificially inflated environment.

Despite claims that these policies promote equity, the reality tells a different story. Madison is experiencing growing racial disparities and accelerated gentrification, especially in historically mutual-cultural neighborhoods. Long-time residents are being priced out, displaced, or forced to leave the communities they helped build—all while city leadership celebrates density statistics divorced from lived experience.

Madison residents were promised affordability, sustainability, and smart growth. What they received instead were higher taxes, higher rents, weakened neighborhoods, and governance driven more by ideology than common sense.

Now more than ever, Madison needs leadership that listens, respects neighborhoods, protects affordability, and balances growth with accountability. In 2027, voters have an opportunity—and a responsibility—to restore pragmatic, people-centered policies by holding City Hall accountable.

Madison deserves better. It’s time to demand it at the ballot box!