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The national economic meltdown is certainly one of the biggest stories of the decade, but there's been a similar change just in Milwaukee's economy over the past decade. 

When the decade started, a ticket on Midwest Express Airlines still got you a wide leather seat, warm chocolate chip cookie, a meal, and wine.  Miller Brewing was a part of Phillip Morris.  Milwaukee's biggest building still had the ugly green Firstar sign.  Harley was cranking out motorcycles at a good clip.  Also, Milwaukee was just beginning a residential renaissance downtown.

But the decade brought a lot of change.

The Midwest Express we knew didn't last long after the economic downturn following 9-11.  First the free meals went away.  Then came saver service, which was planes with 3-2 coach seating just like the other airlines.

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Then came competition at Mitchell from Northwest, AirTran, and most recently Southwest Airlines.

Airtran tried to buy Midwest.  The hostile takeover failed, but eventually the airline was forced to go private.

Then the latest recession hit.  The airline grounded its MD-80s.  It was forced to lay off many of its employees, and it finally was sold to Republic Airways at a bargain basement price.

"Midwest really only exists in name only.  It's Republic Airways that's the largest airline at Mitchell International," said the Journal Sentinel's Tom Daykin.

Tom points out that, emotional as it is to lose local control of Midwest and all the amenities that went away over the last decade, "It's certainly never been a better time to be an air traveler out of Milwaukee if you're looking to save money.  The fares here are remarkably competitive.  Mitchell International at this point may be among the most if not the most competitive local air market in the United States."

But it cost us locally.

At the liquor store, the beer you find there is still the same.  But the company that was founded in Milwaukee 155 years ago is very different.  It's not actually based here anymore.  The changes this decade at Miller started in 2002 when South African Breweries bought the company from Phillip Morris.

"For the company, what it did is it took Miller away from Phillip Morris, the large tobacco company where it was really an afterthought for the corporate managers there, and gave it to another beer company.  I think most of the people I know in the beer industry think that it did really help better focus the management for Miller," Daykin said.

Then, over the past several years, Miller and Coors teamed up and eventually moved the parent company's headquarters to Chicago.

"We still have the brewery operating and we still have an eastern division headquarters here which is a substantial amount of office and administrative jobs, but again a job loss for the City of Milwaukee," Daykin said.

It isn't just the economic landscape that changed over the last decade.  The literal landscape changed as well.

Perhaps one of the biggest stories over the past decade has been a residential renaissance in Milwaukee.  Old factories were converted to condos.  New buildings shot up from Walker's Point to the East Side and Riverwest.

A major economic change you might easily forget is Bayshore.  "I think sometimes people forget about Bayshore because there was already a mall there.  But the thing was obsolete, it was really a patchwork development that started out in the '50's as a strip center and then got turned into an enclosed mall in the '70's.  It was going to lose tenants," Daykin said.

A story that didn't happen is Pabst City.  The area is being redeveloped, but not to the grand extent that the initial developers had proposed.

The Menomonee Valley is developing with the Harley museum finally open along the new Sixth street viaduct.

In many ways, Milwaukee is a better place than it was when we started the millennium, but it's come at a cost as some of the local treasures we held dear aren't so local anymore.