Every morning I drive past LakeWingra and take a deep breath. Scanning the shores of this stunning natural jewel affirms my family's decision to move here and reminds me of our personal investment --- through a rather high property tax bill --- in the many assets of our livable city.

All of us want to keep the charm of the "old Madison" and enjoy the sophisticated additions of the "new Madison." That deeply shared value hangs in the balance as our community struggles to embrace the puzzling new economy on our doorstep.

Today the Wisconsin State Journal begins a four-part series, called "Making Madison Work," that explains the trends facing all of us who need to earn a living in our region. We have talked to many experts and officials who have some rather dizzying insight into the challenges we face. We don't want the conversation to stop there. So we are creating a way for you to tell us from the living rooms, classrooms, laboratories and offices of Madison what you think we need to preserve and what parts we need to change. We know you are smarter than many of the experts because you are the people who are living these changes.

We have created this blog that will be updated starting Sunday and run through the week. Our reporters and editors will jump in from time to time to give you the behind the scenes story of why we chose to invest three months of our time on this topic. We will tell you what kind of response we are getting from our sources. We will offer you a chance to talk to us through the forums. We will print some of that conversation in a coming Spectrum section.

So please join in. You can call us and email us also. My email is efoley@madison.com. My phone is 252-6104. The contact information for reporters and editors is listed with their articles or at www.madison.com/wsj/staff.

The future of Madison is in our hands. We want the Wisconsin State Journal to amplify the many voices in the conversation and we want our editorial pages to glean the wide range of opinion before we weigh on how Madison must change in the next 18 months.