Ann Arbor, Michigan
Michigan). Regional and local performing
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of
Michigan and the county seat of Washt-
enaw County. It is the state’s seventh
largest city with a population of 114,024 as
of the 2000 Census, of which 36,892 (32%)
are university or college students. The city,
which is part of the Detroit-Ann Arbor-Flint,
MI CSA, is named after the spouses of the
city’s founders and for the stands of trees
in the area.
Ann Arbor was founded in January 1824
by John Allen and Elisha Rumsey, both of
whom were land speculators. On May 25,
1824, the town plot was registered with
Wayne County as “Annarbour”. The city
became the seat of Washtenaw County in
1827, and was incorporated as a village in
1833. The town became a regional trans-
portation hub in 1839 with the arrival of the
Michigan Central Railroad, and was char-
tered as a city in 1851. During the 1960s
and 1970s, the city gained a reputation as
a center for liberal politics. During the 20th
century, the economy of Ann Arbor under-
went a gradual shift from a manufacturing
base to a service and technology base,
which accelerated in the 1970s and 1980s.
Ann Arbor is home to the University of
Michigan, established in 1837. As the dom-
inant institution of higher learning in the
city and one of the top public universities
in the world, the university provides Ann
Arbor with a distinct college-town atmo-
sphere. The university shapes Ann Arbor’s
economy significantly as it employs about
30,000 workers, including about 7,500 in
the medical center. The city’s economy
is also centered on high-technology, with
several companies drawn to the area by
the university’s research and development
money, and by its graduates. On the other
hand, Ann Arbor has increasingly found
itself grappling with the effects of sharply
rising land values and gentrification, as
well as urban sprawl stretching far into the
outlying countryside.
Many Ann Arbor cultural attractions and
events are sponsored by the University of
Michigan. Several performing arts groups
and facilities are on the university’s cam-
pus, as are museums dedicated to art,
archaeology, and natural history and sci-
ences (see Museums at the University of
arts groups not associated with the univer-
sity include the Ann Arbor Civic Theatre;
the Arbor Opera Theater; the Ann Arbor
Symphony Orchestra; the Ann Arbor Ballet
Theater; the Ann Arbor Civic Ballet (estab-
lished in 1954 as Michigan’s first chartered
ballet company); and Performance Network,
which operates a downtown theater fre-
quently offering new or nontraditional plays.
The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, lo-
cated in a renovated and expanded historic
downtown fire station, contains more than
250 interactive exhibits featuring science
and technology. Multiple art galleries exist in
the city, notably in the downtown area and
around the University of Michigan campus.
Aside from a large restaurant scene in the
Main Street, South State Street, and South
University Avenue areas, Ann Arbor ranks
first among U.S. cities in the number of
booksellers and books sold per capita. The
Ann Arbor District Library maintains four
branch outlets in addition to its main down-
town building; in 2008 a new branch build-
ing replaced the branch located in Plymouth
Mall. This new branch is called the Traver-
wood Branch, and opened on June 30,
2008. The city is also home to the Gerald
R. Ford Presidential Library.

Sunday Morning by Carl Milles in Ann

Arbor

Several annual events – many of them

centered on performing and visual arts –
draw visitors to Ann Arbor. One such event
is the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, a set of four Customer Service Center
concurrent juried fairs held on downtown (Located diagonally across the street
streets, which began in 1960. Scheduled from City Hall)
on Wednesday through Saturday in the City Center Building, 1st Floor
third week of July, the fairs draw upward
220 East Huron
of half a million visitors. One event that is
not related to visual and performing arts is Ann Arbor, MI 48104
Hash Bash, held on the first Saturday of (734) 994-2700
April, ostensibly in support of the reform Fax: (734) 994-1765
of marijuana laws. It has been celebrated E-mail: customerservice@a2gov.org
since 1971.

A person from Ann Arbor is called an “Ann

Arborite”, and many long-time residents
call themselves “townies”. The city itself
is often called A² (“A-squared”) or A2 (“A
two”), and, less commonly, Tree Town.
Recently, some youths have taken to
calling Ann Arbor Ace Deuce or simply
The Deuce. With tongue-in-cheek refer-
ence to the city’s liberal political leanings,
some occasionally refer to Ann Arbor as

Welcome to
The People’s Republic of Ann Arbor or 25
square miles surrounded by reality, the
latter phrase being adapted from Wiscon-
sin Governor Lee Dreyfus’s description of

Ann Arbor
Madison, Wisconsin. Ann Arbor sometimes
appears on citation indexes as an author,
instead of a location, often with the aca-
demic degree MI, a misunderstanding of
the abbreviation for Michigan.