­Ann Arbor, Michigan
Michigan, established in 1837. As the dominant
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan
and the county seat of Washtenaw 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 transportation
hub in 1839 with the arrival of the Michigan
Central Railroad, and was chartered 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 underwent 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
Ballet (established in 1954 as Michigan’s first
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 atmosphere.
The university sha pes 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 campus, as are
museums dedicated to art, archaeology, and
natural history and sciences (see Museums
at the University of Michigan). Regional and
local performing arts groups not associated
with the university include the Ann Arbor
Civic Theatre; the Arbor Opera Theater; the
Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra; the Ann
Arbor Ballet Theater; the Ann Arbor Civic
chartered ballet company); and Performance
Network, which operates a downtown theater
frequently offering new or nontraditional plays.
The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum, located 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 downtown building; in 2008 a new
branch building replaced the branch located in
Plymouth Mall. This new branch is called the
Traverwood 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 concurrent
juried fairs held on downtown streets, which
began in 1960. Scheduled on Wednesday
through Saturday in the third week of July, the
fairs draw upward of half a million visitors.
One event that is not related to visual and
performing arts is Hash Bash, held on the
first Saturday of April, ostensibly in support
of the reform of marijuana laws. It has been
celebrated 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 reference to the city’s liberal
political leanings, some occasionally refer
to Ann Arbor as The People’s Republic of
Ann Arbor or 25 square miles surrounded
by reality, the latter phrase being adapted
from Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus’s
description of Madison, Wisconsin. Ann Arbor
sometimes appears on citation indexes as an
author, instead of a location, often with the
academic degree MI, a misunderstanding of the
abbreviation for Michigan.
Customer Service Center
(Located diagonally across the street from
City Hall)
City Center Building, 1st Floor
220 East Huron
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
(734) 994-2700
Fax: (734) 994-1765
E-mail: customerservice@a2gov.org
Ann Arbor
Michigan