as a center for liberal politics.
During the 20th
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 larg-
est 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.
History:
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 incorpo-
rated 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
century, the economy of Ann Arbor underwent
a gradual shift from a manufacturing base to
a service and technology base, which accel-
erated in the 1970s and 1980s.
The University:
Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michi-
gan, established in 1837. As the dominant
institution of higher learning in the city and
one of the top public universities in the world,
the university provides Ann Arbor with a dis-
tinct college-town atmosphere. 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.
Culture:
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 Muse-
ums at the University of Michigan). Regional
and local performing arts groups not associ-
ated 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 Ballet (established in 1954 as Michi-
gan’s first 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 interac-
tive 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,

Ann Arbor, Michigan

South State Street, and South University Av-
enue 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.
Events:
Several annual events – many of them cen-
tered 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 cel-
ebrated since 1971.
People:
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 politi-
cal 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 Wiscon-
sin 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 abbre-
viation 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