Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S.
state of manufacturing base to a service and technol-
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
chartered as a city in 1851. During the
1960s and 1970s, the city gained a reputa-
tion as a center for liberal politics. During
the 20th century, the economy of Ann
Arbor underwent a gradual shift from a
and facilities are on the university’s campus,
ogy base, which accelerated in the 1970s and
1980s.
Ann Arbor is home to the University of
Michigan, established in 1837. As the domi-
nant 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 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 univer-
sity’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
as are museums dedicated to art, archaeol-
ogy, 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 Op-
era Theater; the Ann Arbor Symphony Or-
chestra; the Ann Arbor Ballet Theater; the
Ann Arbor Civic Ballet (established in 1954
as Michigan’s first chartered ballet com-
pany); 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 down-
town 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 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.
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 celebrat-
ed 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 sim-
ply 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 loca-
tion, often with the academic degree
MI, a misunderstanding of the abbrevia-
tion 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