Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan and the chair of handing out of Washtenaw County. The 2020 census recorded its population to be 123,851, making it the fifth-largest city in Michigan. It is the principal city of the Ann Arbor Metropolitan Statistical Area, which encompasses whatever of Washtenaw County. Ann Arbor is as a consequence included in the Greater Detroit Combined Statistical Area and the Great Lakes megalopolis, the most populated and largest megalopolis in North America.
Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan. The university circles significantly shapes Ann Arbor's economy as it employs more or less 30,000 workers, including about 12,000 in its 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 forward movement infrastructure.
Ann Arbor was founded in 1824. It was named after the wives of the village's founders, both named Ann, and the stands of bur oak trees they found at the site of the town. The city's population grew at a sharp rate in the early to mid-20th century.
The lands of present-day Ann Arbor were share of Massachusetts's western claim after the French and Indian War (1754–1763), bounded by the latitudes of Massachusetts Bay Colony's indigenous charter, to which it was entitled by its observations of its original sea-to-sea consent from The British Crown. Massachusetts ceded the allegation to the federal management as share of the Northwest Territory after April 19, 1785.
In not quite 1774, the Potawatomi founded two villages in the Place of what is now Ann Arbor.
Ann Arbor was founded in 1824 by estate speculators John Allen and Elisha Walker Rumsey. On May 25, 1824, the town plat was registered in imitation of Wayne County as the Village of Annarbour, the antediluvian known use of the town's name. Allen and Rumsey contracted to publicize it for their wives, both named Ann, and for the stands of bur oak in the 640 acres (260 ha) of land they purchased for $800 from the federal admin at $1.25 per acre. The local Ojibwa named the settlement kaw-goosh-kaw-nick, after the hermetic of Allen's sawmill.
Ann Arbor became the seat of Washtenaw County in 1827, and was incorporated as a village in 1833. The Ann Arbor Land Company, a outfit of speculators, set aside 40 acres (16 ha) of undeveloped house and offered it to the let in of Michigan as the site of the make a clean breast capitol, but wandering the bid to Lansing. In 1837, the property was accepted instead as the site of the University of Michigan.
Since the university's commencement in the city in 1837, the histories of the University of Michigan and Ann Arbor have been closely linked. The town became a regional transportation hub in 1839 following the beginning of the Michigan Central Railroad, and a north–south railway connecting Ann Arbor to Toledo and new markets to the south was time-honored in 1878. Throughout the 1840s and the 1850s settlers continued to inherit Ann Arbor. While the earlier settlers were primarily of British ancestry, the newer settlers afterward consisted of Germans, Irish, and Black people. In 1851, Ann Arbor was chartered as a city, though the city showed a Fall in population during the Depression of 1873. It was not until the in front 1880s that Ann Arbor again saying robust growth, with other immigrants from Greece, Italy, Russia, and Poland.
Ann Arbor axiom increased addition in manufacturing, particularly in milling. Ann Arbor's Jewish community furthermore grew after the slant of the 20th century, and its first and oldest synagogue, Beth Israel Congregation, was expected in 1916.
In 1960, Ann Arbor voters certified a $2.3 million devotion issue to construct the current city hall, which was expected by architect Alden B. Dow. The City Hall opened in 1963. In 1995, the building was renamed the Guy C. Larcom, Jr. Municipal Building in rave review of the longtime city administrator who championed the building's construction.
During the 1960s and 1970s, the city gained a reputation as an important middle for objector politics. Ann Arbor in addition to became a locus for left-wing activism and anti-Vietnam War movement, as skillfully as the student movement. The first major meetings of the national left-wing campus intervention Students for a Democratic Society took place in Ann Arbor in 1960; in 1965, the city was home to the first U.S. teach-in neighboring the Vietnam War. During the ensuing 15 years, many countercultural and New Left enterprises sprang taking place and developed large constituencies within the city. These influences washed into municipal politics during the upfront and mid-1970s once three members of the Human Rights Party (HRP) won city council seats on the strength of the student vote. During their time upon the council, HRP representatives fought for proceedings including pioneering antidiscrimination ordinances, measures decriminalizing marijuana possession, and a rent-control ordinance; many of these vanguard organizations remain in effect today in modified form.
Two religious-conservative institutions were created in Ann Arbor; the Word of God (established in 1967), a charismatic inter-denominational movement; and the Thomas More Law Center (established in 1999).
Following a 1956 vote, the city of East Ann Arbor merged as soon as Ann Arbor to encompass the eastern sections of the city.
In the in the publicize of several decades, Ann Arbor has grappled later than the effects of unexpectedly rising house values, gentrification, and urban sprawl stretching into outlying countryside. On November 4, 2003, voters official a greenbelt plan below which the city admin bought development rights on agricultural parcels of land adjacent to Ann Arbor to maintain them from sprawling development. Since then, a vociferous local debate has hinged upon how and whether to accommodate and guide develop within city limits. Ann Arbor consistently ranks in the "top places to live" lists published by various mainstream media outlets all year. In 2008, it was ranked by CNNMoney.com 27th out of 100 "America's best small cities". And in 2010, Forbes listed Ann Arbor as one of the most liveable cities in the United States.
In 2016, the city distorted mayoral terms from two years to four. Until 2017, City Council held annual elections in which half of the seats (one from each ward) were elected to 2-year terms. These elections were staggered, with each ward having one of its seats stirring for election in odd years and its other chair up for election in even years. Beginning in 2018 the city council has had staggered elections to 4-year terms in even years. This means that half of the members (one from each ward) are elected in presidential election years, while the new half are elected in mid-term election years. To support this bend in scheduling, the 2017 election elected members to terms that lasted 3-years.
Ann Arbor is located along the Huron River, which flows southeast through the city on its habit to Lake Erie. It is the central core of the Ann Arbor, MI Metropolitan Statistical Area, which is comprised of the total of Washtenaw County, but is in addition to a allocation of the Metro Detroit Combined Statistical Area designated by the U.S. Census Bureau. While it borders without help Townships, the built-up birds of the sections of Pittsfield and Ypsilanti townships amongst Ann Arbor and the city of Ypsilanti make the two effectively a single urban area.
The landscape of Ann Arbor consists of hills and valleys, with the terrain becoming steeper close the Huron River. The height above sea level ranges from about 750 feet (230 m) along the Huron River to 1,015 feet (309 m) on the city's west side, near the intersection of Maple Road and Pauline Blvd. Ann Arbor Municipal Airport, which is south of the city at 42°13.38′N 83°44.74′W / 42.22300°N 83.74567°W / 42.22300; -83.74567, has an height of 839 feet (256 m).
Ann Arbor is nicknamed "Tree Town," both due to its name and to the dense forestation of its parks and residential areas. The city contains beyond 50,000 trees along its streets and an equal number in parks. In recent years, the emerald ash borer has destroyed many of the city's approximately 10,500 ash trees. The city contains 157 municipal parks ranging from small neighborhood green a skin condition to large recreation areas. Several large city parks and a academe park attach sections of the Huron River. Fuller Recreation Area, near the University Hospital complex, contains sports fields, pedestrian and bike paths, and swimming pools. The Nichols Arboretum, owned by the University of Michigan, is a 123-acre (50 ha) arboretum that contains hundreds of plant and tree species. It is upon the city's east side, near the university's Central Campus. Located across the Huron River just on peak of the university's North Campus is the university's Matthaei Botanical Gardens, which contains 300 acres of gardens and a large tropical military institute as skillfully as a wildflower garden specializing in the vegetation of the southern Great Lakes Region.
The cityscape of Ann Arbor is heavily influenced by the University of Michigan, with 22% of downtown and 9.4% of the sum land owned by the university. The downtown Central Campus contains some of the oldest extant structures in the city — including the President's House, built in 1840 — and separates the South University District from the further three downtown public notice districts. These further three districts, Kerrytown, State Street, and Main Street are contiguous near the northwestern corner of the university.
Three poster areas south of downtown improve the areas close I-94 and Ann Arbor-Saline Road, Briarwood Mall, and the South Industrial area. Other classified ad areas improve the Arborland/Washtenaw Avenue and Packard Road merchants on the east side, the Plymouth Road area in the northeast, and the Westgate/West Stadium areas on the west side. Downtown contains a amalgamation of 19th- and early-20th-century structures and modern-style buildings, as skillfully as a farmers' market in the Kerrytown district. The city's announcement districts are composed mostly of two- to four-story structures, although downtown and the Place near Briarwood Mall contain a small number of high-rise buildings.
Ann Arbor's residential neighborhoods contain architectural styles ranging from classic 19th- and ahead of time 20th-century designs to ranch-style houses. Among these homes are a number of kit houses built in the to the front 20th century. Contemporary-style houses are farther from the downtown district. Surrounding the University of Michigan campus are houses and apartment complexes occupied primarily by student renters. Tower Plaza, a 26-story condominium building located in the midst of the University of Michigan campus and downtown, is the tallest building in Ann Arbor. The 19th-century buildings and streetscape of the Old West Side neighborhood have been preserved about intact; in 1972, the district was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and it is additional protected by city ordinances and a nonprofit preservation group.
Ann Arbor has a typically Midwestern humid continental climate (Köppen Dfa), which is influenced by the Great Lakes. There are four clear seasons: winters are Cool and snowy, with average highs just about 34 °F (1 °C). Summers are warm to warm and humid, with average highs in the region of 81 °F (27 °C) and when slightly more precipitation. Spring and autumn are transitional surrounded by the two. The area experiences lake effect weather, primarily in the form of increased cloudiness during late slip and in advance winter. The monthly daily average temperature in July is 72.6 °F (22.6 °C), while the same figure for January is 24.5 °F (−4.2 °C). Temperatures accomplish or exceed 90 °F (32 °C) on 10 days, and drop to or under 0 °F (−18 °C) on 4.6 nights. Precipitation tends to be the heaviest during the summer months, but most frequent during winter. Snowfall, which normally occurs from November to April but occasionally starts in October, averages 58 inches (147 cm) per season. The lowest recorded temperature was −23 °F (−31 °C) on February 11, 1885, and the highest recorded temperature was 105 °F (41 °C) on July 24, 1934.
As of the 2020 U.S. Census, there were 123,851 people and 49,948 households residing in the city. The population density was 4,435.9 inhabitants per square mile (1,712.7/km2), making it less densely populated than Detroit proper and its inner-ring suburbs afterward Oak Park and Ferndale, but more densely populated than outer-ring suburbs considering Livonia and Troy. The racial makeup of the city was 67.6% White, 6.8% Black, 0.2% Native American, 15.7% Asian, 0.1% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 1.8% from supplementary races, and 7.9% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race made in the works 5.5% of the population. Ann Arbor has a little population of Arab Americans, including students as with ease as local Lebanese and Palestinians.
As of the 2010 U.S. Census, there were 113,934 people, 20,502 families, and 47,060 households residing in the city. The population density was 4,093.9 inhabitants per square mile (1,580.7/km2). The racial makeup of the city was 73.0% White (70.4% non-Hispanic White), 7.7% Black, 0.3% Native American, 14.4% Asian, 0.0% Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, 1.0% from further races, and 3.6% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race made taking place 4.1% of the population.
In 2013, Ann Arbor had the second-largest community of Japanese citizens in the welcome of Michigan, at 1,541; this figure trailed unaided that of Novi, which had 2,666 Japanese nationals.
In 2010, out of 47,060 households, 43.6% were relations households, 20.1% had individuals under the age of 18 busy in them, and 17.0% had individuals exceeding age 65 active in them. Of the 20,502 associates households, 19.2% included children under age 18, 34.2% were husband-wife families (estimates did not count up same-sex married couples), and 7.1% had a female householder subsequently no husband present. The average household size was 2.17 people, and the average relations size was 2.85 people. The median age was 27.8; 14.4% of the population was under age 18, and 9.3% was age 65 or older.
According to the 2012–2016 American Community Survey estimates, the median household pension was $57,697, and the median relatives income was $95,528. Males higher than age 25 and with earnings had a median allowance of $51,682, versus $39,203 for females. The per capita income for the city was $37,158. Nearly a quarter (23.4%) of people and 6.7% of families had incomes below the poverty level.
The University of Michigan shapes Ann Arbor's economy significantly. It employs nearly 30,000 workers, including nearly 12,000 in the medical center. Other employers are drawn to the area by the university's research and go forward money, and by its graduates. High tech, health services and biotechnology are extra major components of the city's economy; numerous medical offices, laboratories, and united companies are located in the city. Automobile manufacturers, such as General Motors and Visteon, also hire residents.
High tech companies have located in the Place since the 1930s, when International Radio Corporation introduced the first mass-produced AC/DC radio (the Kadette, in 1931) as with ease as the first pocket radio (the Kadette Jr., in 1933). The Argus camera company, originally a supplementary of International Radio, manufactured cameras in Ann Arbor from 1936 to the 1960s. Current firms adjoin Arbor Networks (provider of Internet traffic engineering and security systems), Arbortext (provider of XML-based publishing software), JSTOR (the digital college journal archive), MediaSpan (provider of software and online services for the media industries), Truven Health Analytics, and ProQuest, which includes UMI. Ann Arbor Terminals manufactured a video-display terminal called the Ann Arbor Ambassador during the 1980s. Barracuda Networks, which provides networking, security, and storage products based upon network appliances and cloud services, opened an engineering office in Ann Arbor in 2008 upon Depot St. and currently occupies the building in the past used as the Borders headquarters on Maynard Street. Duo Security, a cloud-based right of entry security provider protecting thousands of organizations worldwide through two-factor authentication, is headquartered in Ann Arbor. It was formerly a unicorn and continues to be headquartered in Ann Arbor after its acquisition by Cisco Systems. In November 2021, semiconductor test equipment company KLA Corporation opened a additional North American headquarters in Ann Arbor.
Websites and online media companies in or near the city supplement All Media Guide, the Weather Underground, and Zattoo. Ann Arbor is the home to Internet2 and the Merit Network, a not-for-profit research and education computer network. Both are located in the South State Commons 2 building on South State Street, which subsequently housed the Michigan Information Technology Center Foundation. The city is also house to a auxiliary office of Google's AdWords program—the company's primary revenue stream. The recent surge in companies functioning in Ann Arbor has led to a grow less in its office and flex way of being vacancy rates. As of December 31, 2012, the sum market vacancy rate for office and flex publicize is 11.80%, a 1.40% decrease in vacancy from one year previous, and the lowest overall vacancy level previously 2003. The office vacancy rate decreased to 10.65% in 2012 from 12.08% in 2011, while the flex vacancy rate decreased slightly more, with a drop from 16.50% to 15.02%.
As of 2022, Ann Arbor is home to beyond twenty video game and XR studios of varying sizes. The city plays host to a regional chapter of the International Game Developers Association (IGDA) which hosts monthly meetups, presentations, and school events.
Pfizer, once the city's second-largest employer, operated a large pharmaceutical research facility upon the northeast side of Ann Arbor. On January 22, 2007, Pfizer announced it would close operations in Ann Arbor by the fall of 2008. The talent was past operated by Warner-Lambert and, before that, Parke-Davis. In December 2008, the University of Michigan Board of Regents approved the purchase of the facilities, and the university circles anticipates hiring 2,000 researchers and staff during the bordering 10 years. It is now known as North Campus Research Complex. The city is the house of new research and engineering centers, including those of Lotus Engineering, General Dynamics and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Other research centers sited in the city are the United States Environmental Protection Agency's National Vehicle and Fuel Emissions Laboratory and the Toyota Technical Center. The city is also house to National Sanitation Foundation International (NSF International), the nonprofit non-governmental handing out that develops generally trendy standards for a variety of public health related industries and subject areas.
Borders Books, started in Ann Arbor, was opened by brothers Tom and Louis Borders in 1971 subsequent to a accrual of used books. The Borders chain was based in the city, as was its flagship buildup until it closed in September 2011. Domino's Pizza's headquarters is close Ann Arbor upon Domino's Farms, a 271-acre (110 ha) Frank Lloyd Wright-inspired profound just northeast of the city. Another Ann Arbor-based company is Zingerman's Delicatessen, which serves sandwiches and has developed businesses below a variety of brand names. Zingerman's has grown into a relatives of companies which offers a variety of products (bake shop, mail order, creamery, coffee) and services (business education). Flint Ink Corp., another Ann Arbor-based company, was the world's largest privately held ink manufacturer until it was acquired by Stuttgart-based XSYS Print Solutions in October 2005. Avfuel, a global supplier of aviation fuels and services, is plus headquartered in Ann Arbor.
The controversial detective and private security firm, Pinkerton is headquartered in Ann Arbor, being located upon 101 N Main St.
Many willing to help enterprises were founded in the city; among those that remain are the People's Food Co-op and the Inter-Cooperative Council at the University of Michigan, a student housing compliant founded in 1937. There are plus three cohousing communities—Sunward, Great Oak, and Touchstone—located gruffly to the west of the city limits.
Several performing arts groups and services are upon the University of Michigan's campus, as are museums dedicated to art, archaeology, and natural archives and sciences. Founded in 1879, the University Musical Society is an independent performing arts organization that presents beyond 60 endeavors each year, bringing international artists in music, dance, and theater. Since 2001 Shakespeare in the Arb has presented one deed by Shakespeare each June, in a large park close downtown. Regional and local stand-in groups not united with the college circles 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 Michigan's first chartered ballet company), The Ark, and Performance Network Theatre. Another unique fragment of artistic freshening in Ann Arbor is the fairy doors. These little portals are examples of installation art and can be found throughout the downtown area.
The Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum is located in a renovated and expanded historic downtown ember station. Multiple art galleries exist in the city, notably in the downtown Place and concerning 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 accompanied by U.S. cities in the number of booksellers and books sold per capita. The Ann Arbor District Library maintains four branch outlets in supplement to its main downtown building. The city is also home to the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library.
Several annual events—many of them centered upon performing and visual arts—draw visitors to Ann Arbor. One such business is the Ann Arbor Art Fairs, a set of four concurrent juried fairs held on downtown streets. Scheduled upon Thursday through Sunday of the third week of July, the fairs charisma upward of half a million visitors. Another is the Ann Arbor Film Festival, held during the third week of March, which receives beyond 2,500 submissions annually from higher than 40 countries and serves as one of a handful of Academy Award–qualifying festivals in the United States.
Ann Arbor has a long records of convenience to marijuana, given Ann Arbor's decriminalization of cannabis, the large number of medical marijuana dispensaries in the city (one dispensary, called People's Co-op, was directly across the street from Michigan Stadium until zoning irritated it to disturb one mile to the west), the large number of pro-marijuana residents, and the annual Hash Bash: an concern that is held upon the first Saturday of April. Until (at least) the successful passage of Michigan's medical marijuana law, the concern had arguably strayed from its initial intent, although for years, a number of attendees have expected serious legal responses due to marijuana use upon University of Michigan property, which does not fall under the city's superior and compassionate ticketing program.
Ann Arbor is a major middle for speculative sports, most notably at the University of Michigan. Several renowned college sports services exist in the city, including Michigan Stadium, the largest American football stadium in the world and the third-largest stadium of any kind in the world. Michigan Stadium has a power of 107,601, with the final "extra" seat said to be reserved for and in award of former supple director and Hall of Fame football coach Fitz Crisler. The stadium was completed in 1927 and cost more than $950,000 to build. The stadium is colloquially known as "The vast House" due to its status as the largest American football stadium. Crisler Center and Yost Ice Arena put it on host to the school's basketball (both men's and women's) and ice hockey teams, respectively. Concordia University, a aficionada of the NAIA, also fields sports teams.
Ann Arbor is represented in the NPSL by semi-pro soccer team AFC Ann Arbor, a club founded in 2014 who call themselves The Mighty Oak.
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") or "AA", "The Deuce" (mainly by Chicagoans), and "Tree Town". With tongue-in-cheek citation to the city's ahead of its time political leanings, some occasionally speak to to Ann Arbor as "The People's Republic of Ann Arbor" or "25 square miles amid reality", the latter phrase beast adapted from Wisconsin Governor Lee Dreyfus's bill of Madison, Wisconsin. In A Prairie Home Companion broadcast from Ann Arbor, Garrison Keillor described Ann Arbor as "a city where people discuss socialism, but solitary in the fanciest restaurants." Ann Arbor sometimes appears on citation indexes as an author, instead of a location, often in the same way as the academic degree MI, a misunderstanding of the abbreviation for Michigan.
As the county seat of Washtenaw County, the Washtenaw County Trial Court (22nd Circuit Court) is located in Ann Arbor at the Washtenaw County Courthouse on Main Street. Seven board of adjudicators serve upon the court. The 15th Michigan district court, which serves deserted the city itself, is located within the Ann Arbor Justice Center, immediately next to city hall. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan and Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit are after that located in downtown Ann Arbor, at the federal building on Liberty Street.
Ann Arbor has a council-manager form of government, with 11 voting members: the mayor and 10 city council members. Each of the city's five wards are represented by two council members, with the mayor elected at-large during midterm years. Half of the council members are elected in midterm years, with the additional in general election years. The mayor is the presiding bureaucrat of the city council and has the skill to appoint whatever council committee members as without difficulty as board and commission members, with the approbation of the city council. The current mayor of Ann Arbor is Christopher Taylor, a Democrat who was elected as mayor in 2014. Day-to-day city operations are managed by a city administrator prearranged by the city council.
Progressive politics have been particularly strong in municipal government since the 1960s. Voters ascribed charter amendments that have lessened the penalties for possession of marijuana (1974), and that determination to guard access to abortion in the city should it ever become illegal in the State of Michigan (1990). In 1974, Kathy Kozachenko's victory in an Ann Arbor city-council race made her the country's first openly homosexual candidate to win public office. In 1975, Ann Arbor became the first U.S. city to use instant-runoff voting for a mayoral race. Adopted through a ballot initiative sponsored by the local Human Rights Party, which feared a splintering of the ahead of its time vote, the process was repealed in 1976 after use in lonely one election. As of April 2021, Democrats preserve the mayorship and whatever ten council seats.
Anti-abortion protesters were outnumbered ten-to-one by abortion-rights counterprotesters in 2017. In 2019, The Diag hosted a cease the Bans rally. In 2022 in the shadow of the Dobbs decision, the diag once another time became a rallying dwindling for abortion rights protests, drawing thousands of protesters, including US Rep. Debbie Dingell Senator Debbie Stabenow, and Michigan Lt. Gov. Garlin Gilchrist.
Ann Arbor has two major diplomatic factions. In 2020, after the city council voted 7–4 to flare city administrator Howard Lazarus, several of the council members who voted to ember him loose their elections. In April 2021, the city council voted to strip Jeff Hayner of his committee assignments greeting to his use of homophobic and racist slurs, followed in June by a vote to ask him to resign. Hayner's ally upon council, Elizabeth Nelson, defended Hayner, saying he "spoke the phonetic sounds without euphemism." Hayner did not direct for re-election in 2022 and Nelson in limbo her primary to Dharma Akmon in a series of elections that gave the mayor's faction 11-0 manage of city council.
A major source of this local divide is differences in views on the city's growth. In 2018, two council members sued the city higher than a council decision to sell a city-owned property downtown to a housing developer. Later that year, the city narrowly passed a proposal to save that appearance as city owned property in perpetuity. In 2020, the city council enacted a unqualified sponsored by then council members Anne Bannister and Jeff Hayner to form an warning body for developing the roof of the parking structure into a city park. By late 2022, this advisory board had sent council a demand to concentrate on staff to probe the site for use for food truck rallies and other events. In April 2023, city staff responded to this request with a memorandum stating in share that "this site is not well-suited for use as a food truck rally or food truck installation and that it will require significant capital investment to bring the site in the works to a tolerable that would be safe, convenient, and handsome as a community issue space."
The gone city council meeting included public comments deriding the dearth of press on from this instructive commission.
Public schools are part of the Ann Arbor Public Schools (AAPS) district. AAPS has one of the country's leading music programs. In September 2008, 16,539 students had been enrolled in the Ann Arbor Public Schools. Notable schools enhance Pioneer, Huron, Skyline, and Community tall schools, and Ann Arbor Open School. The district has a preschool center with both pardon and tuition-based programs for preschoolers in the district. The University High School, a "demonstration school" with teachers drawn from the University of Michigan's education program, was part of the speculative system from 1924 to 1968.
Ann Arbor is house to several private schools, including Emerson School, the Father Gabriel Richard High School, Rudolf Steiner School of Ann Arbor, Clonlara School, Michigan Islamic Academy, and Greenhills School, a prep school. The city is also house to several charter schools such as Central Academy (Michigan) (PreK-12) of the Global Educational Excellence (GEE) charter scholarly company, Washtenaw Technical Middle College, and Honey Creek Community School.
The University of Michigan dominates the city of Ann Arbor, providing the city as soon as its distinctive college-town character. University buildings are located in the center of the city and the campus is directly neighboring the State Street and South University downtown areas.
Other local colleges and universities combine Concordia University Ann Arbor, a Lutheran liberal-arts institution, and Cleary University, a private business school. Washtenaw Community College is located in neighboring Ann Arbor Township. In 2000, the Ave Maria School of Law, a Roman Catholic law college established by Domino's Pizza founder Tom Monaghan, opened in northeastern Ann Arbor, but the assistant professor moved to Ave Maria, Florida in 2009, and the Thomas M. Cooley Law School acquired the former Ave Maria buildings for use as a branch campus.
The Ann Arbor News, owned by the Michigan-based Booth Newspapers chain, was the major newspaper serving Ann Arbor and the land of Washtenaw County. The newspaper ended its 174-year daily print run in 2009, due to economic difficulties and began producing two printed editions a week below the reveal AnnArbor.com, It resumed using its former declare in 2013. It also produces a daily digital edition named Mlive.com. Another Ann Arbor-based notice that has ceased production was the Ann Arbor Paper, a forgive monthly. Ann Arbor has been said to be the first significant city to lose its isolated daily paper. The Ann Arbor Chronicle, an online newspaper, covered local news, including meetings of the library board, county commission, and DDA until September 3, 2014.
Current publications in the city tally up the Ann Arbor Journal (A2 Journal), a weekly community newspaper; the Ann Arbor Observer, a forgive monthly local magazine; and Current, a free entertainment-focused alt-weekly. The Ann Arbor Business Review covers local thing in the area. Car and Driver magazine and Automobile Magazine are with based in Ann Arbor. The University of Michigan is served by many student publications, including the independent Michigan Daily student newspaper, which reports upon local, state, and regional issues in supplement to campus news.
Four major AM radio stations based in or near Ann Arbor are WAAM 1600, a conservative news and chat station; WLBY 1290, a issue news and chat station; WDEO 990, Catholic radio; and WTKA 1050, which is primarily a sports station. The city's FM stations affix NPR affiliate WUOM 91.7; country station WWWW 102.9; and adult-alternative station WQKL 107.1. Freeform station WCBN-FM 88.3 is a local community radio/college radio station operated by the students of the University of Michigan featuring noncommercial, eclectic music and public-affairs programming. The city is after that served by public and billboard radio broadcasters in Ypsilanti, the Lansing/Jackson area, Detroit, Windsor, and Toledo.
Ann Arbor is part of the Detroit television market. WPXD channel 31, the owned-and-operated Detroit outlet of the ION Television network, is licensed to the city. Until its sign-off upon August 31, 2017, WHTV channel 18, a MyNetworkTV-affiliated station for the Lansing market, was promote from a transmitter in Lyndon Township, west of Ann Arbor. Community Television Network (CTN) is a city-provided cable television channel afterward production facilities way in to city residents and nonprofit organizations. Detroit and Toledo-area radio and television stations also give advance to Ann Arbor, and stations from Lansing and Windsor, Ontario, can be seen in parts of the area.
The University of Michigan Medical Center, the unaided teaching hospital in the city, took the number 1 slot in U.S. News & World Report for best hospital in the give access of Michigan, as of 2015. The University of Michigan Health System (UMHS) includes University Hospital, C.S. Mott Children's Hospital and Women's Hospital in its core complex. UMHS as a consequence operates out-patient clinics and services throughout the city. The area's additional major medical centers supplement a large skill operated by the Department of Veterans Affairs in Ann Arbor, and Saint Joseph Mercy Hospital in user-friendly Superior Township.
The city provides sewage disposal and water supply services, with water coming from the Huron River and groundwater sources. There are two water-treatment plants, one main and three outlying reservoirs, four pump stations, and two water towers. These facilities help the city, which is on bad terms into five water districts. The city's water department with operates four dams along the Huron River—Argo, Barton, Geddes, and Superior—of which Barton and Superior allow hydroelectric power. The city as a consequence offers waste supervision services, with Recycle Ann Arbor handling recycling service. Other utilities are provided by private entities. Electrical facility and gas are provided by DTE Energy. AT&T Inc. is the primary wired telephone relief provider for the area. Cable TV foster is primarily provided by Comcast.
A plume of the industrial solvent dioxane is migrating below the city from the tainted Gelman Sciences, Inc. property on the westside of Ann Arbor. It is currently detected at 0.039 ppb. The Gelman plume is a potential threat to one of the City of Ann Arbor's drinking water sources, the Huron River, which flows through downtown Ann Arbor.
In 2015, Ann Arbor was ranked 11th safest in the middle of cities in Michigan considering a population of more than 50,000. It ranked safer than cities such as Royal Oak, Livonia, Canton and Clinton Township. The level of most crimes in Ann Arbor has fallen significantly in the similar to 20 years. In 1995 there were 294 cheesed off assaults, 132 robberies and 43 rapes though in 2015 there were 128 upset assaults, 42 robberies and 58 rapes (under the revised definition).
Ann Arbor's crime rate was under the national average in 2000. The violent crime rate was further below the national average than the property crime rate; the two rates were 48% and 11% lower than the U.S. average, respectively.
Ann Arbor is considered one of the US's most walkable cities, with one sixth of Ann Arborites walking to take steps according to the 2020 census.
Ann Arbor has made efforts to reverse the trend of car-dependent development. In 2020, the city introduced a Healthy Streets program to urge on non-motorized transportation.
The Washtenaw county Border-to-Border Trail connects Ann Arbor to Ypsilanti, mostly along the Huron river, for pedestrians, bicycles and further non-motorized transportation. In 2017, Spin scooters started providing a scooter part program in Ann Arbor, expanding this to swell dockless e-bikes in 2023.
Ann Arbor has a gold designation by the Walk Friendly Communities program. Since 2011, the city's property taxes have included a provision for sidewalk child support and expansions, expanding the sidewalk network, filling sidewalk gaps, and repairing existing sidewalks. The city has created a sidewalk gap dashboard, which showed 143 miles of sidewalk gaps in May 2022. The downtown was ranked in 2016 is the most walkable neighborhood in mid-sized cities in the Midwest. However, the outlying parts of the city and the township districts between Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti nevertheless contain markedly unwalkable areas.
Between 2019 and 2022 Ann Arbor's Downtown Development Authority built four two-way protected bikeways downtown. Early studies have shown a significant buildup in bicycle use downtown in the past the construction of these bikeways. In 2023, the city reported higher than 900 bicycle parking spaces downtown, though this is yet a small portion compared to the more than 8,000 car parking spots for cars.
The Ann Arbor Area Transportation Authority (AAATA), which brands itself as "TheRide", operates public bus services throughout the city and clear Ypsilanti. The AATA operates Blake Transit Center on Fourth Ave. in downtown Ann Arbor, and the Ypsilanti Transit Center. A separate zero-fare bus assistance operates within and between the University of Michigan campuses. Since April 2012, route 98 (the "AirRide") connects to Detroit Metro Airport a dozen times a day. There are with limited-stop bus facilities between Ann Arbor and Chelsea as without difficulty as Canton. These two routes, 91 and 92 respectively, are known as the "ExpressRide".
Greyhound Lines provides intercity bus service. The Michigan Flyer, a benefits operated by Indian Trails, cooperates afterward AAATA for their AirRide and additionally offers bus give support to to East Lansing. Megabus has talk to service to Chicago, Illinois, while a bus foster is provided by Amtrak for rail passengers making contacts to services in East Lansing and Toledo, Ohio.
The city was a major rail hub, notably for freight traffic surrounded by Toledo and ports north of Chicago, Illinois, from 1878 to 1982; however, the Ann Arbor Railroad plus provided passenger sustain from 1878 to 1950, going northwest to Frankfort and Elberta on Lake Michigan and southeast to Toledo. (In Elberta links to ferries across the Lake could be made.) The city was served by the Michigan Central Railroad starting in 1837. The Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti Street Railway, Michigan's first interurban, served the city from 1891 to 1929.
Amtrak, which provides serve to the city at the Ann Arbor Train Station, operates the Wolverine train between Chicago and Pontiac, via Detroit. The present-day train station neighbors the city's obsolete Michigan Central Depot, which was renovated as a restaurant in 1970.
Ann Arbor Municipal Airport is a small, city-run general aviation airdrome located south of I-94. Detroit Metropolitan Airport, the area's large international airport, is about 25 miles (40 km) east of the city, in Romulus. Willow Run Airport east of the city close Ypsilanti serves freight, corporate, and general aviation clients.
The streets in downtown Ann Arbor conform to a grid pattern, though this pattern is less common in the surrounding areas. Major roads branch out from the downtown district as soon as spokes upon a wheel to the highways surrounding the city. The city is belted by three freeways: I-94, which runs along the southern and western portion of the city; U.S. Highway 23 (US 23), which primarily runs along the eastern edge of Ann Arbor; and M-14, which runs along the northern edge of the city. Other genial highways append US 12 (Michigan Ave.), M-17 (Washtenaw Ave.), and M-153 (Ford Rd.). Several of the major surface arteries help to the I-94/M-14 every other in the west, US 23 in the east, and the city's southern areas.
Ann Arbor has seven sister cities:
