as a center for liberal politics. During the 20th
Several performing arts groups
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Ann Arbor is a city in the U.S. state of Michi-
gan and the county seat of Washtenaw Coun-
ty. 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 col-
lege 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
Michigan.
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 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 sig-
nificantly 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 de-
velopment 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.
Culture
Many Ann Arbor cultural attractions and
events are sponsored by the University of
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 Ar-
bor 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); and Performance
Network, which operates a downtown the-
ater 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 in-
teractive exhibits featuring science and tech-
nology. 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 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 Li-
brary maintains four branch outlets in addi-
tion 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.
People Ann Arbor, MI
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. Re-
cently, 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 de-
scription of Madison, Wisconsin. Ann Arbor
sometimes appears on citation indexes as an
author, instead of a location.

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 visi-
tors. 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.