8/8/2019 Week 9 Lab - Ann Arobr Brochure

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/week-9-lab-ann-arobr-brochure 1/2

Welcome

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.

Visit Ann Arbor

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 aservice and technology base, which accelerated

in the 1970s and 1980s.

Ann Arbor is home to the University of Michigan,

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 distinct college-

town atmosphere. The university shapes Ann

Arbor’s economy signicantly as it employs

about 30,000 workers, including about 7,500

in the medical center. The city’s economy isalso 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

gentrication, 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 Ballet (established

in 1954 as Michigan’s rst 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

re 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 rst 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

8/8/2019 Week 9 Lab - Ann Arobr Brochure

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/week-9-lab-ann-arobr-brochure 2/2

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 rst 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 AnnArbor 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

Sweet Home

Ann Arbor