From Annarbour to A2: a morphological genesis of the City of Ann Arbor, USA Anirban Adhya, Luiz Amorim University of Michigan & Universidade Federal de Pernambuco aanirban@umich.edu Abstract This paper presents a historical and morphological analysis of the City of Ann Arbor, USA. The objective of this study is to identify the dynamic process that transforms an idea into a real city that is rich, diverse, and heterogeneous. It discusses the morphological changes that the city has undergone, from its day of foundation in 1824 as a small frontier village to Ann Arbor in 2004, a bustling university town. 1. Introduction People, individually or in groups, relate to cities. Whatever the form or the complexity, a relationship exists between physical form and socio-cultural activities in an urban environ- ment. This relationship is vital towards understanding city as an idea and as a realization of practice through human construction. The dynamic interaction between urban config- uration (form), human behavior (use) and common understanding (culture) continually shapes the growth of a city through time (Habraken, 2000). This approach is applied to study of the historic evolution of the City of Ann Arbor, the hometown of the University of Michigan. The attempt of this paper is to capture the urban morphological properties that reflect the dynamic interactions in the city from its inception as a frontier town till today. The subject and object of investigation is broad and complex, hence, stress has been rendered on grasping the overall sense of the city, rather than reducing the concept of urban vitality into discussion of one or two aspects of cities or their urban life. The historic morphological analysis of maps from the idealized regular grid plan of 1824 till 2004 with important land-use development and events forms a crucial component of the study. The primary areas of investigation through space syntax theory and methodology are how the city originated, how it grew and why it grew in a particular way. This is followed by a discussion generated by some emerging patterns, but the focus of the study is mainly on the evolution of the city grid and how it has influenced the social-cultural life of Ann Arbor. Another important part of the study is to analyze the relationships between the City and the University of Michigan and what is the extent of influence the university had in the genesis of the city into its present condition. 2. Ann Arbor: the city on the Huron with the University of Michigan A historic morphologic study is about knowing and telling the history of a city. Telling the history of Ann Arbor requires several stories; of people, of significant events and time- tested conditions, and of an institution - all evolving together. No other city in the state of Michigan, besides Detroit, is so well known or so often visited; no other city, including Detroit, has so completely fulfilled and maintained its identity (Marwil, 1987, p.xii).