Faster, Higher, Stranger
High-rises and luxury student apartments are transforming Ann Arbor’s skyline, and the streets and neighborhoods below.
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Ann Arbor’s Reading Challenge
Standardized test scores show that many Ann Arbor–area kids are struggling with reading proficiency. According to results released last year from the 2024–25 Michigan Student Test of Education Progress, only 56 percent of AAPS third-graders met or exceeded proficiency standards in English Language Arts. On a key national study known as the Nation’s Report Card, Michigan was ranked forty-fourth in the U.S. for fourth-grade reading in 2024—dropping eight places since 2019.
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Encouraging Health Trends
In its 2025 annual report, released in late April, the Washtenaw County Health Department announced a promising decline in deaths from opioid overdoses, firearms, and suicides in 2024. Firearm deaths continued to drop in 2025, and preliminary data show a similar trend for opioid overdoses and suicides. With all three issues nationally recognized as public health crises, why has Washtenaw County been so successful?
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A Special Election Turns Weird
In an exceedingly rare political maneuver, resigned Ann Arbor school board treasurer Don Wilkerson filed in June to run in the November special election called to fill the seat he vacated.
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Seeking a Check on U-M’s Expansion
In late June, three Democratic state reps—Jason Morgan and Morgan Foreman of Ann Arbor and Jimmie Wilson of Ypsilanti—introduced legislation that would require university officials to follow local zoning requirements and ordinances. This followed U-M’s announcement in May that it would purchase the 140-acre Concordia University campus for $60 million. Because the university has legal autonomy on land purchases, the move did not require local input.
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Tough Break Hotel
After scathing reviews, Blue Suede’s Exhibit A2 has left the building.
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Residents Fight the Power—and Win
Activist campaign prompts Consumers Energy to abandon plans for a gas-fired plant in Lima Twp.
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Letter to the Editor: EV Rebates
The city’s plan to spend $500,000 to give qualified residents about $4,000 to $7,500 to buy a new or used EV shows poor judgement at the very least.
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Meeting Points
We spoke with three painters, one from each fair, whose work engages with “intersections,” a concept that encompasses much of what the fairs are all about: exploring points of connection and embracing individuality and commonality at once.
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Running Into Trouble
“[A] 140-home enclave set on rolling hills between the Huron River and Whitmore Lake Road” and “a masterpiece of the landscaper’s art.” That’s how a June 2005 Observer piece, “The Buried History of Barton Hills,” described Barton Hills Village (BHV). Two decades later, there’s trouble in paradise.
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The Concordia Curveball
There were at least two reasons why U-M’s $60 million deal to buy Concordia University’s Geddes Rd. campus rankled city hall.
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The Hottest Seat on Campus
In April, the community was shaken when the regents’ choice for president, Kent Syverud, announced he would not take office due to a cancer diagnosis. He had been scheduled to assume the job on May 11. For now, interim president Domenico Grasso continues to lead U-M’s 68,000 students across the three campuses and about 50,000 faculty and staff at the university and hospital.
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Political Ambitions, Made in Ann Arbor
Ann Arborites Eli Savit and Abdul El-Sayed say their campaigns are steeped in what they have experienced here, whether as a schoolchild, like Savit, or in formative college years, as in El-Sayed’s case.
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Waiting for the Medicine to Kick In
In June 2025, Michigan Medicine opened the doors of the Ypsilanti Health Center at 300 W. Michigan Ave. with a mission that was twofold: to improve health outcomes and the social determinants of health in a city that has long trailed Ann Arbor in both.
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Does This Landfill Project Pass the Sniff Test?
Jenna and Jim Tenzillo moved to Northville Township from Ann Arbor to shorten their commutes, but the move came with a trade-off: the smell of the Arbor Hills landfill, located just across the county line in Salem Township.
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Beyond Roommates
Sarah Russman’s daughter will leave their home in Ann Arbor this fall to embark on her freshman year of college and the new experience of shared living in a dorm room. Meanwhile, Russman is themself getting ready for a new shared-living experience, under a program that aims to address housing affordability and the challenges for older adults living alone.
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Starry-Eyed
A group of local chefs and business owners hope to lure Michelin to Ann Arbor. In April, Michelin announced its first Great Lakes edition, rating restaurants in Detroit, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Indianapolis, Milwaukee, and Minneapolis. (It has published a Chicago guide since 2010.) Michelin reviewers have begun visiting restaurants, and the guide is slated for publication in 2027.
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College Cheer at Huron High
Four students were admitted to Yale—which Huron High college counselor Emily Mashal says may only take thirty students from the entire state—alongside acceptances to Columbia, Stanford, Northwestern, and Brown. More than ninety-five students were admitted to U-M, and several first-generation students earned spots at top institutions with full financial support.
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Walkable, but Inaccessible
Does A2 Summer Streets shut out people with disabilities?
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Who’s in the Running to Run Ann Arbor?
On the August primary ballot: Three mayoral candidates and many more seeking council seats
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