Nestled in an upscale, woodsy 1960s subdivision on the northeast side, Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary draws students from both sides of US-23 and boasts families from more than twenty countries and who speak more than thirty-five languages.

The winding streets north of Glazier offer colonial, ranch, and tri-level homes. Young families, retirees, and single people live in King’s mature subdivisions and apartment buildings. On the hilly terrain south of Glazier are contemporary custom-built homes on big lots in natural settings, with neatly landscaped townhouses and condominiums along Huron Pkwy.

East of US-23 is a growing area of low-density development with prime freeway access and office parks. Off Dixboro Rd. are Radrick Meadows and Fleming Creek, both with large single-family homes. Slightly farther east is Concord Pines off Geddes, with recently built one- and two-story luxury homes, and the retreat-like Matthaei Farm community off Gale, with expensive custom-built homes. The Woodlands of Geddes Glen luxury subdivision sits just north of Geddes. To the south, private drives wind away to carefully isolated riverfront mansions, as well as the elegant Towsley Farms development.

The 501-unit GreenBrier and 216-unit Traver Court apartment complexes are within walking distance of King. Other students are bused from Arrowwood Hills Cooperative (350 town house units) and the 520-unit Haven of Ann Arbor on Dixboro Rd.

Major condominiums and co-ops include the 174-unit Earhart Village, the 103-unit Laurel Gardens along Dixboro Rd., and the 360-unit Geddes Lake on Huron Pkwy.

The zoning area for King encompasses the Matthaei Botanical Gardens, which in turn boasts the superb Gaffield Children’s Garden where kids can build forts with huge tree limbs or get filthy making mud pies.

King grads go to Clague Middle School and then Huron High.

Bike lanes: Plymouth Rd., Green, and part of Glazier have bike lanes, and Huron Pkwy. has a well-used sidewalk path. Along US-23 the situation is not quite as good, with Earhart designated a “neighborhood connector,” with signs that guide cyclists through the neighborhood streets. Geddes east of Huron Pkwy. is dangerous for both cyclists and pedestrians.

Walking: King School has a Walk Score of 9, and in general, except for those living close to Plymouth Rd. and Green, residents of this area drive or bike for shopping.

Tree-lined Traver Blvd., on the city’s northeast side, is home to Logan Elementary, with condos and apartments across from the school and quiet streets of well-kept colonials leading to the aptly named Placid Way Park behind the school.

This is one of the largest elementary school areas in the district, stretching out from the city into portions of Ann Arbor, Northfield, Salem, and Superior townships. Many people have settled on this side of town for its convenient access to metropolitan Detroit.

Subdivisions are located off Dhu Varren, including the 1990s vintage Foxfire and Dhu Varren on the Park. North Oaks’ 472 luxury townhomes and “villas”—clusters of attached condos—are taking on residents both north and south of Dhu Varren. Amenities at the 282-unit Owl Creek apartments, on Nixon at M-14, include a shuttle bus to northside destinations.

Plymouth Road Plaza and Traver Village offer stores and restaurants. Logan School itself is surrounded by modest single-family homes and the 210-unit Traver Ridge apartment complex.

The Logan area stretches north of US-23 and M-14. Beyond the reach of public sewer and water, homes here are on large lots of two acres or more. The area on and around Warren Rd. offers modest homes with lots of acreage on dirt roads. In the Pinebrook Estates subdivision off Gleaner Hall, north of Pontiac Tr., homes cluster on one-acre lots around a twenty-two-acre common area that includes several ponds. Near the US-23 interchange with M-14 sits Cornwell Farms, a luxury subdivision of twenty-seven homes, almost all of which have sold at an average of $980,000. The Northbrooke Estates sub offers large homes (3,800 square feet and up) off Nixon, and the 100-home Tanglewood community, south of M-14 and east of Dixboro Rd., features multistory contemporary homes on large lots.

Logan serves some students from the Arrowwood Hills Cooperative, as well as families in the 475-unit Willowtree complex across from North Campus. Off Huron Pkwy. are the Traver Heights apartments and Parkway Meadows, whose 212 units are targeted toward low-income residents and seniors.

Logan grads go to Clague Middle School. Those living east of Nixon go to Huron High; the rest attend Skyline High.

Bike lanes: City portions of this area are well-supplied with bike infrastructure leading to the U-M’s North Campus, with marked bike lanes on Nixon and Dhu Varren and a buffered and protected bike lane on Plymouth Rd.

Walking: Logan School’s Walk Score is 11, and except near Plymouth Rd., most areas here are car dependent.

An eclectic mix of homes—including some of the city’s oldest—fills this neighborhood northeast of downtown. Northside Elementary was rebranded in 2014 as a K–8 magnet school, A2STEAM at Northside. A community center draws neighbors to its steps and baseball players to Northside Park’s fields behind the school.

Just north of the Huron River, Lower Town has some of the city’s oldest surviving houses including the Guy Beckley House, built in 1842 in New England Georgian style, at the corner of Pontiac Tr. and Argo. It was once a stop on the Underground Railroad.

Rising northward from the river, the Broadway neighborhood combines rental housing with older single-family houses on large, well-kept lots on and near Cedar Bend, a street that offers spectacular views of the Huron River valley and leads down a rutted path to Cedar Bend Nature Area. Many older homes have been rehabilitated, and the area has become more popular with families who have young children. Rentals, including the vast three-building Beekman on Broadway complex, with two buildings recently opened and the final one under construction, attract U-M medical center workers.

Also under construction is Broadway Park West, a seven-acre riverfront park on the onetime site of a coal-gas plant that will include a two-acre tree-lined elliptical lawn adjacent to a 1,200-foot trail that connects via a new bridge to Washtenaw County’s Border-to-Border Trail. When complete, the project will open up riverfront land that has been closed to the public since the nineteenth century.

In the established, low-key, well-integrated neighborhood off Pontiac Tr., neighbors fix their cars, children play tag in the streets, and retirees sit in rockers on the porch. Longshore is a quiet road tracing the top of the bluff above the river. A popular boardwalk along Barton provides pedestrian access to Bandemer Park and combines with a bicycle path to complete a walking and biking loop around Argo Pond. Also of note are the Argo Cascades, a series of nine small rapids, rock chutes, and pools serving as a bypass channel to connect Argo Pond to the Huron River.

Farther up Pontiac Tr., the brick Cape Cods off Brookside and Skydale in the Huron Highlands area are home to families, retirees, and singles. The North Sky subdivision features stately brick one- and two-story homes on sizable lots. On Leslie Park Cir., newer midsize homes offer easy access to its namesake park, with its golf course and nature area. With Leslie and Olson parks at Dhu Varren and Pontiac Tr., Northside offers some of the largest recreation spaces in the city.

At the edge of town, the 350 townhouses of the Arrowwood Hills Cooperative, the city’s largest, rest on forty-four landscaped acres; this complex, too, offers easy access to nature areas, and a bus line is at the front entrance.

On the west side of Pontiac Tr., The One offers student houses and townhomes, and the North Sky subdivision recently opened as well.

The area south of Plymouth Rd. and west of Huron Pkwy. is dominated by the U-M’s North Campus, a mixture of classroom and research buildings, residence halls, and rental apartments and town houses for students and staff. Students also are abundant in the 160-unit Parc Pointe, the eighty-four-unit Broadview, and the 130-unit Highlands apartments, on either side of Plymouth Rd. at the top of the Broadway hill. East of Broadway, the Courtyards targets its one- to four-bedroom units exclusively to students, with individual leases and amenities like free Wi-Fi and outdoor party spaces. Farther from campus, Traver Knoll’s 216 units draw a more diverse population.

More apartments and condos cluster along the Huron River, including 348-unit Island Drive, 201-unit Medical Center Court, 128-unit Shore-view, and sixty-unit Riverside Park Place.

Other condos include the 1960s-vintage Riverhouse, with 128 apartments off Island Dr., the sixty-two-unit Nielsen Square on Maiden Ln., and the 112-unit Northside Glen, at Pontiac Tr. and Dhu Varren, both built around the turn of the millennium, and Bristol Ridge, off Pontiac Tr. south of Dhu Varren, which is now welcoming its first occupants.

A2STEAM at Northside grads mostly go on to Clague Middle School and Skyline High, except for children who live in housing on North Campus, who are bused to Tappan and then go to Huron High.

Bike paths: Areas near the U-M’s North Campus are well supplied with bike lanes and paths on Barton, Pontiac Tr., Wall, Dhu Varren, and most of Nixon. Plymouth Rd. has a buffered and protected bike lane. Broadway is a “neighborhood connector,” with road markings to guide bikers to their destinations.

Walking: A2STEAM at Northside has a Walk Score of 34, and walkability here depends on proximity to Plymouth Rd. shopping; student renters are better off than homeowners.