Livonia

Livonia is a city of 95,535 people at the 2020 census, covering thirty-six square miles of western Wayne County. It was organized as Livonia Township in 1835 and did not incorporate as a city until 1950, and that date explains most of what a buyer sees: the great majority of the housing went up after incorporation, on a mile-grid of section roads, in subdivisions built out one at a time through the 1950s, 60s and 70s.

The exception is worth knowing about, because it is the part of Livonia that looks nothing like the rest. Rosedale Gardens was platted by the Shelden Land Company in the 1920s, a generation before the city existed, and its eight streets between Plymouth Road and West Chicago were listed on the National Register in 2010 — colonials, English cottages and ranches, most of them built before the Second World War. Greenmead Historical Park, on the city's north side, keeps a farm site on the National Register along with buildings moved there from as early as the 1820s.

Schools are the thing to settle first here. Livonia Public Schools serves most of the city from twenty-six buildings, but it does not serve all of it — Clarenceville has its own district on the northeast side, and district lines cross the city rather than following it. Two addresses on the same road can sit in different districts. Beyond that, Livonia is bracketed by I-96, I-275 and M-14, which is why it works for people commuting in three different directions.