Midland, Michigan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Midland is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is the county seat of Midland County6. A small portion of the city is in Bay County. The city's population was 41,685 as of the 2000 census. It is the principal city of the Midland Micropolitan Statistical Area. The portion of the city in Bay County is included in the Bay City Metropolitan Statistical Area for statistical reasons.
The largest portion of the city is land incorporated from Midland Township, which is politically independent. The mayor of Midland is Bruce Johnson.
The Dow Chemical Company was founded in Midland in 1897. Its world headquarters are still located there. Through the influence of a Dow Chemical plants opening in Handa, Aichi, Japan, Midland and Handa have become sister cities.[1] The Dow Corning Corporation is also headquartered in Midland. Dow and the State of Michigan are currently discussing how Dow will clean up dioxin contamination in the city and downstream areas.
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[edit] Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 90.5 km² (35.0 mi²). 86.0 km² (33.2 mi²) of it is land and 4.5 km² (1.7 mi²) of it (4.95%) is water.
[edit] Demographics
As of the census² of 2000, there were 41,685 people, 16,743 households, and 11,000 families residing in the city. The population density was 484.5/km² (1,254.9/mi²). There were 17,773 housing units at an average density of 206.6/km² (535.0/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 93.38% White, 1.82% African American, 0.29% Native American, 2.69% Asian, 0.06% Pacific Islander, 0.57% from other races, and 1.19% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 1.92% of the population.
There were 16,743 households out of which 33.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 54.4% were married couples living together, 8.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 34.3% were non-families. 28.6% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.42 and the average family size was 3.00.
In the city the population was spread out with 25.9% under the age of 18, 10.2% from 18 to 24, 27.9% from 25 to 44, 22.2% from 45 to 64, and 13.9% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 36 years. For every 100 females there were 92.0 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.1 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $48,444, and the median income for a family was $64,949. Males had a median income of $53,208 versus $31,098 for females. The per capita income for the city was $26,818. About 5.5% of families and 8.8% of the population were below the poverty line, including 9.5% of those under age 18 and 7.2% of those age 65 or over.
[edit] Education
- Midland Public Schools
- Davenport University
- Delta College
- Michigan State University (research facility)
- Northwood University
[edit] Sites of interest
- Alden B. Dow Studio
- Chippewa Nature Center [2]
- Dahlia Hill [3]
- Dow Chemical Company headquarters
- Dow Corning headquarters
- Dow Corning Midland plant
- Dow Gardens
- Downtown Midland
- Grace A. Dow Memorial Library
- Midland Community Tennis Center [4]
- H. H. Dow House
- Midland Center for the Arts [5]
- Midland Community Stadium
- Pere Marquette Rail-Trail
- The Tridge, 3-way pedestrian bridge over the Tittabawassee and Chippewa rivers (Satellite photo)
- The Midland Tennis Center is well know for hosting a yearly USTA Match where players ranked as high as 40th in the world have participated. [6]
[edit] Famous Midlanders
- Alden B. Dow, architect
- Herbert H. Dow, founder of Dow Chemical
- Robert Jarvik, inventor of the Jarvik-7 artificial heart
- Earl Warwick inventor of Silly Putty.
[edit] Sports
| Club | Sport | League | Venue | Logo |
| Great Lakes Loons | Baseball | Midwest League | Dow Diamond | Image:GreatLakesLoons.PNG |
Midland will be the home of the Great Lakes Loons baseball team beginning in the 2007 season. After failure to pique interest in Battle Creek, the Southwest Michigan Devil Rays have been purchased by a new ownership group.
[edit] See also
- Midland Daily News
- MBS International Airport, located in nearby Freeland which serves the city
[edit] Local media
Midland is the city of license of two FM radio stations serving the Tri-Cities (Saginaw/Bay City/Midland) area. WKQZ ("Z93") is an active rock station owned by Citadel Broadcasting and broadcasting at 93.3 FM. WUGN is a non-commercial station at 99.7 FM owned by Family Life Communications, broadcasting adult-contemporary Christian music and teaching.
WMPX (1490 AM) is Midland's "hometown" locally-owned radio station, owned by Steel Broadcasting and airing an adult standards ("Timeless Classics") format satellite-fed from ABC Radio. WMPX has an FM simulcast station in Beaverton, Michigan, WMRX (97.7 FM), which airs a small amount of local weekend programming separate from the AM. Other area stations include WEJC (88.3 FM) in White Star, Michigan, which airs contemporary Christian music and is affiliated with the Lansing-based " Smile FM" network; WPRJ (101.7 FM) in Coleman, Michigan, a Christian CHR station known as "The Fuse"; and country music station WGDN (103.1 FM) in nearby Gladwin, Michigan.
Midland is also served by radio and television stations from Saginaw, Bay City, Mount Pleasant, and Houghton Lake.
[edit] External links
- City of Midland web site
- Midland Tomorrow (economic development corporation)
- MidlandOnline
- Live stream of city-run MGTV cablecast (ASF format stream)
- Maps and aerial photos
- Street map from Google Maps, or Yahoo! Maps, or Windows Live Local
- Satellite image from Google Maps, Windows Live Local, WikiMapia
- Topographic map from TopoZone
- Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA
