Oakland County, Michigan


Oakland County is a county in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is a principal county of the Detroit metropolitan area, containing the bulk of Detroit's northern suburbs. Its county seat is Pontiac, and its largest city is Troy. As of the 2020 census, its population 1,274,395, making it the second-most populous county in Michigan, and the most populous county in the United States without a city of 100,000 residents.
Founded in 1819 and organized the following year, Oakland County is composed of 62 cities, villages, and townships. In 2010, Oakland County was among the ten wealthiest counties in the United States to have over one million residents. It is also home to Oakland University, a large public institution that straddles the border between the cities of Auburn Hills and Rochester Hills.

History

Founded by Territorial Governor Lewis Cass in 1819, sparsely populated Oakland County was formed from Macomb County on 28 March 1820. As was customary at the time, as populations increased, other counties were organized from its land area. Over the next 16 years, Oakland lost territory to the creation of the counties of Lapeer, Saginaw, Sanilac, Shiawassee, Washtenaw, Barry, Calhoun, Eaton, Ingham, Jackson, Kalamazoo, Arenac, Gladwin, Midland, Livingston, and Genesee.
Woodward Avenue and the Detroit and Pontiac Railroad helped draw settlers in the 1840s. By 1840, Oakland had more than fifty lumber mills, processing wood harvested from the region and the Upper Peninsula. Pontiac, located on the Clinton River, was Oakland's first town and became the county seat. After the Civil War, Oakland was still primarily a rural, agricultural county with numerous isolated villages. By the end of the 19th century, three rail lines served Pontiac, and the city attracted carriage and wagon factories. In the late 1890s streetcars were constructed here and operated between Detroit.
At that time, developers made southern Oakland County a suburb of Detroit; a Cincinnati firm platted a section of Royal Oak called "Urbanrest". Migration worked both ways. Several thousand people moved from Oakland County farms to Detroit as the city attracted factories. By 1910, a number of rich Detroiters had summer homes and some year-round residences in what became Bloomfield Hills. The auto age enveloped Pontiac in the early 1900s. The Oakland Motor Car Company was founded in 1907 and became a part of General Motors Corp., which was soon Pontiac's dominant firm.
In the 1950s, Oakland County's population boomed as Detroiters began migrating to the suburbs. While the neighboring Macomb County was more inhabited by auto workers and other blue-collar workers, Oakland County's residents tended to be more affluent and generally white-collar. Oakland County was for a time the fourth-wealthiest county in the United States, though its position has declined somewhat since the Great Recession. The median price of a home in Oakland County increased to $164,697, more than $30,000 above the national median. Oakland County is home to several super-regional shopping malls such as Oakland Mall, Somerset Collection, Twelve Oaks Mall, and Great Lakes Crossing Outlets.

Geography

According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the county has a total area of, of which is land and is water.
Oakland County was originally divided into 25 separate townships, which are listed below. Each township is roughly equal in size at by six miles, for a total township area of. The roots of this design were born out of the Land Ordinance of 1785 and the subsequent Northwest Ordinance of 1787. Oakland County itself is a prime example of the land policy that was established, as all townships are equal in size. Section 16 in each township was reserved for financing and maintaining public education, and even today many schools in Oakland County townships are located within that section.
Wayne County, where the city of Detroit is located, borders Oakland County to the south. 8 Mile Road, also known as "Baseline Road" in some areas, is the boundary between these counties. The baseline was used during the original surveying for Michigan, and it serves as the northern/southern boundaries for counties from Lake St. Clair to Lake Michigan. As more working and middle-class populations moved to the suburbs from the 1950s on, this divide became historically known as an unofficial racial dividing line between what became the predominantly black city and almost exclusively white suburbs.
Since the late 20th century, the patterns of de facto segregation have faded as the suburbs have become more diverse. Middle-class African Americans have left Detroit, settling in inner-ring suburbs, notably Southfield, west of Woodward Avenue. Based on the 2010 census, the following cities also have significant non-white populations: Farmington, Farmington Hills, Novi, Oak Park, Lathrup Village, Orchard Lake Village, Rochester Hills, Troy, Wixom, West Bloomfield, Bloomfield, Bloomfield Hills, Ferndale, and Madison Heights. Ferndale has a concentration of Arab Americans, who also live in nearby areas, and numerous Asian Americans, particularly Indians, have also settled in these areas.

Adjacent counties

2020 census

As of the 2020 census, the county had a population of 1,274,395 people in 524,047 households, with an average of 2.4 persons per household. The median age was 41.0 years; 20.5% of residents were under the age of 18 and 17.7% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 95.6 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 93.5 males age 18 and over. Females comprised 50.6% of the population, roughly 13.1% of residents were foreign-born, and 49.5% of residents ages 25 and over had at least a bachelor's degree.
The racial makeup of the county was 70.1% White, 13.4% Black or African American, 0.3% American Indian and Alaska Native, 8.3% Asian, <0.1% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander, 1.8% from some other race, and 6.1% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race comprised 4.8% of the population.
94.5% of residents lived in urban areas, while 5.5% lived in rural areas.
There were 524,047 households in the county, of which 27.6% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 48.5% were married-couple households, 18.7% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 27.0% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 30.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 12.0% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 554,403 housing units, of which 5.5% were vacant. Among occupied housing units, 70.7% were owner-occupied and 29.3% were renter-occupied. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.1% and the rental vacancy rate was 7.6%.

2000 census

Among Asian Americans, eight ethnic groups had more than 1,000 members in the county in 2000. The most numerous were those of Asian Indian descent, with 20,705. Next were those of Chinese heritage, numbering 10,018. Next were those of Japanese, Filipino Korean, Vietnamese, Pakistani and Hmong ancestry.
In 2001, Oakland County had the 36th largest Asian population of any county in the country. In 2002, of the Oakland-Wayne-Macomb tricounty area, Oakland County had 49% of the tri-county area's Asian population.
The median income for a household in the county in 2020 was $92,620, making Oakland County the 71st wealthiest county in the United States and the wealthiest county in Michigan. About 8.72% of the population were below the poverty line.

Government

The county government operates the major local courts, keeps files of deeds and mortgages, maintains vital records, administers public health regulations, and participates with the state in the provision of welfare and other social services. The county board of commissioners controls the budget but has limited authority to make laws or ordinances. In Michigan, most local government functions—police and fire, building and zoning, tax assessment, street maintenance, etc.—are the responsibility of individual cities and townships.

Service Center

Most county operations are based at the Oakland County Service Center, which straddles Telegraph Road, split between Pontiac and neighboring Waterford Township. The east campus consists mostly of the courthouse, jail, and Sheriff's Office, while the west campus contains the county executive's office, Children's Village, and the headquarters of Oakland Schools, the Road Commission, and a number of other departments.
In May 2023, the county government announced a plan to relocate select offices from the Service Center back to downtown Pontiac.

Elected officials

The Oakland County Sheriff's Office is the largest sheriff's department in the state of Michigan. In 2017 it had 859 uniformed officers, although in 2022 it had nearly 100 unfilled vacancies. Republican Michael Bouchard has served as the Oakland County Sheriff since 1999.
Ten townships, 3 cities, and 2 villages in the county do not have municipal police forces, but rather contract with the sheriff for police services specific to the municipalities. Those municipalities are Addison Township, Brandon Township, Clarkston, Commerce Township, Highland Township, Independence Township, Lyon Township, Oakland Township, Orion Township, Oxford Township, Springfield Township, Pontiac, and Rochester Hills. The Oakland County Sheriff's Office also operates the county jail, a civil division, marine division, alcohol and traffic enforcement units, and an aviation division. The marine patrol and rescue unit patrols 450 lakes across the county.