Southfield, Michigan, United States

🇺🇸 Southfield is a city in Oakland County in the U.S. state of Michigan. An inner-ring suburb of Detroit, Southfield borders Detroit to the north, lying roughly 15 miles (24.1 km) north-west of downtown.

Southfield is notable as the home of multiple business districts, including the Southfield City Centre (an edge city which contains the tallest building in Detroit's suburbs) and the area surrounding the former Northland Center shopping mall. It is also home to Lawrence Technological University. The city was originally part of Southfield Township before incorporating in 1958. The autonomous city of Lathrup Village is an enclave within Southfield.

History Southfield was surveyed in 1817 according to the plan by Michigan territorial governor Lewis Cass. The first settlers came from nearby Birmingham and Royal Oak, Michigan, as well as New York and Vermont. The area that became Southfield was settled by John Daniels in 1823. Among the founders were the Heth, Stephens, Harmon, McClelland and Thompson families.

Town 1 north, 10 east was first organized as Ossewa Township on July 12, 1830, but the name was changed to Southfield Township 17 days later. The township took its name from its location in the "south fields" of Bloomfield Township. A US post office was established in 1833 and the first town hall built in 1873.

The Southfield Fire Department was formed on April 6, 1942, and the Southfield Police Department in 1953. In the 1950s, cities and villages began to incorporate within the township, including Lathrup Village in 1950, and Beverly Hills in 1957. Most of what was left of the township was formally incorporated as a city on April 28, 1958, to protect it from annexation attempts by Detroit; whites who had migrated to the suburbs did not want to be associated with Detroit's expanding black community.

City Hall was built in 1964 as part of the new Civic Center complex, which also became home to Southfield's police headquarters. The Civic Center was expanded in 1971 to include a sports arena with swimming pool. Evergreen Hills Golf Course was added in 1972, and in 1978, a new public safety building, the Southfield Pavilion, and a new court building were added. In 2003, an expanded and redesigned Southfield Public Library opened to the public on the Civic Center grounds, featuring state-of-the-art facilities. Outside the Civic Center complex, Southfield has municipal parks and recreation facilities, largely developed in the 1970s, including Beech Woods Recreation Center and John Grace Community Center.

Duns Scotus College is now the home of Word of Faith Christian Center.

Economy Southfield is a commercial and business centre for the metropolitan Detroit area, with 27,000,000 square feet (2,508,400 m²) of office space, second in the Detroit metro area to Detroit's central business district of 33,251,000 square feet (3,089,000 square meters). Several internationally recognised corporations have major offices and headquarters in Southfield, including Veoneer, Huf Hülsbeck and Fürst, Denso, Peterson Spring, Federal-Mogul, Lear, R.L. Polk & Co., International Automotive Components, Stefanini, Inc., and Guardian Alarm. More than 100 Fortune 500 companies have offices in Southfield.

Sumitomo Corporation operates the Detroit Office in Suite 1450 at 27777 Franklin Road. Industries supported by the office include automotive, rolled steel, and tubular products.

On October 28, 2014, Fifth Third Bank announced plans to move its Michigan regional headquarters from Southfield to downtown Detroit in what will be named the Fifth Third Bank Building at One Woodward. The office had 150 employees.

Northland Center, one of the nation's first shopping malls, opened in Southfield in 1954 and closed in 2015. As of 2022, the property is being redeveloped as a mixed-use residential and commercial complex. Southfield is home to over 780 acres (3.2 km²) of parkland and a nationally recognised public school district.

Southfield City Centre Prominent in Southfield is Southfield City Centre, a mixed-use area consisting of a major business centre, private university, and residential neighborhoods, near the intersection of Interstate 696 (I-696, Walter P. Reuther Freeway) and the M-10 (Lodge Freeway).

Southfield City Centre was created in 1992 as a special assessment district, and was originally planned to improve pedestrian amenities and facilitate economic development.

Diplomatic missions The Consulate of Macedonia in Detroit and Consulate of Lebanon in Detroit are located in the Southfield Town Center, and the Consulate of Iraq in Detroit is in Southfield.

Conventions Penguicon has been held in Southfield regularly since 2014.

Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has an area of 26.28 square miles (68.06 km²), of which 26.27 square miles (68.04 km²) is land and 0.01 square miles (0.03 km²) (0.04%) is water.

The main branch of the River Rouge runs through Southfield. The city is bounded to the south by Eight Mile Road, its western border is Inkster Road, and to the east it is bounded by Greenfield Road. Southfield's northern border does not follow a single road, but lies approximately along Thirteen Mile Road. The city is bordered by Detroit and Redford Township to the south, Farmington Hills to the west, Franklin, Bingham Farms, and Beverly Hills to the north and Royal Oak, Berkley and Oak Park to the east. The separate city of Lathrup Village sits as an enclave in the eastern part of the city, completely surrounded by Southfield.

Socioeconomic status The most common occupations for people in Southfield are a mix of both white- and blue-collar jobs. Overall, Southfield is a city of sales and office workers, professionals and managers. A relatively large number of people living in Southfield work in office and administrative support (16.00%), sales jobs (10.93%), and management occupations (9.72%). Southfield's populace is very well-educated relative to most cities and towns in the nation. Whereas 21.84% of the average community's adult population holds a 4-year degree or higher, 38.73% of Southfield's adults have a bachelor's degree or advanced degree. Southfield's per capita income in 2010 was $28,995.

Ethnic groups *African Americans * In 2002 Southfield had 42,259 black people, the second-largest black population in Metro Detroit and third-largest in Michigan.

As of 2011, many African Americans from Detroit were moving into Southfield and other suburbs of Oakland and Macomb counties. Tensions have occurred between existing middle-class blacks in Southfield and newcomers from Wayne County.

*Chaldean Catholic Assyrians * As of 2001 many Chaldo-Assyrians live in Southfield; they are descended from the ancient Nineveh region of the Assyrian homeland in North Iraq. The Chaldean Federation of America, an umbrella organization for most regional Chaldean groups, is in Southfield. As of that year, the largest Chaldean church, by number of congregants, was based here. The city also had the area's sole Chaldean retirement home.

Southfield is also home to the Detroit area's Consulate-General of Iraq.

*Jewish Americans * Since the rapid suburbanization of the 1950s and 1960s, many Jewish Americans from Northwest Detroit (particularly the Dexter-Davison neighborhood) moved to Southfield and other inner-ring suburbs such as Oak Park and Huntington Woods. Congregation Shaarey Zedek moved from Detroit to Southfield in 1962 to a modernist synagogue building designed by Percival Goodman. The city was also previously home to Congregation Beth Achim on 12 Mile Road until its merger with Congregation Adat Shalom. The building was later purchased and demolished by a Jewish day school. Though much of the Conservative and Reform Jewish population has since spread out to suburbs such as West Bloomfield and Farmington Hills, the city maintains a thriving Orthodox Jewish and Lubavitch community. It is also home to Farber Hebrew Day School – Yeshivat Akiva, a kosher grocery store, and many independent synagogues.

Government Southfield uses the council-manager form of government, and thus is governed by a City Council consisting of seven council members. The city council appoints a City Administrator, who manages the day-to-day operations of the city. The popularly elected mayor, who does not vote on council actions, has the right to veto council actions and appoints the city's planner, assessor, attorney, and members of various commissions. The city's clerk and treasurer are also popularly elected officials. All these officials hold nonpartisan positions.

Education Southfield Public Library operates public libraries in the city. Providence Medical Center offers residency training in various fields of medicine.

Education: Universities Southfield is home to eight colleges, including Lawrence Technological University, Abcott Institute, Everest Institute and Oakland Community College.

The Specs Howard School of Media Arts In 1970, radio pioneer and entertainer Specs Howard founded the Specs Howard School of Media Arts in Southfield. Specs Howard School of Media Arts was a private for-profit career college in Southfield, Michigan. It was named after its founder Specs Howard and focuses on programs in radio and television broadcasting, graphic design, and digital media arts. In 2021, Specs Howard School Of Media Arts relocated to the Lawrence Technological University campus and merged into Specs @ LTU.

Media Southfield is the broadcast media centre for the Detroit area, with studios and broadcast facilities for several television stations, including WXYZ-TV, WJBK, WKBD-TV, WMYD-TV, WWJ-TV, and City Cable 15. Metro Detroit's regional sports network Bally Sports Detroit is in Southfield on 11 Mile and Evergreen roads. A transmitter for WDIV-TV is in the city; it is the only television station based in downtown Detroit.

The city is home to Audacy's Detroit studios. Southfield is also served by WSHJ 88.3 FM, a student-run radio station sponsored by Southfield Public Schools.

In addition to The Detroit News and Free Press, Detroit's two metropolitan daily newspapers, Southfield is served by the Southfield Eccentric, a suburban paper that reports on local and community events, which is published twice a week, on Sunday and Thursday. The headquarters of The Detroit Jewish News is in Southfield. The Chaldean News is also headquartered in Southfield.

Transport The major thoroughfares in the city include the John C. Lodge Freeway (M-10), which is among the first urban to suburban highways constructed in the United States. The city also contains I-696, Southfield Freeway (M-39), and US 24 (Telegraph Road). The city has several freeway interchanges connecting local roads to the freeways. Most prominently, "The Lodge" freeway connects downtown Detroit to "The Mixing Bowl", the sprawling interchange of I-696, US 24, M-10, Lahser Road, and Franklin Road, all of which are in Southfield.

Most major streets adhere to a north–south/east–west orientation, forming a grid of major streets spaced one mile (1.6 km) apart from each other. The major east–west streets are 8 Mile Road (which forms the southern boundary of the city), 9 Mile Road (which is split by the Southfield Freeway), 10 Mile Road, 11 Mile Road (which is split by the Lodge), and 12 Mile Road. Major north–south streets are Telegraph Road, Lahser Road, Evergreen Road, Southfield Road (the northern extension of the Southfield Freeway) and Greenfield Road (which forms the eastern boundary of the city).

Religion The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit formerly operated the Church of St. Bede. By 2013 there was a debate on how the property should be rezoned, and therefore reused.

Parks and recreation The Southfield Parks and Recreation Department is responsible for 775 acres of parks, nature preserves and open space and historic properties at 33 sites within the city. There are numerous ball fields, tennis and handball courts, picnic areas and shelters. There are soccer fields, play lots and sand volleyball courts throughout the city. • Bauervic Woods Park • Bedford Woods Park • Beech Woods Park • Brace Park • Burgh Historical Park • Carpenter Lake Nature Preserve • Civic Center Park • Freeway Park • Inglenook Park • John Grace Park & Community Center • John R. Miller Park • Lahser Woods Park • Lincoln Woods • Mary Thompson House & Farm • Pebble Creek Park • Simms Park • Stratford Woods Commons • Valley Woods Nature Preserve.