stranded - yes, once you know about ann arbor it crops up everywhere! Lost kept mentioning it & there's quite a few films with it in. I'd never heard of it til dh's company merged with the one here & I met the americans who came over. all americans seem to have heard about it though - it has a v good uni & it often comes high in those 'best places to live' type surveys.
we live just outside in a small town - it's very 'small town america' but of course there's A2 (you can't say AA, that means something else) for city life & then Detroit for the airport/big concerts etc. all very convenient & I do think we really lucked out ending up here. the local schools are fantastic, and housing is massively cheaper than the UK!
mind you, the economy has suffered quite badly, MI is one of the worst hit states, so it's not quite perfect.
to get the economy lifted, MI is giving huge tax breaks to film companies, and as everyone has heard of A2, there have been about 5 movies based around the area here last year. dh's office is next door to a big empty office unit, and several of the companies have used that as their base. we've had the likes of sigourney weaver, david schwimmer etc around town.