Canton's two speeds: boomtown subdivisions and a village from 1825

Canton Township is what growth looks like when it works: in two generations it went from corn and sweet-corn stands to one of the most populous communities in Michigan, drawing families from around the world — its schools, cricket pitches, and pan-Asian grocery aisles make it one of the state’s most genuinely international hometowns. Nearly 100,000 people now live where the 1960 census found a few thousand.

But drive to the township’s southwest corner and the clock rolls back. The crossroads settlement of Cherry Hill, founded in the 1820s, survives as a National Register historic district — the old inn, church, one-room schoolhouse and houses still standing at Cherry Hill and Ridge — and Canton built on that inheritance deliberately, ringing it with the traditional-style Cherry Hill Village neighborhood and the Village Theater arts center, the township’s stage for concerts, plays, and community art. New Canton and old Canton, a mile apart and on speaking terms: that balance is the township’s quiet achievement.