Farmland in 1821, a City by 1983
Auburn Hills was first settled in 1821 but didn't incorporate as a city until 1983, just as construction began nearby on the Chrysler Technology Center and Headquarters complex -- a 504-acre, roughly 5.4-million-square-foot campus completed between 1993 and 1996 -- and on the Palace of Auburn Hills, which opened November 5, 1988.
Large Paved Campuses Change Where Water Goes
Big commercial and institutional footprints like the former Chrysler complex and the Palace site replace absorbent farmland with large paved areas, concentrating runoff into fewer drainage points than the same acreage would have generated as open fields in 1821.
Water Damage Restoration Project Paths in Auburn Hills
What an Auburn Hills Estimate Should Cover
Because so much of Auburn Hills' footprint has been built out since the early 1980s, a scope should check whether a residential property sits downhill from newer commercial or institutional paving that wasn't part of the original 1821-era drainage pattern.