East Lansing, Michigan travel between Detroit and Lansing, which cut right through what is now East Lansing. The toll road was finished in 1853, and included seven tollhouses between Lansing and Howell. Michigan State University was founded in 1855 and established in what is now East Lansing in 1857. For the first four decades, the students and faculty lived almost entirely on the college campus. A few commuted from Lansing, and that number increased when a streetcar line was built in the 1890s, but there were few places to live in the then-rural area surrounding the campus. That started to change in 1887,
Lansing–East Lansing metropolitan area Ionia County was added in 1973, but taken out a decade later for the 1990 Census. The Lansing–East Lansing–Owosso Combined Statistical Area includes the Lansing–East Lansing MSA, plus the Owosso μSA, which includes Shiawassee County. As of the 2010 census, the CSA had a population of 534,684. The Lansing Urban Area, as defined by the U.S. Census Bureau, which measures the extent of the built environment, had a population of 313,532 as of the 2010 census. Lansing–East Lansing MSA Owosso μSA As of the census of 2010, there were 464,036 people, 183,442 households, and 112,131 families residing within the MSA.