Ferndale is a city in Oakland County of the U.S. state of Michigan. It forms part of the Detroit metropolitan area. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 19,900.Ferndale is primarily residential, with a smaller commercial and industrial sector in the southeast part of the city. Ferndale's business district is anchored by the intersection of Woodward Avenue and 9 Mile Road, where privately owned shops, storefronts, dance clubs, bars and numerous restaurants are featured. Ferndale is well known in the Detroit area for its LGBT population and progressive policies. It is also the setting for the NBC sitcom Undateable.HistoryNative Americans were early inhabitants of the area now known as the City of Ferndale. In the 1800s farmers began cultivating the land. After the invention of the automobile and the development of the automotive assembly line, the population of Ferndale increased rapidly.Ferndale was incorporated into a village in 1918. It was then incorporated into a city on March 7, 1927, by vote of the citizens of the village. It became a bedroom community for Detroit workers, with most of its growth in housing from 1920-1951. Through the early 1950s there were trolley (interurban railroad) lines in the median strip of Woodward Avenue from downtown Detroit to Pontiac. These helped the northern suburbs of Detroit grow as bedroom communities as people could take the trolley to shop or work in Detroit.
