After most of the area's Native people had been pushed out, settlers of European descent from New England and New York arrived. A Livonia post office opened in June 1834 in Nankin Township, and on March 17, 1835, the territorial legislature defined the borders of Livonia Township, split off from Nankin. The settlers named it after Livonia, New York, the western New York town many of them had come from.
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Several small communities grew up in the township. Elmwood, first called McKinley's Station, was a stop on the Detroit, Lansing and Northern Railroad and had its own post office from 1858 to 1906, and another post office, Giltedge, operated from 1899 to 1902.
Livonia was incorporated as a city by a vote of the township's residents on May 23, 1950. One incentive was that city status would let residents collect tax revenue from the Detroit Race Course, which ran only Thoroughbred flat racing from 1985 and closed in 1998, when the property was sold for redevelopment. In the 20th century Detroit's industrial jobs attracted Palestinian and Lebanese immigrants, and by 1985 Palestinian Christians, many from Ramallah, had settled in Livonia and nearby suburbs and opened many small and medium-sized businesses.
Sources
Wikipedia: Livonia, Michigan