I have fam that live in Bethesda. They say PG is too "new".
Never been able to make it to that side of DC. Typically when I visit outside of the district, it's in the northwest.
Ironically, I'm not impressed with Bethesda myself. Even Potomac. DMV people always rave about their burbs being topnotch. They leave much to be desired, honestly.
I've noticed in the south that wealthy communities are not uniformly wealthy. That there could be pockets of cheaper areas within the same communities or be next to less well-to-do communities. Why is that?
That's a bit different from where I'm from which tends to have large conglomerates of uniformly wealthy towns all around each other. Kind of like Fairfield County, Ct. or Westchester County, NY.
How do businesses fair in these communities?
What type or caliber of businesses are in these communities?
Are there seedy communities in PG?
Does PG get an influx of poorer residents relocating from within the district? And if so, how has this affected the communities?
How did the 08/09 recession affect PG County?
First time I’ve heard of PG being called “too new” lol.
I think the amount of “cross-patching” of different levels of socio-economic communities here is probably because it’s a lot of old money and working class areas mixed with the ever-growing influx of new money and I also think the metro area’s size plays a role too. The DMV is a large area but also small at the same time if that makes sense. The metro areas of NYC and LA seem like they go on forever and it becomes more obvious where the continuous boundaries of über-wealthy areas, middle class areas, working class areas, and poor areas are....Whereas those boundaries can be kinda blurry down here sometimes and these communities tend to be either up the street from each other or just around the corner from one another, it’s a lil tricky to explain.
As for the businesses, do you mean for the Rural Tier part of PG or in the County in general?
RE: seedy communities. Yes, I would say 90% of the seedy communities in PG are inside the Beltway while remaining 10% either extend outside the Beltway (like Temple Hills or Morningside) or straddle alongside it (like Oxon Hill). When it comes to the crime rate in the County, most of the violent crime stems from people who know each other and/or got beef with each other. You should be fine if you keep your nose clean and K.I.M., just don’t be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Most of the other crime in PG is auto theft (this happens a lot even in some of the nicer communities, it’s one of the main reasons why PG has one of the highest auto insurance rates in the state along with Baltimore), burglary, drug-related stuff, and for some reason, we have a high DV rate. Also fair bit of warning, Livingston Rd/210, Suitland Parkway, and Indian Head Highway are some of the most dangerous roads to drive on in the DMV since they’re accident-prone, people be speeding even when they’re congested, and people be doing wild shyt on the first two, particularly pedestrians and hit-and-runs aren’t uncommon.
RE: influx of poorer residents. Yes, PG has actually been the main DMV suburban area that has received the most influx of poorer residents from DC. As for the effects, most of the communities they’re in now were already largely Black when they arrived but have now gotten even Blacker obviously....Crime levels are still more or less the same with some hood areas getting a lil worse while most others are still the same even before the influx of poorer residents....Family ties in the communities most likely deepened since Black people in PG and The District got mutual family members....Politics-wise, it’s still mainly Democratic.
RE: 2008-2009 Great Recession. Yeah we got hit hard by it, possibly worst than any other jurisdiction in the region. A lot of people bought into the “wealthiest Black County” moniker too fast and bit off more than they could chew without looking at what they were eating first. Not to say we aren’t the wealthiest Black County but a lot of people got too greedy during the housing bubble the DMV had going on back in the early to mid 2000s and everybody especially Black people saw PG as a real estate goldmine to get on the stupid cheap, they didn’t had the foresight that the bubble wasn’t gonna last forever. It’s sad too because a lot of homes here in PG were seeing a crazy amount of gradual appreciation in value, only to see the Great Recession eat a lot of that shyt away
Some of these foreclosed houses were even boarded up, it was crazy back in those days. I think the recession even halted more development at the National Harbor for a lil while and made Disney reconsider putting in a hotel or some kinda resort there IIRC. PG has been slowly but surely bouncing back from the recession tho, I just hope everybody here learned their lesson from it.
(albeit a DC private school lol)
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I was born in Cheverly at PG Hospital in 1992 and used to live in City Line towers (now called Ashton Heights) in Suitland right across the street from the DC side of Southern Ave, Park Berkshire ‘round Forestville, and briefly in Northeast DC (but as an infant) from ‘92 to ‘98. From ‘99 to ‘02, I used to live in Penn Brooke Terrace in District Heights (this was when that old mobile home dealership was still there off of Silver Hill Rd and when PETCO and that toy store at Penn Station Shopping Center, Shakey’s Pizza, Eckhert, and the Black Eyed Pea were still around). Then from ‘02 til ‘07, I lived in Walker Mill and finished elementary school at Oakcrest, went to WM Middle, and Central High for 9th grade.
Walker Mill was also when I first learned how to ride the Metrobus by myself. Lived in a nice lil wooden townhouse, that’s when my mom was in her mid-20s and she became a homeowner. We used to hit up that distribution center in the cut near the Home Depot that had a lot of food, cooking ware, and snacks you could get, used to get my favorite box of cookies there...shyt was a gold mine since most of the area was pretty much a food desert save for that Safeway up the street in Seat Pleasant. First time I’ve played around with pit bulls and shyt. I could get into a lot more breh. I’ve heard Walker Mill’s gotten more ratchet nowadays tho, even the 7-Eleven got more nikkas posted up out there nowadays too whenever I drive by late at night. Nearly all of the people I grew up with were long gone by 2007, that was the year I moved out to Clinton.
