Greenbelt is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland,
United States. Contained within today's City of Greenbelt is the historic, planned
community now known locally as "Old Greenbelt." Greenbelt's population was 21,456 at the 2000 census.
History
Old Greenbelt was settled in 1937 as a public cooperative
community (one of many public works projects referred to by Woody Guthrie as "an
experiment in American socialism"[1]) in the New Deal Era. The concept was at the same time both
eminently practical and idealistically utopian: the federal government would foster an "ideal" self-sufficient cooperative
community that would also ease the pressing housing shortage near the nation's capital. Construction of the new town would also
create jobs and thus help stimulate the national economic recovery following the Great Depression.
Greenbelt, which provided affordable housing for federal government workers, was one of three "green" towns planned in
1935 by Rexford Guy Tugwell, head of the United States Resettlement Administration, under authority of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. (The two other green towns are Greendale, Wisconsin (near Milwaukee) and
Greenhills, Ohio (near Cincinnati). A fourth
green town, Roosevelt, New Jersey (originally called Homestead), was planned but
was not fully developed on the same large scale as Greenbelt. Eleanor Roosevelt, wife
of President Franklin D. Roosevelt, helped Tugwell lay out the town on a site that
had formerly consisted largely of tobacco fields. Eleanor Roosevelt also was heavily involved in the first cooperative community
designed by the federal government in the New Deal Era, Arthurdale, West
Virginia, which sought to better the lives of impoverished laborers by enabling them to create a self-sufficient, and
relatively prosperous, cooperative community.
The architectural planning of Greenbelt was innovative, but no less so than the social engineering involved in this federal government project.
Bordering Areas
Geography and Highlights
Greenbelt is located at 39°0′2″N, 76°53′18″W (39.000460,
-76.888325)1.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area
of 15.6 km² (6.0 mi²). 15.5 km² (6.0 mi²) of it is
land and 0.1 km² (0.04 mi²) of it (0.50%) is water.
Greenbelt's ZIP codes are 20768, 20770, and 20771.
Greenbelt Road is a portion of State Highway 193, a highway connecting several
suburban towns, with links to the Baltimore-Washington Parkway and to the
nation's capital.
The Goddard Space Flight Center of the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration is located there, as is Greenbelt Park.
Demographics
Southway, a road on the southern portion of Old Greenbelt
As of the census2 of 2000, there were 21,456 people, 9,368 households, and 4,965 families residing
in the city. The population density was 1,385.3/km² (3,586.6/mi²). There were 10,180
housing units at an average density of 657.3/km² (1,701.7/mi²). The racial makeup of the city was 39.74% White, 41.35% African American, 0.23% Native American, 12.05% Asian, 0.05% Pacific Islander, 3.11% from other races, and 3.47% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 6.45% of the population.
There were 9,368 households out of which 26.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 33.1% were married couples living together, 15.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 47.0% were
non-families. 35.0% of all households were made up of individuals and 5.8% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or
older. The average household size was 2.29 and the average family size was 3.00.
In the city the population was spread out with 21.9% under the age of 18, 12.5% from 18 to 24, 39.1% from 25 to 44, 19.8% from
45 to 64, and 6.7% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 32 years. For every 100 females there were 91.8 males.
For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 88.2 males.
The median income for a household in the city was $46,328, and the median income for a family was $55,671. Males had a median
income of $39,133 versus $35,885 for females. The per capita income for the city was
$25,236. About 6.0% of families and 10.2% of the population were below the poverty
line, including 12.7% of those under age 18 and 7.2% of those age 65 or over.
Education
Albert S. Buddy Attick Lake Park
Greenbelt is served by Prince George's County Public
Schools.
The city is served by four elementary schools:
- Greenbelt Elementary School (Greenbelt)
- Magnolia Elementary School (unincorporated Prince George's County, Lanham
address)
- Springhill Lake Elementary School (Greenbelt) and
- Saint Hugh's Parochial School
All of Greenbelt is served by Greenbelt Middle School and Eleanor
Roosevelt High School, a highly-rated magnet school; both schools are in the city.
Footnotes
- ^ Hampton, Wayne. Guerilla Minstrels: John Lennon, Joe Hill,
Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan (Knoxville, 1986), 131.
See also
Further reading
- Knepper, Cathy D. "Greenbelt, Maryland: A Living Legacy of the New Deal (Creating the North American Landscape)". The Johns
Hopkins University Press, 2001. ISBN 0-8018-6490-9.
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to:
Coordinates:
39.00046° N 76.888325°
W
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