Greenbelt is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, and a suburb of Washington, D.C. At the 2020 census, the population was 24,921.
Greenbelt is the first and the largest of the three experimental New Deal Greenbelt Towns, the others being Greenhills, Ohio, and Greendale, Wisconsin. Greenbelt was planned and built by the federal government as an all-White town. The cooperative community was conceived in 1935 by Undersecretary of Agriculture Rexford Tugwell, whose perceived collectivist ideology attracted opposition to the Greenbelt Towns project throughout its short duration. The project came into legal existence on April 8, 1935, when Congress passed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. Under the authority granted to him by this legislation, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order, on May 1, 1935, establishing the United States Resettlement Administration (RA/RRA).
First called Maryland Special Project No. 1, the project was officially named Greenbelt when the Division of Suburban Resettlement of the Resettlement Administration began construction, on January 13, 1936, about eight miles north of Washington. The complete Greenbelt plans were reviewed at the White House by President Roosevelt and First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt on April 30, 1936. The first tenants, after selection in a stringent application process, moved in to the town on September 30, 1937. The construction consisted of structures built in the Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, and Bauhaus architectural styles.
Greenbelt is credited as a historic milestone in urban development because it was the initial model for the privately constructed suburban Washington, D.C., planned cities of Reston, Virginia, and Columbia, Maryland.
The original federally-built core of the city, known locally as Old Greenbelt, was recognized as the Greenbelt Historic District by the Maryland Historical Trust, and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a National Historic Landmark District.
Greenbelt's population, which includes residents of privately built dwellings dating from after the end of the federal government's ownership of the city, was recorded as at the 2010 U.S. census and 24,921 at the 2020 census.
Geography
Greenbelt is located at . According to United States Census Bureau data, as of January 1, 2018, the city has a total area of , of which is land and is water. Greenbelt's ZIP Codes are 20770, 20771, and 20768. The ZIP Code 20770 contains all residential and business addresses that correspond to actual physical locations inside the geographic boundaries of the City of Greenbelt. The 20768 ZIP Code is assigned exclusively to post-office box (P.O. Box) addresses, while 20771 is the designated ZIP Code for Goddard Space Flight Center, situated on federal government owned land that is contiguous with a portion of Greenbelt's eastern border.
NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, located directly adjacent to Greenbelt's eastern boundary, utilizes a Greenbelt postal address (Greenbelt, MD 20768), as well. It is partially within the former Goddard census-designated place."CENSUS 2000 BLOCK MAP: GODDARD CDP ." U.S. Census Bureau. Retrieved on September 1, 2018. 1990 Census map of Prince George's County (index map) has Goddard CDP on Page 9 ."Driving Directions to the Goddard Visitor Center ." Goddard Space Flight Center. Retrieved on September 1, 2018. "8800 Greenbelt Road Greenbelt, MD 20771" - Driving Directions Map , Campus Map
Greenbelt Park, a unit of the National Park System, is located within the City of Greenbelt's boundaries, at its southernmost portion.
Transportation
Roads and highways Two major highways pass through and have interchanges in Greenbelt: the Capital Beltway (I-95/I-495) and the National Park Service's owned and maintained portion of the Baltimore–Washington Parkway (unsigned MD 295). The Greenbelt portion of the Baltimore–Washington Parkway (B–W Parkway) is part of the parkway's 19-mile section which was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991.
Additionally, Greenbelt Road is part of state highway MD 193, which connects several suburban communities in both Prince George's and Montgomery counties. Kenilworth Avenue (MD 201) traverses Greenbelt in a north–south direction, running parallel to the B–W Parkway, providing an alternate travel route into Washington, D.C., from Greenbelt. The southernmost Maryland portion of Kenilworth Avenue forms a major interchange with both the B–W Parkway and US 50 near the Maryland–D.C. line, and continues into Washington, as the Kenilworth Avenue Freeway (DC 295).
Public transportation
Washington Metro's rapid transit rail system serves Washington, D.C., and neighboring communities in Maryland and Northern Virginia, by operating 98 Metro stations, which includes the Greenbelt, the northern terminus of Metro's Green Line and Yellow Line. Commuter rail service to the station is provided by MARC Train's Camden Line, which connects the District of Columbia's Washington Union Station with Camden Station in Baltimore. The Camden Line provides service by utilizing the original 1835 Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) track route between Washington and Baltimore, now part of the CSX System.
Metrobus, Prince George's County's THE BUS (routes 11 and 15X), and the University of Maryland's Shuttle-UM (route 143; University ID required) each have bus routes which serve the city of Greenbelt. Through a city–university partnership between 2017 and 2019, Greenbelt residents were permitted to unlimited travel on Shuttle UM, with the purchase of a $10 annual pass. The City operates limited transportation via the Greenbelt Connection, a 12-passenger wheelchair-accessible van.
Bordering areas
Beltsville Agricultural Research Center Berwyn Heights College Park Goddard Lanham New Carrollton Glenn Dale
History
Greenbelt was settled on September 30, 1937, as a public cooperative community 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 Greenbelt Towns conceived in 1935, by President Franklin D. Roosevelt's Brain Trust member Rexford Tugwell, who was serving as the president's Undersecretary of Agriculture. The project was officially authorized in May 1935. First, on April 8, 1935, the United States Congress passed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935. Then under the authority granted to him from this legislation, President Roosevelt issued an executive order, on May 1, 1935, establishing the United States Resettlement Administration (RA / RRA). Rexford Tugwell agreed to serve as the Administrator of the Resettlement Administration, in addition to his Undersecretary of Agriculture position, without receiving any additional salary.
Working alongside Tugwell was Charles W. Yost. The two other Greenbelt Towns are Greendale, Wisconsin (near Milwaukee) and Greenhills, Ohio (near Cincinnati). A fourth 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 Maryland town on a site that had formerly consisted largely of tobacco fields. She was also heavily involved in the first cooperative community designed by the federal government in the New Deal Era, Arthurdale, West Virginia, which sought to improve the lives of impoverished laborers by enabling them to create a self-sufficient, and relatively prosperous, cooperative community. Cooperatives in Greenbelt include the Greenbelt News Review, Greenbelt Consumers Coop grocery store, the New Deal Cafe, and the cooperative forming the downtown core of original housing, Greenbelt Homes Incorporated (GHI).
The architectural planning of Greenbelt was innovative, as was the social engineering involved in this federal government project. Applicants for residency were interviewed and screened based on income and occupation, and willingness to become involved in community activities. African-Americans were initially excluded, but were later included by the Greenbelt Committee for Fair Housing founded in 1963, and came to account for 41% of residents, according to the 2000 census. The same census data also indicates that African-Americans are isolated in certain parts within the town, and the percentage of African-Americans within the historic area is between 0% and 5% on most blocks. Much of the federal government planned and developed portion of the city is located within the Greenbelt Historic District.
Greenbelt was the subject of the 1939 documentary film The City.
In 2021, the city created a reparations task force to study the issue of whether or not to award reparations to African-Americans in Greenbelt.
Demographics
Racial and ethnic composition +Greenbelt city, Maryland – Racial and ethnic compositionRace / Ethnicity (NH = Non-Hispanic)Pop 2000Pop 2010Pop 2020% 2000% 2010% 2020White alone (NH)7,9865,9745,17637.22%25.90%20.77%Black or African American alone (NH)8,74610,85211,89740.76%47.04%47.74%Native American or Alaska Native alone (NH)4543470.21%0.19%0.19%Asian alone (NH)2,5862,2382,32312.05%9.70%9.32%Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander alone (NH)518100.02%0.08%0.04%Other race alone (NH)75611920.35%0.26%0.77%Mixed race or Multiracial (NH)6305819962.94%2.52%4.00%Hispanic or Latino (any race)1,3833,3014,2806.45%14.31%17.17%Total21,45623,06824,921 100.00%100.00%100.00%
2020 census
As of the 2020 census, Greenbelt had a population of 24,921. The median age was 35.0 years. 22.3% of residents were under the age of 18 and 11.4% of residents were 65 years of age or older. For every 100 females there were 85.5 males, and for every 100 females age 18 and over there were 81.2 males age 18 and over.
100.0% of residents lived in urban areas, while 0.0% lived in rural areas.
There were 10,244 households in Greenbelt, of which 30.6% had children under the age of 18 living in them. Of all households, 29.8% were married-couple households, 22.1% were households with a male householder and no spouse or partner present, and 41.5% were households with a female householder and no spouse or partner present. About 35.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 10.2% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.
There were 10,789 housing units, of which 5.1% were vacant. The homeowner vacancy rate was 1.3% and the rental vacancy rate was 5.6%.
+ Racial composition as of the 2020 census Race Number Percent White 5,581 22.4% Black or African American 12,051 48.4% American Indian and Alaska Native 153 0.6% Asian 2,335 9.4% Native Hawaiian and Other Pacific Islander 19 0.1% Some other race 2,838 11.4% Two or more races 1,944 7.8%
2010 census During the census of 2010, there were people, households, and families residing in the city. The population density was . There were housing units at an average density of . The racial makeup of the city was % White, % African American, % Native American, % Asian, % Pacific Islander, % from other races, and % from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were % of the population.