Coming to UMD, I’ve found that a lot of people, usually white people from Montgomery/Howard/other random ass counties, have misconstrued images of Prince George’s County and its residents. For some reason, concentrated groups of minority populations apparently always means “ghetto” in their minds. My point is not to propel the dichotomy between “good” black areas and the “bad” ones, but to just highlight an area that often gets a bad reputation solely for having a high minority population. I thought writing about the formation of the county along with current statistics could help clear it up.
Wealth in the United States of America is directly correlated to homeownership; it's the only way for the middle-class to accumulate wealth. The history of black homeownership in America has been a rocky one. The government played a direct role in excluding African-Americans from suburbanization, actually enforcing race-related policies by the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) so that black people could not integrate into white-only neighborhoods. The FHA’s Underwriting Manual stated “if a neighborhood is to retain stability it is necessary that properties shall continue to be occupied by the same social and racial classes” because this could cause instability and reduction in values of housing, helping to segregate neighborhood by both race and class early on. These policies directly resulted in the black enclaves, Prince George’s County being a prime example.White people would actually move out in massive numbers when black people began to move into their neighborhoods. As affluent blacks began moving into PG County, whites began moving out. Presently, white people make up only 14.2% of the population of the county, but if you live in PG even that percentage would surprise you.
According to the Atlantic Blackstar, five out of ten of the richest black neighborhoods in America are located in Prince George’s County. The median income in PG County $73,447 which is $1,000 higher than the median income in Maryland and $23,000 over the median income in the US; these figures look very different when you look into the actual neighborhoods in PG, though, because there are segregated clusters by class throughout (US Census Bureau). The top 3 highest income neighborhoods in PG are Mitchellville, Fort Washington and Kettering with median incomes of 118,000, 115,000, 108,000 respectively. A little after the Great Migration of African-Americans from the South to the Northern cities, suburbanization was big in the 1990s. Even though suburbanization was a mostly white movement, affluent African-Americans that could afford to move to the suburbs from the District found themselves moving in massive numbers to Prince George’s County. Prince George’s County is the richest mostly minority county in the United States. PG is home to NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, Six Flags America, National Wildlife Visitor Center, FedEx Field and the Washington Redskins, Andrews Air Force Base and the President's Air Force One aircraft.
Also, I don’t know if y'all know this, but you literally go to school in PG County. Taraji P. Henson and half of the basketball team that you fantasize over is from here.
