One City, One Future
If GCHIC’s 24-square-mile geographic focus area were incorporated into one municipality, it would already likely be the second largest populated place in Maryland, behind Baltimore City and ahead of Columbia, Germantown, Silver Spring, and Waldorf. If developed to its full potential, through densifying around its Metro stations and other underutilized gateway areas, the combined city’s population could easily exceed 200,000, making it one of the most urbanized areas in Maryland—larger than 16 of the state’s 23 counties and similar in size and density to Arlington County, Virginia.
Five Municipalities Strong
Presently, the existing five small municipalities of Capitol Heights, Seat Pleasant, Fairmount Heights, Glenarden, and District Heights are geographically and politically disjointed, have an inadequate tax base to support the delivery of quality services to their residents, and do not include pockets of currently unincorporated land that are essential to unified planning and governing efforts in this important gateway between the District of Columbia and Prince George’s County.
Uniting Our Communities
GCHIC will engage with the community and the existing municipalities in an effort to find ways to unify this geographic area so that it thinks and acts as a stronger, larger, and more cohesive citizenry. This could include fostering shared municipal services and planning, more formalized planning and coordination among the municipalities and the unincorporated areas, or a broader consideration of annexation and merger issues.
