Greenbelt is a great community ....
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9/11/2010
Created as one of three "greentowns" in the United States during the New Deal, Greenbelt is built on a co-operative model. We have one of the largest and best-run housing co-operatives in the country, Greenbelt Homes Inc (GHI)., which also owns 250 acres of woods near the DC beltway. Our newspaper, the Greenbelt News Review, is the nation's longest-running all-volunteer newspaper in the country, and in the 1970s our paper was involved in a First Amendment lawsuit that went to the US Supreme Court (we won). This is an affordable community in the metro DC area with amazing public amenities: walkable paths that take you to the town center, lake, swimming pool, Art Deco movie theatre, arts center, and a wonderful grocery that is also a co-operative. There is a spirit of neighborliness I have rarely seen. Last winter, with 59 inches of snow, neighbors were out shoveling out each other's cars, traveling by 4-wheel drive for miles for coffee for neighbors when the power went out, and sharing garden spaces. Our cooperative homes are small, since they date from 1937-41, and they are townhouses in GHI, but there are single-family homes, although Greenbelt is such a desirable town that they are rarely on the market for long. I love this town. It's funky, activist, artsy, political, and fun. We have our issues, of course, in particular that Old Greenbelt, where GHI and the town center are located, could be better connected to Greenbelt East and Greenbelt West.
J.L. | Greenbelt, MD