The Supposed Affluence of PG County (Bowie, College Park: real estate, house, rent)

[Eastern Shore]

I lived in PG county for 28 years. It is a terrible place. Crime is high and the schools are extremely bad. I only drive through it now. I wouldn't be caught dead there. It is the armpit of Maryland. Actually, armpit is being too kind it is more like another body part beginning with an A.


I forgot to mention panhandlers, drug dealers and filth.

[1973 Forced Busing]

It's all due to racism. And something about economics.

[missbrittbritt]

Contrary of others statements on here, I love Prince George's County. I have called this county home for 19 years, as long as I have been alive. My elementary, Beltsville Academic Center, and middle school, Martin Luther King Academic Center, are both National Blue Ribbon Schools, two of the best schools in the county, state, and country. I have had teachers who have won national teachers awards in Elementary and Middle school, and Black Saga, now a national Black History Trivia Competition, started at my elementary school. Former President Bill Clinton visited my middle school. My high school, Charles Herbert Flowers is also a very good school. Several Students have received full scholarships to MIT, NYU, Carnegie Mellon, and many other prestigious colleges and universities. I have lived in Cheverly and Glenarden and my parents currently reside in Mitchellville. People do not hang out on the corner, pushing drugs, and there is little to no crime. I will not negate the fact that Prince George's county has its issues; however, these issues are isolated to the areas that are closer to the city. Even Montgomery County has these same issues now. I now attend college in North Carolina, and I am leaps and bounds ahead of my classmates, who are from all over the country.

Also there is crime and poor schools everywhere. As a recent high school graduate (2005) and a current college student, I can tell everyone that learning just is not important anymore. More emphasis has been placed on children passing test, and getting good grades, as opposed to actually learning. Crime is high because schools are bad, and schools are bad because crime is high, its a vicious cycle. If you watch the wire you will get what im saying. Schools are evaluated on the performance of standardized test, and schools across the world are compared to each other by the results of these test, but the only problem is that the curriculum is not standard, and the test are not the exact same. So there is no true way to evaluate schools performances and compare them to each other.

[Eastern Shore]

P.G County is just plain bad. The area around D.C. is worse than the rest of the county however it spreads more and more every year. Laurel , Bowie and Mitchellville have gang and drug problems. The city of Bowie has gone down hill for the last ten years. You know what is great about P.G. County they work on the roads to no end but can't reduce crime or fix the schools.

[lv2eduk8]

I to am about to move to PG County. I will be Moving from Norfolk VA. I was concerned about where to move in PG County. I have done alot of research, and there is high crime all over PG County. My concern now is what can I do to help. There has been alot of negative and positive replies. I have lived in Atlanta, that is a place that I would never recommend to anyone. Every black person I talk with thinks that Atlanta is the AA pie in the sky. I am not shocked at anything I have heard or read. I look at PG County's location in reference to DC, and no wonder the crime is so high. The developers are running the AA out of the inner cities, into the suburbs. I will work in PG County, and find an area to live. I have a home in VA, that I will keep, and commute back too often.

[1973 Forced Busing]

I went to Beltsville Jr High. It is now a police station. Oh how the requirements change.

[Alanboy395]

Originally Posted by lv2eduk8

I to am about to move to PG County. I will be Moving from Norfolk VA. I was concerned about where to move in PG County. I have done alot of research, and there is high crime all over PG County. My concern now is what can I do to help. There has been alot of negative and positive replies. I have lived in Atlanta, that is a place that I would never recommend to anyone. Every black person I talk with thinks that Atlanta is the AA pie in the sky. I am not shocked at anything I have heard or read. I look at PG County's location in reference to DC, and no wonder the crime is so high. The developers are running the AA out of the inner cities, into the suburbs. I will work in PG County, and find an area to live. I have a home in VA, that I will keep, and commute back too often.

If you're from Norfolk, VA you will be perplexed at how much more crime you'll have to deal with. I'm from Hampton, VA and PG good parts have as much crime as Norfolk's and Hampton's bad parts. I would look into New Carrollton and Hyattsville proper. Those are the only parts of PG that are decent and somewhat affordable. But if you don't have to leave Norfolk by all means stay.

[fishfister]

Originally Posted by missbrittbritt

Contrary of others statements on here, I love Prince George's County. I have called this county home for 19 years, as long as I have been alive. My elementary, Beltsville Academic Center, and middle school, Martin Luther King Academic Center, are both National Blue Ribbon Schools, two of the best schools in the county, state, and country. I have had teachers who have won national teachers awards in Elementary and Middle school, and Black Saga, now a national Black History Trivia Competition, started at my elementary school. Former President Bill Clinton visited my middle school. My high school, Charles Herbert Flowers is also a very good school. Several Students have received full scholarships to MIT, NYU, Carnegie Mellon, and many other prestigious colleges and universities. I have lived in Cheverly and Glenarden and my parents currently reside in Mitchellville. People do not hang out on the corner, pushing drugs, and there is little to no crime. I will not negate the fact that Prince George's county has its issues; however, these issues are isolated to the areas that are closer to the city. Even Montgomery County has these same issues now. I now attend college in North Carolina, and I am leaps and bounds ahead of my classmates, who are from all over the country.

Also there is crime and poor schools everywhere. As a recent high school graduate (2005) and a current college student, I can tell everyone that learning just is not important anymore. More emphasis has been placed on children passing test, and getting good grades, as opposed to actually learning. Crime is high because schools are bad, and schools are bad because crime is high, its a vicious cycle. If you watch the wire you will get what im saying. Schools are evaluated on the performance of standardized test, and schools across the world are compared to each other by the results of these test, but the only problem is that the curriculum is not standard, and the test are not the exact same. So there is no true way to evaluate schools performances and compare them to each other.

not to argue with you but your residences in cheverly and glenarden make my heart stop. glenarden was the murder capital of the USA in the late 1980s. anything that direction (west) of the beltway is still badlands. landover mall was not safe in the 1990s. your schools in mitchelville must have been the epitome of our most talented black educators because the rest of the county is going over the edge.
your last paragraph makes no sense at all. you lived in a country that demanded a quota system to ensure black children passed on through school with very little effort. i know of two doctors in the field of education that have nailed it on the head and are publishing a book concerning it. as far as getting good grades, i mentioned in an earlier post how my neighbor's daughter, transplanted from san diego, has been shunned and accused of trying to be white when doing well in school. i find that to be harrassment that the school should do something about.
as far as crime and school; that is a family matter that should be the concerns of parents of the criminals in the school. did your parents raise you to be a criminal? did they have some concern in your schooling or were they merely glad you had somewhere you were supposed to be during the day. your post was educated yet sheltered. the wire does not reflect the effects of crime/school and the value of parental participation in a student's life. you can point fingers at either one but the problem is lack of discipline which started in the home as a toddler. maybe the parents don't really care and behave the same. we are all taught to be wise asses that crack one liners if we live by what tv teaches us. you witness great self discipline at college in those that want to learn. others are there to party.
as far as thugs not hanging out on street corners, what corners did you watch?

[missbrittbritt]

Originally Posted by fishfister

not to argue with you but your residences in cheverly and glenarden make my heart stop. glenarden was the murder capital of the USA in the late 1980s. anything that direction (west) of the beltway is still badlands. landover mall was not safe in the 1990s. your schools in mitchelville must have been the epitome of our most talented black educators because the rest of the county is going over the edge.
your last paragraph makes no sense at all. you lived in a country that demanded a quota system to ensure black children passed on through school with very little effort. i know of two doctors in the field of education that have nailed it on the head and are publishing a book concerning it. as far as getting good grades, i mentioned in an earlier post how my neighbor's daughter, transplanted from san diego, has been shunned and accused of trying to be white when doing well in school. i find that to be harrassment that the school should do something about.
as far as crime and school; that is a family matter that should be the concerns of parents of the criminals in the school. did your parents raise you to be a criminal? did they have some concern in your schooling or were they merely glad you had somewhere you were supposed to be during the day. your post was educated yet sheltered. the wire does not reflect the effects of crime/school and the value of parental participation in a student's life. you can point fingers at either one but the problem is lack of discipline which started in the home as a toddler. maybe the parents don't really care and behave the same. we are all taught to be wise asses that crack one liners if we live by what tv teaches us. you witness great self discipline at college in those that want to learn. others are there to party.
as far as thugs not hanging out on street corners, what corners did you watch?

The statement that you make only shows that you have the remotest idea of Prince George's County. You cannot come on here and tell me how I live or who lives around me. I lived on Crest Avenue in Cheverly there are not any thugs on those street corners. How does Cheverly make your heart stop? I lived on Fourth Street in Glenarden, and I did not wittness any of that. And now, I live in Mitchellville, I still do not see that. Also, if you know as much about Prince George's County, as you claim to do through all your many rants, you would know that Beltsville Academic Center is in Beltsville, MD, and that MLK Jr. Academic Center is in Beltsville/Laurel as well. Was my high school good, yes, and there are other high schools in Prince George's County that are as well, ERHS, HPhs, Laurel etc.

My last paragraph makes very good sense, I have been to school, with all types of ethnicities, from all different economic backgrounds. In this present moment, teachers, students, staff, the government are more concerned with students testing well, and getting good grades. People do not care anymore about ensuring that students understand and grasp concepts, they are more concerned with making sure the students understand how to take the test so the schools will not be overtaken by the state. If no child is left behind, who is going to be in front? These new test that they have in MD, they had college students take them, who studied the respect subjects, and they couldn't pass them. Some of these teachers can not even pass these test. In Montgomery County about 5 years ago, did they not arrest teachers for helping students cheat on these state test. To all the parents out there, chances are your child is cheating, they are not learning, they are just bringing home good grades.

Prince George's County is a reflection of America's Economic situation in general. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer. Someone said it earlier, its just race and economic. The generation that was born during the crack epidemic is coming to age. There are a lot of teenagers and 20 something year olds, who were raised without their parents. Or who did not have any type of parental influence in their lives. The parents were not there to care, thats why it is very important that people who are successful come into place and help guide young children, because their parents either were not there, or did not have parents to guide them properly. Also, there are counties in Maryland, who do not pay as much money per capita in taxes than we do, who have less people than we do, but they get a larger allotment of money than we do. Prince George's county does not even have the money to offer teachers competitive wages, even though they spend 1.68 Billion dollars on the school system. DCPS teachers get paid more than PG county school teachers

And this is not just in Prince George's County, or with Black Americans, this is everywhere where there is poverty. I work in Greensboro, with White kids, and they can not read or do basic math computations and they are in the fourth grade.

[jallen]

Originally Posted by Alanboy395

If you're from Norfolk, VA you will be perplexed at how much more crime you'll have to deal with. I'm from Hampton, VA and PG good parts have as much crime as Norfolk's and Hampton's bad parts. I would look into New Carrollton and Hyattsville proper. Those are the only parts of PG that are decent and somewhat affordable. But if you don't have to leave Norfolk by all means stay.

You send a message asking about an area to live in and now you proclaim to know all of PG County. Your statement is absolutely false, baseless and shows how much inaccurate information is on this board.

Don't worry as major metropolitan areas such as this area (where there are real jobs-not working as a supervisor at the Stop-N-Go) continues to gentrify economically and the poor people can't afford to live here they are going to Norfolk, Culpepper, Hampton and areas you are mentioning and the crime will follow.

There is going to be a major shift in the demographics in this area and others alike and it will all be predicated on one's economic status. It is happening throughout the country.