Hagerstown, what is it (Frederick, Gaithersburg: housing, employment, traffic)

[aca1]

I just had one question about hagerstown. On my atlas it is boxed and enlarged for detail in a seperate place. In Alabama cities like Montgomery, Birmingham, and Mobile are done like this, but hagerstown only has a population of about 30,something, thousand people, and I can't seem to find pictures of downtown or a aerial view, just of individual buildings. So I was just asking, does the city have skyscrapers, or at least tall buildings, does it have a lot of shopping and is it anywhere close to being like fredericksburg? thankyou

[westsideboy]

Hagerstown doesn't have any skyscrapers. It has several buildings between about 5-10 stories downtown, and that is about it. It is a regional center for Washington County and the surronding counties in PA and WV. An Hagerstown metro areas that has about 200,000 people or so, which is why it received a special blow-up map in the atlas It is also a important Transportation hub as I-70 and I-81 intersect there. I don't know much about Fredericksburg, but Hagerstown is about the western limit of the D.C. sprawl in Maryland. It is a quickly growing area and has suburban staples like traffic, big box retailers, subdevelopments, large commuter populations, but still has a agricutural feel to it.

[crabstopeaches]

I live in hagerstown and everything westsideboy said is correct. No real skyscrapers but that is because they are trying to preserve the historical aspects of downtown hagerstown. I'm in my mid 20s and I have watched this little town grow up very rapidly in the last 10 years or so. It may have an agricultural feel right now but in another 10 yrs I doubt we'll have much grass left. Also the average cost of a home is going through the roof around here and truthfully, unless you get something in a subdivision, they aren't that great.

[HomeStore]

Hagerstown is the largest employment center in Western Maryland (a three county area.) Within the city limits, the population is about 36,000, but that doesn't include the population of the larger suburban area. The city's nickname from the last century is the "hub city," since it's been a transportation hub since the 1700's. Like Fredericksburg, this is Civil War tourism country. Antietam Battlefield is just south of town; Harper's Ferry isn't much farther; Gettysburg is about an hour away. The housing is more affordable than in the towns east, such as Frederick, Gaithersburg, Rockville. And this is a big community when it comes to shopping - Prime Outlets has a large center. Hagerstown isn't as spiffy as downtown Frederick, but it's got it's charm and quirks (Krumpe Donuts, tubing on the Potomac, a great Blues Fest).