What happened to Montgomery County MD!! (Baltimore, Silver Spring: middle-class, real estate, apartments)

[Workaholic?]

Back in the 1960s to 1980 Montgomery County used to be known as the rich persons place to live. What happened? Sure there are still nice places to live in Bethesda and Potomac but good parts of the country are now dominated by crime and poverty. The amount of poor people has gone up significantly. Was it a decision of government to bring in large numbers of apartments and so called affordable housing, a crashing economy, or what? The luster is off the rose in Montgomery. Don't you think?

[Henry Bowman]

The result of the so-called progressive movement. What they don't tell you is that the movement is progressively downward.

[BoomBoxing]

Oh no, poor people?! Whatever will we do?? Time to move further out so we can pretend they don't exist!

P.S - Montgomery is still one of the wealthiest counties in the entire country. So even if there are more poor people, there are still a ridiculous amount of well off people still residing there.

[Workaholic?]

I have nothing against hard working middle class people who are trying to move up and fulfill the American Dream but I always thought the goal of any community was to increase it's prosperity and become a better more successful country. Montgomery County was not a poor county with a huge underclass but instead one with a large number of well off people. Now many of the previously upper middle class areas have run down and the social service and welfare needs have exploded.

Yes there is a share of rich people which makes the country seem rich but much of this is living with statistics. There is now a small elite upper class in places like Bethesda, Chevy Chase and Potomac that make the county seem rich but it also has an increasing group of POOR PEOPLE that is now a taxpayers burden. One of the other reasons Montgomery County seems rich is the cost of living is so high that people need a higher income to survive. After the cost of living is considered, the standard of living for a good number of Montgomery County residents is very low.

Originally Posted by BoomBoxing

Oh no, poor people?! Whatever will we do?? Time to move further out so we can pretend they don't exist!

P.S - Montgomery is still one of the wealthiest counties in the entire country. So even if there are more poor people, there are still a ridiculous amount of well off people still residing there.

[BigCityDreamer]

There are plenty of affluent/desirable suburbs still in Montgomery County to choose from - Bethesda, Chevy Case, Somerset, Potomac, North Bethesda, Rockville, Travilah, Darnestown, Kensington, Olney, Brookeville, ...

In fact, Montgomery County has some of the richest suburbs in the DC area and U.S. Just need to do your research and choose wisely.

[nanoscale]

I'm having trouble understanding your comment. I don't go back as early as the timeframe you cite, but I did graduate from MCPS in the eighties and remember the late 70s well. I have also lived in PG, Howard, and for a short time, in Baltimore City for the sake of comparison.

It's a mixed bag. Just some quick observations:

Takoma Park residential wasn't as ridiculously overpriced as it is now. It was truly bohemian back in the day.

I see a lot of complaints about Aspen Hill getting run down. It is probably true that there's less emphasis on exterior maintenance today. Back then, it was a model white, middle-class area with the last of the boomers graduating high school. I see complaints about people working on their cars out in the driveway, but for some perspective, consider that back in the 70s-80s, people changed their oil routinely in driveways with little thought or concern for how to dump the old oil, and this includes well-off families. You could find a Trak-Auto everywhere, and 'specials' on oil/oil filters was a regular ad in the WP/Gazette.

I also see comments about gangs in Glenmont. As a one-time resident of Glenmont Forest way back, right after graduating HS, I can remember looking out of the window and seeing all of the (white) motorcycle gangs that hung out at the shopping center.

Potomac was more accessible to the upper-middle class. You did not need to be super-wealthy to buy in, if you did so at the right time -- 60s & 70s. A house I'm familiar with sold for 1 million around 5 yrs ago that was originally purchased for about $90K circa mid-70s. Churchill HS students represented a broader range of incomes, with families from Scotland, a historically-black neighborhood on Seven Locks to very wealthy families concentrated in the original area surrounding the Village. The residential area around the high school was solidly upper middle class but not obscenely wealthy.

Bethesda has undergone a complete transformation. Hate to burst bubbles, but areas of downtown Bethesda back then bordered on ratty. Anyone remember when WHFS was located on Cordell? Bethesda is now completely unaffordable for most. Ditto downtown Silver Spring rattiness, and some would say it still is.

Burtonsville, Briggs Chaney in SS were just coming up. Ashton was sparse. Considered "country" back then.

Anyone remember the "speed shop" near old Rockville Mall on Hungerford? Rockville was a haven for car stylists, really. It was a hodge-podge of all kinds of local shops including Victor Kamkin's bookshop featuring Russian language newspapers and books. It has all been replaced by "name" storefronts save a few pockets.

What these observations tell me is that the real change in Montgomery is that the two ends (extremely wealthy, low-income) have grown while the middle has kind of dropped out. This is a very general statement with plenty of exceptions to the rule, but fundamentally, today's tensions come down to the issue of allocating resources between two disparate groups. It's not about race or country of origin. I remember white gangs. It's not about a general decline across-the-board -- plenty of people living a life that on average exceeds quality-of-life thirty years ago, but there are also more people who are struggling.

The real loss in MoCo, IMO, is the erosion of a "good government" ethic. I remember a Montgomery County goverment that was effective on issues like consumer protection or housing opportunity. Still better than most, but there's been a loss in general coverage.

Some of this is due to people cashing out during real estate booms. Some of it is due to intentional shuttering of resources as young baby boomers gave way to to a smaller tax base, Gen X.

I remember Langley Park as a home for new immigrants looking for upward economic mobility. The difference now is that there are many more, and add to that people from all over the area that chose MoCo due to superior social services. It is well-known that DC had trouble attracting young families to fill all of those condos because of the perception that MoCo, Fairfax, etc just provide better social and educational services.

So YMMV. No matter where the "average" or "median" MoCo household income falls relative to other counties, I think the big change is not a uniform decline but a bifurcation into extremely wealthy & low-income w/ losses to the middle. It is always easier to serve a uniform and distributed population base.

Originally Posted by Workaholic?

Back in the 1960s to 1980 Montgomery County used to be known as the rich persons place to live. What happened? Sure there are still nice places to live in Bethesda and Potomac but good parts of the country are now dominated by crime and poverty. The amount of poor people has gone up significantly. Was it a decision of government to bring in large numbers of apartments and so called affordable housing, a crashing economy, or what? The luster is off the rose in Montgomery. Don't you think?

[rsh56]

That was a very interesting history of MoCo nanoscale. Was WHFS a rock station? Someone told me it was located in Bethesda in what is now the Palisades.

I think nanoscale just summed it up. I think you'll find a little of everything within this county. It still remains to be one of the wealthiest in the nation.

[nanoscale]

Was WHFS a rock station? Someone told me it was located in Bethesda in what is now the Palisades.

There were two progressive/indy rock stations in the area: WHFS (102.3 FM) in the Triangle Towers bldg on Cordell Ave in Bethesda, across the street from the Psyche Delly (live music) and WGTB, located on the Georgetown Univ campus. By the time I was in high school, 'GTB was already long gone. I remember the WHFS building as much smaller than today's TT high-rise. Palisades is next door.

'HFS soldiered on for a while during the 80s. Great alternative to the standard fare from DC101/WPGC and all the rest at the time. Kind of mellow, low-key DJs, lots of exposure to bands that weren't as commercially successful. DJs I remember include Damien & Weasel. An obscure piece of trivia -- the NJ 80s group The Feelies released a cover of Patti Smith's Dancing Barefoot. It was never available on an album/CD, AFAIK. I did find it on eBay, a WHFS promo CD.

Mid-80s is when all the changes started, location, frequency, call letters ... I sort of lost track after the move to Annapolis. Supposedly some version of the station is now broadcasting again from Bethesda.

I often get lost in downtown Bethesda, it's changed so much. What's funny is that I used to know it like the back of my hand.

[BMORE]

East MoCo is pretty poor, go around Takoma/Langley and that's all you see, but not all of that area is as poor is it appears to be. West MoCo is still known as a pretty elite area though. I mean every city/county has a poor area though, look at NYC. It's known as a dump but it's also known as one of the wealthiest cities on the world. It just all depends on where you are. Travel down Wisconsin Ave and you'll know that your in one of the richest areas in the US just by the stores you see.

[rsh56]

Originally Posted by nanoscale

Was WHFS a rock station? Someone told me it was located in Bethesda in what is now the Palisades.

There were two progressive/indy rock stations in the area: WHFS (102.3 FM) in the Triangle Towers bldg on Cordell Ave in Bethesda, across the street from the Psyche Delly (live music) and WGTB, located on the Georgetown Univ campus. By the time I was in high school, 'GTB was already long gone. I remember the WHFS building as much smaller than today's TT high-rise. Palisades is next door.

'HFS soldiered on for a while during the 80s. Great alternative to the standard fare from DC101/WPGC and all the rest at the time. Kind of mellow, low-key DJs, lots of exposure to bands that weren't as commercially successful. DJs I remember include Damien & Weasel. An obscure piece of trivia -- the NJ 80s group The Feelies released a cover of Patti Smith's Dancing Barefoot. It was never available on an album/CD, AFAIK. I did find it on eBay, a WHFS promo CD.

Mid-80s is when all the changes started, location, frequency, call letters ... I sort of lost track after the move to Annapolis. Supposedly some version of the station is now broadcasting again from Bethesda.

I often get lost in downtown Bethesda, it's changed so much. What's funny is that I used to know it like the back of my hand.

I see. WHFS sounded like the kind of station I would listen to. The new station that's broadcasting from Bethesda is 94.7 WIAD, nothing really like the WHFS, just playing today's and yesterday's pop music. Would like to know what Bethesda looked like back then haha. Bethesda to me is a real easy place to navigate. A family friend who is an old-timer told us how Suburban Hospital was just a small house which now is a big hospital. Where did you go to HS?