College Park has been on a building spree over the last decade so intense that it made a list of the top 10 most-changed cities in the country.
As part of a long-term plan to build more student housing, the city has approved several large apartment buildings along Route 1, such as The Varsity and University View, and even projects aimed at graduate students.
One statistic tells the story. In 2013, the median year that a home was built in College Park was 1979. Ten years later, it’s 17 years younger.
That made College Park the ninth most-changed city over that time period, according to data from PropertyShark cited in the New York Times.
Other cities on the list include Hoboken, N.J.; Atlanta and Seattle. Notably, the cities that changed even more include Williston, N.D., where the discovery of oil has transformed the local economy, and Farmers Branch, Texas, a fast-growing suburb of Dallas.
Urban planner Dan Reed noted that a lack of a lack of student housing led to a “tent city” protest in 2007, writing on social media that the growth in housing has made Route 1 “unrecognizable” compared to then.
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This article fails to mention that the city of College Park and Prince Georges County have strategically and meticulously decreased the number of multi family, zoned residential properties, essentially eliminating duplexes and triplexes (a traditional and reliable source of affordable housing).