When officials in Gaithersburg decided to install security cameras in an effort to stem a burgeoning crime rate, that illustrated the sad, swift decline of the once charming town center to an area of urban decay, some locals said.
Dormant streets, a mishmash of empty shops and growing pockets of gang activity now afflict the former agricultural enclave in central Montgomery County.
Even with recent pushes to revitalize the city, particularly Olde Towne, many say it has fallen too far behind to compete with increasingly popular walkable communities and already established suburbs in the area.
“Everything is old,” lamented Ali Akbar at his once-bustling Olde Towne Cafe. “There is no future here. If I knew what I know now, I would never have come here.”
Akbar calls the new Gaithersburg a “place where people are afraid to come out after dark,” and “development is nonexistent,” causing much of the city to look out of place compared with nearby communities, such as nearby Rockville and Germantown.
When asked how things got off track in Gaithersburg, critics point to several factors, including county policies that led to a proliferation of low income housing while discouraging development, and an unwillingness by authorities to stanch an exploding illegal immigrant population.
The results have been sobering. Home values have fallen more than in surrounding areas, and are now $50,000 below the median for Montgomery County, according to census data. And robberies and other serious crimes have risen dramatically, officials said.
“It’s an area we’ve been forced to devote a lot of officers to,” said Montgomery County Police Chief J. Thomas Manger during a recent community meeting.
Worried about disrupting the area’s historiccharm, city officials blocked many pushes to commercialize segments of Gaithersburg, some critics said. In turn, developers flocked to surrounding areas, and Gaithersburg property values for the most part plummeted — aside from high-end pockets.
“Certainly it’s a perception around here,” Mayor Sidney Katz said, of the city’s reputation as crime-ridden and underperforming. “People will say it’s unsafe here because there is nobody on the streets. But then again, other people will say it’s safe here because there is nobody on the streets.”
The bashing has been tied to surging gang activity in the city. Police will install a series of cameras in the Olde Towne corridor in an attempt to reverse the growing number of street attacks.
Cops say most of the crime in Olde Towne is tied to Hispanic street gangs.
Authorities also have stepped up patrols in pockets prone for robberies. One of the most active police zones is around Lakeforest Mall, Manger said.
Gaithersburg is home to roughly 60,000 residents, making it one of Maryland’s largest cities. Boosters point out that the Kentlands, a planned community, has become one of the most sought after — and expensive — mixed-used neighborhoods in the region.
And some insist that the transitional traumas Gaithersburg is enduring now will pass, and the city will stabilize.
Homes surrounding Olde Towne Gaithersburg have become the destination point for a growing blue-collar Hispanic community, drawn by an ample supply of affordable housing — they account for at least 20 percent of the incorporated city’s population.
Like many of the city’s residents, they were priced out of Washington’s inner suburbs.
Local insurance agent Dave Vidmar says the demographic shift has created a budding entrepreneurial force in the community — throngs of artisan workers are starting businesses for the first time — that will ultimately “fuel Gaithersburg’s resurgence.”
» About 10 gangs, with roughly 200 members, are active in the city.
» Gangs are responsible for 20 percent of all police activity.
» Most common gang crimes are street robberies.
» Half of gang activity is tied to juveniles.
Source: Gaithersburg police
But a generational and noticeably racial divide also has formed.
Local businessman Basil Waters, who owns a longtime appliance store, said he was part of efforts to revitalize Gaithersburg in the 1970s, and he isn’t pleased with the city’s conversion.
“It’s changed a lot,” he said. “I don’t think it’s a good thing. There’s a lot of foreigners around here doing nothing but walking the sidewalk.”
Even so, some residents are puzzled by the cultural war.
“There comes a point in every historic district when it has to be revitalized,” said Bret Kimbrough. “So what, there’s a lot of Latino people here; there’s a tendency to assign a negative karma to change. It’s not right.”
But reflecting on the new Gaithersburg, he added, “Some long-time residents probably do feel alienated.”
