Prince George's County seeks to rezone a Strip Mall into the Rural Tier

Very soon the wise men and women of Prince George’s County will decide whether to “adjust” their general and master plans by dropping a strip mall into the rural tier along the east side of US301. The concept of extending the strip malls of Charles County comes to mind as there is a tendency to ,add more and more malls until they exist side by side, wall to wall mall. A trip through Waldorf is a possible vision of the historic district of Woodland just east of Upper Marlboro, Maryland. And with the plethora of parking lots and shopping centers anchored by “upscale” stores such as Target, residents can expect an increase in traffic which in turn will mean more time in the car.[1]

The development vision which sees little or no value in open space or historic districts will rezone Crain Corner into a power center anchored by one or two big national chain boxes, just as some areas are trying to figure out what to do with these large stores when the retailer moves on. Julia Christensen writes that “[a]merica is becoming a container landscape of big boxes connected by highways. When a big box store upsizes to an even bigger box "supercenter" down the road, it leaves behind more than the vacant shell of a retail operation; it leaves behind a changed landscape that can't be changed back. Acres of land have been paved around it. Highway exits lead to it; local roads end at it. With thousands of empty big box stores spread across America, these sites have become a dominant feature of the American landscape.”[2]

The uniqueness of the Woodland and Upper Marlboro area will be subsumed by “…perhaps a grocery store, bookstores, pet supply shops, electronics retailers, or a variety of other retail establishments and fast food or chain restaurants.”[3] Prince George’s County will lose the identity of place and become homogenized by the sameness of macadam and concrete. “With the rise of the big box store, a strip mall is now more likely to have uniform architecture, where all buildings have a central theme or resemble each other, making them more aesthetically pleasing” , and thereby removinga the eye sore complaint at the expense of losing the uniqueness that was Woodland.[4]





[1] http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-strip-mall.htm
[2] MIT Press Web site: http://mitpress.mit.edu/shared/legal/default.asp
[3] http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-strip-mall.htm
[4] Idem