Greenbelt is a city in Prince George's County, Maryland, United States, and a suburb of Washington, D.C.[1][2] At the 2020 census, the population was 24,921.

[6][7] The cooperative community was conceived in 1935 by Undersecretary of Agriculture Rexford Guy Tugwell, whose perceived collectivist ideology attracted opposition to the Greenbelt Towns project throughout its short duration.

[8][7] The project came into legal existence on April 8, 1935, when Congress passed the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act of 1935.

[9][8] Under the authority granted to him by this legislation, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order, on May 1, 1935, establishing the United States Resettlement Administration (RA/RRA).

[7] The construction consisted of structures built in the Art Deco, Streamline Moderne, and Bauhaus architectural styles.

[7] Greenbelt is credited as a historic milestone in urban development because it was the initial model for the privately constructed suburban Washington, D.C., planned cities of Reston, Virginia, and Columbia, Maryland.

The ZIP Code 20770 contains all residential and business addresses that correspond to actual physical locations inside the geographic boundaries of the City of Greenbelt.

Box) addresses, while 20771 is the designated ZIP Code for Goddard Space Flight Center, situated on federal government owned land that is contiguous with a portion of Greenbelt's eastern border.

Two major highways pass through and have interchanges in Greenbelt: the Capital Beltway (I-95/I-495) and the National Park Service's owned and maintained portion of the Baltimore–Washington Parkway (unsigned MD 295).

[14] Additionally, Greenbelt Road is part of state highway MD 193, which connects several suburban communities in both Prince George's and Montgomery counties.

[15][16][17] Through a city–university partnership between 2017 and 2019, Greenbelt residents were permitted to unlimited travel on Shuttle UM, with the purchase of a $10 annual pass.

[7] The concept was at the same time both eminently practical and idealistically utopian: the federal government would foster an "ideal" self-sufficient cooperative community that would also ease the pressing housing shortage near the nation's capital.

Construction of the new town would also create jobs and thus help stimulate the national economic recovery following the Great Depression.

Then under the authority granted to him from this legislation, President Roosevelt issued an executive order, on May 1, 1935, establishing the United States Resettlement Administration (RA / RRA).

A fourth town, Roosevelt, New Jersey (originally called Homestead), was planned but was not fully developed on the same large scale as Greenbelt.

She was also heavily involved in the first cooperative community designed by the federal government in the New Deal Era, Arthurdale, West Virginia, which sought to improve the lives of impoverished laborers by enabling them to create a self-sufficient, and relatively prosperous, cooperative community.

[21] The architectural planning of Greenbelt was innovative, as was the social engineering involved in this federal government project.

[23] Applicants for residency were interviewed and screened based on income and occupation, and willingness to become involved in community activities.

[24] African-Americans were initially excluded, but were later included by the Greenbelt Committee for Fair Housing founded in 1963, and came to account for 41% of residents, according to the 2000 census.

[27] Much of the federal government planned and developed portion of the city is located within the Greenbelt Historic District.

[37][38] In June 2008, the United States Department of Justice opened an investigation into the city's election system.

[39] In 2008, the city government hosted three public community meetings regarding election reform, in concert with the ACLU, NAACP, and FairVote.

[40] Over 100 residents attended the forums, including one of the unsuccessful African American candidates, Jeanette Gordy, who said, "My concern is that people don't get off their royal behinds.

[7][52][53] Both the Co-op and the New Deal Cafe carry on a tradition from the city's inception, as they operate as non-profit cooperative membership corporations.

[67] According to Greenbelt's 2018 Comprehensive Annual Financial Report,[68] the top employers in the city were: Note that data was taken from only employers who made information available, and the list does not include the US Federal Government (including NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center adjacent to Greenbelt).

In late 2023, the General Services Administration (GSA) announced that FBI was consolidating offices in Greenbelt.

The state of Virginia has challenged the choice, putting the Inspector General to work reviewing the selection,[69] with no change to the GSA decision as of March 2024.