Marlton, Maryland

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The planned community of Marlton was founded in the mid 1960s. It has about 7800 residents as of 2000. It is majority black, with a high per capita income. Original plans for the community were more grand, which included a large scale regional shopping mall with five anchors (most likely Woodward & Lothrop, Garfinkles, Sears, Montgomery Wards and Hechts), a large shopping center with multiple big box stores, high rise apartment buildings, an industrial park, two golf courses, multiple elementary schools, a middle school, and a high school, a library, a fire station and a police station, and other services. Into the 1970s, with a building moritorium in effect in Prince George's County, most of these features were not built, other than one of the golf courses and one of the elementary schools. As the 1980s progressed, the Pleasants Corporation purchased the development rights for Marlton and proposed a major increase in housing units, along with a large shopping center which would have included the first Wal Mart in Maryland. Community opposition scaled back these plans. Into the late 1990s, demographics changed in the community.