Population: 24,657 First Settled: 1745 Incorporated: 1945 Office Market: 3 msf Total Land Area: 5.5 sq miles Distance From DC: 9.7 miles Government: Council / Manager

College Park is named for and primarily known as home to the University of Maryland. Although the city remains first and foremost a college town, there is significant non-educational activity there. College Park is home to the National Archives annex, the National Library of Agriculture and the College Park Airport, which was founded in 1909 by the Wright brothers and is the oldest continuously operating airport in the world.

Ask someone what the best college towns are and you’re likely to hear answers like Boulder, Madison, Chapel Hill, Berkeley. Rarely will you hear College Park That’s for good reason. Campus is sprawled over a huge land area, downtown is a tiny strip of retail along Route 1, and the Metro station, which one would expect to be a huge benefit, is disconnected from the center of town and of little use. That’s not to say College Park is a bad place. It’s fairly engaging as suburbs go, and its moderately dense streetcar-era neighborhoods are certainly a step or two above a typical suburb. Ultimately College Park has most of the pieces it needs to be an interesting and vital city, they just haven’t come together yet.