2. About 7,374 acres of industrially zoned land fell into Category 5—economically healthy industrial areas. These Category 5 areas are home to 34,793 PDR jobs.4 Evaluation of the characteristics of these jobs (e.g., wage levels, opportunities for workers with relatively low educational attainment, etc.), reinforces the continued importance of PDR jobs to the county. Interviews with firm managers in these areas indicate that they are generally satisfied with county services and public infrastructure. 3. Industrial lands on another seven sites, totaling an additional 1,382 acres, were placed into Category 4, exhibiting more complicated issues. In New Carrollton, for example, land uses are evolving out of industrial uses to office activities. The county is already undertaking planning efforts to create a greater density of commercial and office uses at the New Carrollton site. 4. On other Category 4 sites, friction between residential neighbors and PDR activities is evident. As population grows and residential density increases, these issues will become increasingly common. The county needs to enforce environmental laws and ensure that industrial enterprises operate in an environmentally responsible manner. Moreover, the county should be prepared to invest in urban design solutions to minimize friction, such as buffering and road rerouting, to increase PDR business, residential, and commercial compatibility. 5. County officials should rethink what the term “industry” means now and for the future. How should Prince George’s County use its industrial land to attract its share of the emerging high-technology economy? Extensive interviews revealed that many of the issues holding the county back from capturing its share of high-technology jobs are not primarily land use planning or zoning issues. 6. Finding Number 5 is reinforced by the results presented in Appendix 6, and repeated in Chapter 2 herein, where industrial and flex building markets in the three Washington, D.C. metro counties of Prince George’s, Fairfax and Montgomery were compared. Vacant buildings in Prince George’s County remain on the market slightly longer than those in Montgomery County and more than twice as long as those in Fairfax County. Average building sizes and ages are comparable across the counties,
4
Quarterly Census of Wages and Employment, 2007.
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