Vision for Connectedness
Montgomery County is a place where every resident feels a sense of shared interests and values as well as a sense of belonging. It is a place where people of all backgrounds, cultures, ages, abilities, incomes and interests easily cross paths, exchange ideas and work together to improve their communities. Montgomery County builds on the importance of people, places and communities by strengthening the role of the public sector, in particular through its role in shaping the built environment, in promoting social interactions that increase trust, cooperation and belonging. Our built environment creates an atmosphere of acceptance of all people. Public spaces are community social centers where residents interact, enjoy each other’s company, exchange ideas and collaborate to improve the community with a strengthened sense of connectedness and social capital. Our communities are safe and inclusive, empowering all residents to fully participate and benefit from living in Montgomery County.
Opportunities to unite the community and build social capital expand beyond land and building design. Montgomery County seeks social, environmental and racial justice by strengthening relationships that bind our communities together rooted in the values of dignity, civility, mutual respect and inclusive democracy. Essential technology that connects us, like internet networks, are accessible to all, instead of only the privileged. Community capacity-building and civic engagement takes place through deliberate, sustained outreach to a diverse body of stakeholders and shared leadership. This ensures that all residents have a voice and influence in planning and policy processes and in decisions to create an equitable future.
Read the draft Connectedness Goals, Policies and Actions presented to the Planning Board on June 11.
Watch the Connectedness Community Chat, held on June 16, and review the presentation.
Mire el evento de la comunidad de Conectividad, del 16 de junio, en español.
Frequently Asked Questions
Being socially connected by engaging and participating in community and civic life imbues a sense of shared interests and values and a stake in each other’s wellbeing. The design of our communities—where people, live, work, connect, and play—can greatly influence the degree community cohesion and social interaction take place. The public sector serves to shape the built environment making it easier for people to engage in social activities and to promote social interactions that increase trust, cooperation and belonging. Strengthening relationships that bind our communities together, rooted in the values of dignity, civility, mutual respect and inclusive democracy, brings us closer to achieving social, environmental and racial justice across Montgomery County.
Successful community capacity-building and civic engagement takes place through deliberate, sustained outreach to a diverse body of stakeholders and shared leadership. It is important to build relationships and foster trust with community leaders, recognizing their knowledge of community dynamics will provide inroads to those who are hard-to-reach and perhaps distrustful of the outreach process. Thrive Montgomery 2050 includes policy recommendations to remove barriers to community engagement, making it more convenient and accessible for everyone to participate in planning processes. Implementing these policies will make government planning and decision-making processes accessible, transparent and easy for all members of the community to understand and participate. Such efforts ensure that all residents have a voice and influence in planning and policy processes and in decisions to create an equitable future.
A Closer Look
Thrive Montgomery 2050 will offer recommendations on how to prioritize community equity to create a place where all residents have equal access to affordable housing, transportation, employment, education and more. Here is what we know:
- Demographics are changing: More than half of the county’s residents are people of color. The proportion of people of color is projected to steadily increase from 55 percent in 2015 to 73 percent in 2045, according to state forecasts.
- More residents are born outside the United States: Montgomery County has a large and diverse foreign-born population (344,645) speaking a variety of languages and varying English-speaking proficiencies. In 2016, one-third of the county’s residents were foreign-born, the highest concentration in the Washington, DC region.
- Inequality persists:
- Montgomery County’s residents are highly educated. From 1990 to 2017, the percent of adults over the age of 25 with a bachelor’s degree or higher increased from 50 percent to 58 percent. Yet, educational achievement varies widely by race and ethnicity with just 25 percent of Hispanic residents and 43 percent of Black residents having at least a bachelor’s degree, compared to 67 percent of Asian residents and 72 percent of Non-Hispanic White residents.
- Although Montgomery County ranks among the wealthiest counties in the nation, the top 1 percent makes 22 times more than the bottom 99 percent of all households. Median household incomes vary dramatically by race and ethnicity, ranging from $125,000 for Non-Hispanic White households and $109,000 for Asian households to $72,000 for Black and Hispanic households.
- Homeownership also varies by race and ethnicity, with 75 percent of Non-Hispanic White residents and 74 percent of Asian residents owning their homes, compared to 43 percent of African-American residents and 49 percent of Hispanic residents.