PLACE-BASED

IMPACT Silver Spring cares deeply about place. In a metropolitan area concerned with national and international issues, and in a society that is increasingly interested in the global community, we see the need to reconnect with our local communities – our neighborhoods and schools, our backyards and gathering places.

About Silver Spring

• Silver Spring is not an incorporated city, which means that we have no city council or mayor – no political infrastructure between us and the county.
• Silver Spring’s boundaries are unclear. Much of IMPACT’s work focuses on the areas of Silver Spring within the beltway, including Takoma Park, though we have recently begun to work more in Wheaton and Glenmont which are areas of Silver Spring beyond the beltway.
• Our housing is very mixed: high-rise and garden-style apartment buildings right next to single-family homes. As a result, many of our neighborhoods are mixed-income.
• Our neighborhoods are named and divided primarily according to the active civic associations that exist almost exclusively among homeowners, despite large communities of renters. In some neighborhoods, renters make up 60% of the population.
• Our diverse residents are 70% of color and 40% foreign-born, not including the thousands of families who are second generation immigrants. Our largest immigrant communities are from Central and South America, Ethiopia, South Asia, West Africa, and the Caribbean.

Inequities under the Radar