Six U.S. Census tracts define the broader Takoma/Langley Crossroads area for which demographic characteristics from the 2000 U.S. Census are drawn. In 2000, approximately 29,000 people lived in this area. Between 1990 and 2000, the population gained approximately 3,350 people, a 13% increase across the decade. The TLC area lies northeast of the City of Takoma Park and spans small portions of Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties with approximately 70 percent of the TLC population living in Prince George’s.
The Takoma/Langley Crossroads area may be characterized as a growing, vibrant community with primarily young families with children, especially toddlers, (41 percent) and a significant portion of unrelated individuals sharing housing (13 percent). This area has strong minority and immigrant communities where over half of the population is Hispanic, 2 out of 5 residents are foreign born, and one third arrived in the United States during the 1990s. About 80 percent of the area’s foreign-born population was born in Latin America. Half of the residents speak Spanish and approximately 11,800 people, 45 percent of the area’s population, rate their English speaking skills as less than “very well”. With such a large immigrant community it is not unusual to see a striking divergence in educational attainment. Among adults age 25 years and over, only 56 percent are high school graduates or higher compared to 90 percent of Montgomery County residents and 85 percent of Prince George’s population.
Just over 14,000 residents or two-thirds of the working age population are in the labor force. The typical occupations of the residents differ from what characterizes the two counties. The range of occupations in the area is almost evenly spilt among service, management and professional, and construction sectors as contrasted to the concentration of the two counties’ workforce in managerial/profession. With 26 percent of the area’s employed residents holding service jobs and another 21 percent in construction (both sectors well above the county levels), only 22 percent are employed in management or professional occupations compared to 57 percent in Montgomery County and 39 percent in Prince George’s. The commuting patterns in the TLC area also differ from the habits found at the county level. Less than half of employed TLC residents drive alone to work compared to county rates in the high sixties. One quarter of workers carpool and about 20 percent take public transportation.
The 2000 U.S. Census reported 9,150 housing units in the TLC area of which 64% are multi-family units. One-third of the units are in buildings with 10 or more units and 24% are in structures with 5 to 9 units. About 27 percent (2,463 units) are single-family detached. While most households rent (68%), the population is not as transient as would be expected; almost half of the population lived in the same residence five years prior to the 2000 U.S. Census. In 2000, about two-thirds of the rental households paid between $500 and $749 per month, a lower rate compared to the counties. Typical mortgage costs in the area ranged between $1,000 and $1,499.
