It’s a familiar suburban scene: rows upon rows of oversized houses line an almost treeless street. A giant, boxy home crowds its plot of land, its white vinyl siding only inches away from the identical exterior next door. Each house is slightly different from the next, but they all share a sterile, minimalist look.
The rate of newly built single-family homes in the U.S. has steadily increased over the past decade, with Montgomery County experiencing a 6.4% increase in the number of housing units from 2013 to 2023. Building these new structures instead of renovating existing homes is more profitable for developers. New houses ultimately offer more amenities, appealing to modern buyers. Large custom homes that often replace smaller, older ones are known as teardown projects and can lessen the character and charm of local neighborhoods.
Builds known as McMansions — oversized, tacky houses that lack architectural integrity — began surfacing in American suburbs in the 1980s. Their inexpensive materials, combined with a grandiose feel, made them ideal for home buyers who wanted to attain luxury aesthetics without paying steep prices. McMansions have recently taken a new form; in the past five years, the “modern farmhouse” trend has sprung up in suburbs across the U.S., seemingly replacing the highly criticized McMansion. The style of modern farmhouses has become tacky and overdone, multiplying and spreading from neighborhood to neighborhood.
As builders propose more teardown projects throughout Montgomery County, classic community character disappears. With their glitzy embellishments and ridiculously large dimensions, McMansions visually pollute neighborhoods that pride themselves on cozy and modest architecture. Modern farmhouses, while not as flashy, deaden the unique charm of neighborhoods that offer various home styles. Developers in Montgomery County should refrain from building unaffordable, monotonous homes and instead focus on restoring older homes to preserve historical neighborhoods and facilitate economic diversity in the Bethesda area.
For neighborhoods like Carderock Springs, their history is shown through their aesthetics. Home to 400 original mid-century modern dwellings, the Carderock Springs subdivision was launched in 1962 by developer Edmund Bennett in partnership with D.C. architectural firm Keyes, Lethbridge and Condon. Bennett designed the chic, reasonably-sized homes with the idea that they should be integrated into the surrounding nature instead of over it — a style known as “situated modernism.” The National Park Service listed Carderock Springs on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.
Like Carderock, several nearby subdivisions enforce a series of architectural covenants and guidelines, where any potential remodeling or rebuilding must be approved by their Architectural Review Committee. This is evident when observing the distinct architectural style of neighborhoods such as Wood Acres, where houses are characterized by humble colonial-style brick exteriors and spacious yet cozy interior layouts. As older houses are replaced with conventional homes, neighborhoods lose their aesthetic, diminishing their character and historic value.
Despite their quaint atmosphere and community feel, neighborhoods like Carderock Springs and Wood Acres have an undeniable history of institutional segregation within Montgomery County. Racial gerrymandering and redlining throughout the twentieth century disproportionately excluded Black Americans and other minorities from the housing market, especially in the suburbs. Bethesda’s racial demographics mirror the effects of redlining in suburbs; as of 2025, only 5% of residents identify as Black or African American, while 70% identify as White.
Sophomore Julia Kachar has noticed the correlation between Bethesda’s housing market and its demographics.
“There’s crazy prices here, and it’s not even the house quality, it’s just the area,” Kachar said. “It prevents middle-class or lower-class families from coming here, and I think that’s why there’s no diversity.”
The disproportion of Black Bethesda residents to White ones is also reflective of the racial wealth gap in Montgomery County, in which the housing market plays a prominent role. Zip codes with more diverse populations have a considerably lower median household income. For example, the median household income in Takoma Park is just over $80,000, while the median household income in Bethesda is around $240,100, more than double Maryland’s median household income. Takoma Park lies less than 20 minutes from Bethesda, but it’s significantly more diverse, as Black and White residents each comprise about one-third of the area’s population, and Hispanic residents make up a quarter.
Montgomery County’s widespread racial wealth gap shows a noticeable disparity between Black and Hispanic households and White ones. By continuing to only build multi-million-dollar homes in neighborhoods like Bethesda, developers perpetuate racial and economic segregation in an already minimally diverse area.
In addition, Bethesda is known for its proximity to some of the best and most well-funded public high schools in Montgomery County, like Walt Whitman and Walter Johnson High Schools. However, when their housing market is limited to homes that, on average, cost around $1.7 million, lower-income families struggle to receive the best public education the state can offer.
“There’s no leeway for anyone to move into Bethesda unless they already own a house, or they’re moving down from a more expensive house,” Kachar said.
The ever-growing lack of a middle ground between apartments and single-family homes, dubbed “missing middle housing,” continually excludes lower-income families from affordable housing. The Bethesda area will only become more economically segregated from the rest of Montgomery County as developers continue to build unimaginative, oversized and overpriced homes in the area. Future generations entering the housing market deserve options that are more inclusive, interesting and accessible.
