Kentlands, Gaithersburg, Maryland
Kentlands is a neighborhood of the U.S. city of Gaithersburg, Maryland. Kentlands was one of the first attempts to develop a community using Traditional Neighborhood Design planning techniques (also known as 'neo-traditional new town planning') that are now generally referred to under the rubric of the New Urbanism. (The New Urbanism is the concept of building a walkable, mixed-use city neighborhood or new town to provide an attractive alternative to the spread out, automobile-centric, subdivisions common to post-World War II American suburbia.) Kentlands is built around a farmstead previously owned by Otis Beall Kent. The development, begun in 1988, contains buildings from the original Kentlands farm, many varieties of residences, a "downtown" commercial district, open space including protected natural areas and pocket parks, and civic uses including schools, a church, clubhouse, pool, tennis and basketball courts, catering facility, and an arts center. Overview The town has a system of artificial lakes that snakes through the community. There are jogging trails that run through the parks and districts of the neighborhood, and the community's commercial areas and the facilities operated by the Assembly, which include swimming pools, tennis courts, playgrounds, performance spaces, and a large clubhouse, are all within walking distance.