The City of Greenbelt has gone into the history books as the first community in the United States built as a federal venture in housing.  From the beginning it was designed as a complete city, with businesses, schools, roads and facilities for recreation and town government.  Greenbelt was a planned community, noted for its interior walkways, underpasses, its system of inner courtyards and one of the first mall-type shopping centers in the United States.  Modeled after English garden cities of the 19th century, Greenbelt took its name from the belt of green forestland with which it was surrounded and from the belts of green between neighborhoods that offered easy contact with nature. Today much of the original features of this planned community still exist.  In addition to it, the city itself has expanded to include additional shopping centers, high rise office buildings, garden apartments, townhouses and private development.  With the construction of the Baltimore-Washington Parkway, the Capital Beltway, and Kenilworth Avenue, which meet in Greenbelt, the city has become a center of major residential and commercial development within the Prince George’s County.