A War of Words Over a Changing Md. Landscape

"The agricultural economy fades away so fast, and it becomes ornamental. So the heart of that county's economy is its proximity to the city and the inner suburbs," Lang said.

Today, northern Charles, made up of Waldorf, St. Charles, Bryans Road, Hughesville, Indian Head and La Plata, is undeniably suburban. There are shopping malls and restaurants, law firms and car dealerships.

"They sell it off as being rural, but it's really not. I mean, traffic is gridlocked. It's terrible," said Rita Moreland, 52, a mortgage loan officer who lives in Waldorf.

But there are rural areas within the county. Homes there are spread out on large wooded or grassy lots, horses trot across sprawling farms and gas stations are miles apart.

This is where Vincent Jameson, 72, was born and raised. "It's kind of quiet down through here," Jameson said as he shopped at Murphy's General Store in Port Tobacco. "You get to Waldorf, you get wild-bulls country. It's like D.C. up in there."

But because Charles is not as densely developed as the mature suburbs, it can lay claim to a dual status -- suburban and rural.

"It's not 'Green Acres.' It's not 'Goodbye, city life,' " Lang said. "It's an 'I'd like my cake and eat it, too,' kind of county."

Joanne Roland, the county's tourism director, said image is "something we're constantly fighting."

"We're not the country bumpkin people," she said. "We do have a lot of things to offer in our county. We've got housing, we've got employment opportunities and we've got wonderful rural areas."

The county's commissioners recently passed a measure to preserve at least 50 percent of open space from development. But the local government also has been adding amenities that make Charles more like established suburbs: a minor-league baseball stadium, parks and athletic fields, and hiking and biking trails.

County boosters are trying to project a "best of both worlds" image even as they tailor their messages based on who is listening.

Take, for example, the county's new slogan unveiled this year: "Where Eagles Fly." It was designed to stoke images of pristine wilderness, reminding people that bald eagles populate Charles's pine trees. Yet it also is meant to symbolize the county's economic prosperity and entrepreneurial spirit.

It is common for residents to believe their community is rural even after it has asserted itself as suburban, Lang said.

"There's kind of a lag for a generation where people don't really quite get it," he said. "You don't really know you're a full suburb of Washington or any region for a while. There's a sense that we still do things differently around here."

For a dose of suburban reality, Mertz suggested, wade into the weekend traffic along Charles's primary commercial corridor.

"If you've ever driven down Route 301 on a Saturday," he said, "it's kind of like driving down Rockville Pike at Christmastime."