Recently, Prince George’s County Executive and MACo board member Angela Alsobrooks joined the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government’s podcast to discuss the region’s economic future.

County Executive Angela Alsobrooks joined several other regional leaders for the ninth episode of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Government’s podcast, Think Regionally. The episode was released on July 12. The episode centered on the sate of the region’s economy and “new efforts to promote long-term economic growth and inclusive prosperity.”

The podcast episode’s description reads:

Metropolitan Washington is home to a very highly educated workforce and attracts investment from some of the largest technology companies in the world, competing with similar metro regions like Silicon Valley and New York. The region also faces many of the same challenges as its competitors such as high-priced housing, traffic congestion, and widening inequality.

Alsobrooks was in conversation with Victor Hoskins, Fairfax County Economic Development Authority President and CEO and Jack McDougle, Greater Washington Board of Trade President and CEO.

On the podcast, the County Executive highlighted historic investments in previously underutilized transit corridors as drivers for economic potential. She explained:

So, we are in the process of making historic investments along some of our underutilized transit corridors. You know, I talked to you for example about the Blue Line corridor that allows us to not only invest in new housing, but also to make space for new commercial entities that will help us to expand our commercial tax base. I mentioned to you before the growth of high tech industries, such as IonQ, which is one of the most capitalized quantum computing companies in the world and it’s leading our discovery district. And we also expect to see more ventures like those kind of emerge in the dynamic market that’s here in Prince George’s County.

She also discussed the job market in Prince George’s County and the role of federal and state COVID-19 relief funding and resources to help stabilize the region:

Angela Alsobrooks: As you know Prince George’s County created more jobs than any jurisdiction in the state of Maryland for six consecutive years. So it was so painful for us to watch those jobs essentially disappear during the pandemic in a few months time. But we have now secured close to 90% of the jobs that we lost.

Robert McCartney: Thanks in large part to federal and state relief money approved during the pandemic, Prince George’s is set to receive a multi-billion dollar package that it hopes will help jumpstart the economy for the future.

Angela Alsobrooks: In this last legislative session we were able to secure two and a half billion dollars in state aid. And I have to tell you, this is the most state aid that we’ve been ever been able to deliver to the county in the county’s history. And we believe that it will be transformative in terms of the economic growth that it will allow along with long awaited entertainment and other amenities that we’ve been really hoping to bring to the county for a long time.

Listen to the podcast and read the transcript from the discussion.