NANCY: Rockville really starts to grow by leaps and bounds after World War II.

In 1940, there was a population of roughly 2,000.

By 1960, the population here in the city was over 26,000.

The population everywhere in the country is booming at this time, as soldiers return home.

After the war, we had a different kind of builder come in.

This is where you would have one, two, three styles of homes, and people would be able to go and see the model home and pick out what they wanted and move right in.

Joseph Geeraert was a developer that was well-known here in Rockville.

You had many people now living out in the suburbs, and they weren't necessarily traveling back into the city for their everyday shopping.

Strip shopping malls would come in, and Congressional Plaza is a great example of that.

One of the things that's very exciting about living in Rockville today is that it has become this incredibly diverse city.

There's some 120 different ethnicities and nationalities represented here.

STELLA: My name is Stella Fernandez, and I'm the owner of Gwenie's Pastries.

We specialize in Filipino, Asian desserts.

For my family, cooking and baking is everything.

My dad and brother mostly do the cooking, and my mom and I just do the desserts.

A lot of our recipes definitely have more of a traditional recipe, but when there's something new, or, like, something trendy that you'll see, we'll incorporate our recipe into that.

So this is our ube cheesecake.

It's probably one of our bestsellers, along with our donuts.

Cheesecake is traditionally American.

We added the ube flavor to it, that's what the purple color is.

When I think of Rockville, I think of diversity.

Rockville seems like a center for everybody.

It's a really good, close-knit community.

(doorbell rings)