DC Chosen Best Place to Raise a Family

[Anonymous]

I just don't understand the point - everyone has to live somewhere. And everyone has requirements for what they need in a house. While living downtown is great for some, it isn't feasible for everyone. Yes, we have people trying to move closer in for commute purposes, but not everyone commutes to the city. We all make trade offs for quality of life - house size, price of house, commute time, etc.

It isn't like the suburbs are ever going away...they will change, but they will always be there. You can't get rid of them just because you think city living with no commute is the ideal.

[Anonymous]

I think you're confusing two things: one descriptive, the other prescriptive.

In other words, there's first the question of what is "good"--where people should live. Secondly, there's the question of what's going to be happening over the next ten or twenty years as there's a demographic change, and consumer tastes shift.

To address the first question, obviously tastes vary, and people should be able to live where they want. But it's pretty clear that folks who live in suburban cul-de-sacs have been heavily subsidized for decades now, while more traditional forms of housing have been shortchanged. (Note, I'm not talking about private investment, I'm talking about massive federal subsidies in transportation, infrastructure, etc, etc...)

No one's asking to eliminate the suburbs--just to eliminate the massive subsidies, and to modify the zoning laws that make it illegal to build denser, more walkable communities.

The second question--one which goes to the heart of this discussion--is the "descriptive" question. What's happening, or is likely to happen over the next few decades. Its pretty clear that poverty is becoming more and more a suburban phenomenon (google "suburbanization of poverty") Competition for dense, urban, middle-class neighborhoods is fierce, and it's only going to get worse in DC and inside the Beltway as tastes change, baby boomers downsize, and area population grows.

More wealthy people in DC is going to mean better schools; more poor people in the suburbs is going to mean worse schools. As suburbia ages, the infrastructure is also aging, that costs money to fix. But the sprawling nature of most exurban developments means that the upkeep on infrastructure is crushingly expensive--so things tend to decay. Which leads to greater blight, leading to falling housing prices and rents, leading to more poor folks moving in. Poor people vote, and poverty is expensive--both monetarily and in social costs--as we've seen in DC over the last 30 or 40 years.

There will obviously be pockets of prosperity in the suburbs, but disparities of wealth will be distributed more evenly across the city and the suburbs.

[Anonymous]

no one argues that the things you are describing aren't happening. We have long avoided discussions of the long term problems involved in MANY parts of our culture. It drives me nuts when I see new developments going up with no apparent attempt to invest in the infrastructure to support the houses, kids, traffic, etc. I think at some point, building new homes stops (or at least slows) and we deal with the existing development.

There are no easy solutions. We are where we are for so many reasons. I think people are crazy if they think we can continue to let things age and decay and NOT raise taxes. I realize it isn't popular, but it is the only way to come up with the needed revenue to maintain existing communities. Continuing to build farther and farther into the land only makes things worse.

As someone currently househunting in the burbs, I am perfectly happy with the communities we are looking at with 30-40 year old housing stock. Many younger families are buying into these communities and renovating, improving, etc. Would I love to move closer in at some point? Sure, but we are priced out of most of the close in communities, not to mention we both work in the burbs and plan to for a while.

Nothing about the next 10-20 years is going to be easy. There are cliffs we are about to fall over in this country (Medicare and Social Security) that we have KNOWN were coming and just put off, and now we have a confluence of bad things working against us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not until DC stops electing idiot mayors.

You're confusing cause with effect. Population growth, and the effects of sprawl are going to drive middle-class folks into the city--and poor folks out. DC's political representation is a function of its citizenry.

Meaning there are more voters in NE and SE DC than upper NW?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not until DC stops electing idiot mayors.

You're confusing cause with effect. Population growth, and the effects of sprawl are going to drive middle-class folks into the city--and poor folks out. DC's political representation is a function of its citizenry.

Meaning there are more voters in NE and SE DC than upper NW?

Gray won overwhelmingly east of the river, and split the middle-class vote west of the river. Though it seems like an eternity ago, there were plenty of middle-class district voters who picked Gray because he was the "good-government" alternative to the Fenty "scandals". Also, lots of charter school fans voted for Gray as a protest against Fenty's insufficient deference to the charter agenda.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:Also, lots of charter school fans voted for Gray as a protest against Fenty's insufficient deference to the charter agenda.

Alternatively stated as Fenty's failure to follow the law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not until DC stops electing idiot mayors.

You're confusing cause with effect. Population growth, and the effects of sprawl are going to drive middle-class folks into the city--and poor folks out. DC's political representation is a function of its citizenry.

Meaning there are more voters in NE and SE DC than upper NW?

Gray won overwhelmingly east of the river, and split the middle-class vote west of the river. Though it seems like an eternity ago, there were plenty of middle-class district voters who picked Gray because he was the "good-government" alternative to the Fenty "scandals". Also, lots of charter school fans voted for Gray as a protest against Fenty's insufficient deference to the charter agenda.

What? Gray won wards 7,8,5,4. Fenty won by 80% wards 3 & 2 and by 70% ward 6. Let's not sugar coat this, it was a vote along mostly racial lines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:no one argues that the things you are describing aren't happening. We have long avoided discussions of the long term problems involved in MANY parts of our culture. It drives me nuts when I see new developments going up with no apparent attempt to invest in the infrastructure to support the houses, kids, traffic, etc. I think at some point, building new homes stops (or at least slows) and we deal with the existing development.

There are no easy solutions. We are where we are for so many reasons. I think people are crazy if they think we can continue to let things age and decay and NOT raise taxes. I realize it isn't popular, but it is the only way to come up with the needed revenue to maintain existing communities. Continuing to build farther and farther into the land only makes things worse...

I think the problem is that there's not really any way to turn the boat around. There are more and more folks living in the MD and VA suburbs who "get it", but they're outnumbered by the folks who think doubling-down is an alternative. Couple that with the fact that residents of "reasonable" areas in VA (e.g. Alexandria, Arlington, etc...) are shackled politically to rural and downstate concerns, and you have a recipe for disaster. To a lesser extent there's a similar dynamic going on in MD--there are well-intentioned initiatives that inevitably seem to be undercut by compromises or otherwise watered-down. Unfortunately, in suburban jurisdictions, given a choice between spending money on mitigating the bad decisions of the last 40 years, or constructing a new highway, the highway's going to win every time. This stuff is incredibly hard to leverage politically, and it seems to me the areas that have the most homogenous, progressive, and non-car-oriented populations have the greatest likelihood of pulling it off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:no one argues that the things you are describing aren't happening. We have long avoided discussions of the long term problems involved in MANY parts of our culture. It drives me nuts when I see new developments going up with no apparent attempt to invest in the infrastructure to support the houses, kids, traffic, etc. I think at some point, building new homes stops (or at least slows) and we deal with the existing development.

There are no easy solutions. We are where we are for so many reasons. I think people are crazy if they think we can continue to let things age and decay and NOT raise taxes. I realize it isn't popular, but it is the only way to come up with the needed revenue to maintain existing communities. Continuing to build farther and farther into the land only makes things worse.

As someone currently househunting in the burbs, I am perfectly happy with the communities we are looking at with 30-40 year old housing stock. Many younger families are buying into these communities and renovating, improving, etc. Would I love to move closer in at some point? Sure, but we are priced out of most of the close in communities, not to mention we both work in the burbs and plan to for a while.

Nothing about the next 10-20 years is going to be easy. There are cliffs we are about to fall over in this country (Medicare and Social Security) that we have KNOWN were coming and just put off, and now we have a confluence of bad things working against us.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, lots of charter school fans voted for Gray as a protest against Fenty's insufficient deference to the charter agenda.

Alternatively stated as Fenty's failure to follow the law.

Ah, right. The most high-profile example of which (the parks contract issue) was debunked by a recent investigation.

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, lots of charter school fans voted for Gray as a protest against Fenty's insufficient deference to the charter agenda.

Alternatively stated as Fenty's failure to follow the law.

Ah, right. The most high-profile example of which (the parks contract issue) was debunked by a recent investigation.

The parks contract didn't have anything to do with charter schools. You said that lots of charter school fans voted for Gray as a protest against "Fenty's insufficient deference to the charter agenda." That makes it sound as if the charter school fans had a long list of demands which may or may not have been reasonable. In fact, many charter schools are lodged in inadequate facilities while former DC schools sit empty. The law states that charter schools have the right of first refusal to those facilities. Fenty did not follow that law. Sadly, in one more example of Gray not living up to his billing, it's not clear that he is going to do any better in this regard. One well-known DC charter which is looking for new facilities was only offered a single former DCPS school. A lot more than that are available. But, apparently the best of the bunch will eventually wind up in the hands of developers.

[Anonymous]

Hello All,

Please forgive me if I step on some toes here. I'm not too familiar with the areas in and around DC. My husband is getting transferred to the DC area for work. Not in DC but he's an engineer and will be working closely with WMATA. I believe he'll be working at the Greenbelt Rail Yard, located in College Park, MD. Right now we live in Bethlehem, PA and are hoping to move within a 10 mile radius of his office in College Park. Would you all be willing to clue me in on some nice neighborhoods to live in that radius? We have two small boys, 4 and 20 months and are planning on home schooling, so we are not so much concerned with the quality of schools as we are looking for a nice, family-friendly neighborhood.

Thanks so much for your help!
Sunny

[Anonymous]

You'll get more responses if you post this as a new, separate thread.

[Anonymous]

gah! so sorry, not usually a part of these kind of groups lol! thanks for the advice.