Urbana / Ijamsville Area

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in frederick county for twenty years, originally from northern nj, and know Urbana well. It is more developed and more crowded than say fifteen years ago obviously, but I agree it (and Frederick county) are still lovely in many ways. Urbana was I think developed under a model of "new urbanism" in the past twenty five years so the new houses were meant to be close, to have alleys in the back, to have porches to facilitate community and to be walkable.

They have a great, modern library that offers a lot of programming. Like s pp said, I have heard the Y is good. The area is physically beautiful, mountains and farm views in many areas of the county and yes most people are very friendly and often very educated, contrary to the stereotypes. Frederick currently has more registered democrats than Republicans, has its fair share too (which surprised me) of former New York and New Jersey residents . We love it here, Urbana is maybe 10 mins to Frederick and that opens up a ton of choices as well: for eating out, antiquing, shows and speakers at the weinburg, dance schools, coffee shops, funky clothes stores and interesting/high end home stores as well. And finally my experiences giving birth and having a couple medical emergencies over the past years have resulted in getting very good, solid care at Frederick memorial hospital. I still see a few specialists in dc area but overall there is access here to high quality healthcare.

OP here, given we're looking to start a family the information about the hospital is actually extremely relevant. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To avoid the skyrocketing prices for good school districts (Ws) in MoCo, we've been considering purchasing a house in the Urbana area instead. It seems like a really cute community with lovely townhomes and SFH in the 400-700k range. (Versus MoCo where you'd be getting very eh townhouses in general in that range, and SFH are few and far between). Specifically we're looking in the Urbana High district as it seems quite highly rated, but we're not specifically attached to the more rural part vs the townhouse part.
We both work in biotech so we'll be commuting somewhere between Rockville - Frederick.

For people who have actually lived in that area, or better yet have lived in MoCo and Urbana:
- How is the commute both up and down 270?
- Is there a lot of traffic in the downtown Urbana area? Do the rotaries get scary crowded?
- How are the schools? They're all highly rated and I'm sure in technicality the W schools are "better" but also more cutthroat. Are your kids happy at the Urbana schools? I heard it's getting overcrowded, do they not have much individualized attention? In the elementary schools are there rowdy and disruptive kids?
- What's the neighborhood vibe like, both in the Urbana townhouse area and the country-esque outskirts edging towards Ijamsville / New Market / Monrovia? I heard a lot of families live in this district, do parents often talk to each other and are there neighborhood activities or do people keep to themselves?
- How do HOAs act in these neighborhoods?
- Do you often get to go to Frederick for things like restaurants and activities, or do you find yourself only staying in Urbana? What about going to Gaithersburg/Rockville for restaurants?

Thanks to those who reply!

Hi OP, not sure if you know or care, but New Market and Monrovia are not assigned to Urbana High School. They are assigned to Linganore HS

[Anonymous]

I don't live in Urbana, but live in Frederick city limits and wouldn't trade living in Frederick County for the world! Unless, I could afford Loudon, then I would live there.

After growing up and living in MoCo a few years after college, I wish I had always lived here in Frederick. People are WAY nicer, the restaurants and coffee shops better, incredible hiking, better alcohol options (wineries, breweries, and mom and pop owned liquor stores, and the retail stores (downtown) are not chains and eclectic and cute.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree with everyone else. As long as you don't have to go downtown 5 days a week, its amazing.

I will go downtown from Exit 22 to Union Station 1-2 days a week and its totally manageable.

People give FredCo a bad rap as super redneck, and some of that vibe is still there in the Ijamsville/Monrovia area, but its really much more purple than it is red.

And tbh, people mostly just dont care. Everyone is just so much nicer. It really feels like the communities you grew up with as a kid 30 years ago

In 2020 the KKK grand Marshall visited Frederick and three years before KKK flyers were distributed around town.

Wasn’t the KKK state headquarters in Frederick?

Is that what you consider a “bad rep?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with everyone else. As long as you don't have to go downtown 5 days a week, its amazing.

I will go downtown from Exit 22 to Union Station 1-2 days a week and its totally manageable.

People give FredCo a bad rap as super redneck, and some of that vibe is still there in the Ijamsville/Monrovia area, but its really much more purple than it is red.

And tbh, people mostly just dont care. Everyone is just so much nicer. It really feels like the communities you grew up with as a kid 30 years ago

In 2020 the KKK grand Marshall visited Frederick and three years before KKK flyers were distributed around town.

Wasn’t the KKK state headquarters in Frederick?

Is that what you consider a “bad rep?”

Kkk does have headquarters in Thurmond, that is outside Frederick, not in Frederick

[Anonymous]

Urbana is really pretty and nice, and it has amazing schools. That being said, I don’t get the “W school or bust” mentality. Not being able to afford a house in a W cluster isn’t a reason to move out that far from Rockville. Richard Montgomery HS and the schools that feed to it are also excellent, but I’m not sure if a decent SFH is affordable on a $700k budget over there. Even some parts of Wootton are affordable on that budget, unless you’re looking for a McMansion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with everyone else. As long as you don't have to go downtown 5 days a week, its amazing.

I will go downtown from Exit 22 to Union Station 1-2 days a week and its totally manageable.

People give FredCo a bad rap as super redneck, and some of that vibe is still there in the Ijamsville/Monrovia area, but its really much more purple than it is red.

And tbh, people mostly just dont care. Everyone is just so much nicer. It really feels like the communities you grew up with as a kid 30 years ago

In 2020 the KKK grand Marshall visited Frederick and three years before KKK flyers were distributed around town.

Wasn’t the KKK state headquarters in Frederick?

Is that what you consider a “bad rep?”

No that was Thurmont

[Anonymous]

Moved to Urbana 2021

Formerly lived in DC, Rockville, Darnestown… now Urbana

I’m an empty nester so no feedback on schools.

My neighbors are very multicultural, kids getting off bus are also
Many of my neighbors are scientists… biomedical
I commute to Rockville, but gave only fine that during pandemic
I was worried about racism, etc but I have not seen it in lower Frederick , downtown Frederick is super liberal

Beautiful hiking, kayaking

Great amenities, joined the Y

I enjoy the downtown speaker series https://downtownfrederick.org/event-pro/frederick-speaker-series-presents-soledad-obrien/

Great restaurants, live music, outdoor eating, outdoor yoga, breweries, festivals, farmer markets and flee markets

[Anonymous]

Urbana is a very nice solid and safe family friendly neighborhood. It’s quite diverse and there is no racism here that I have experienced. It’s mostly people could not afford good schools in Montgomery County and it’s certainly not that redneck I would say it’s Montgomery county lite. Lots of teachers from MCPS live in Frederick County particularly Urbanna because they cannot afford W schools which are overrated anyway. For public schools urbana is an excellent school system as his Linganore and Oakdale. Frederick County seems like it will not go under as quickly as Montgomery County will, Who is the exception of the million dollar neighborhoods like Chevy Chase Potomac and Bethesda.
A single-family in Urbana is now close to 800 k or more so you better hurry. Lots of new builds in the area which are cheaply made but they don’t look too bad those are about $1 million at this point. Good luck. Left Montgomery County 8 years ago and will never look back. Frederick county is the best of both worlds. If you have to commute to DC though, that commute is pretty terrible.

[Anonymous]

We moved up here to the Villages of Urbana about seven years ago from Rockville. I agree with PP - I'm never moving back. I'm a MCPS employee and much happier with the schools in Urbana than I ever was down in MoCo. The neighborhood is great, and I love the proximity to downtown Frederick.
That being said, I wouldn't want to commute past MoCo into DC and if you want high end shopping, you're not going to find it up here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We moved up here to the Villages of Urbana about seven years ago from Rockville. I agree with PP - I'm never moving back. I'm a MCPS employee and much happier with the schools in Urbana than I ever was down in MoCo. The neighborhood is great, and I love the proximity to downtown Frederick.
That being said, I wouldn't want to commute past MoCo into DC and if you want high end shopping, you're not going to find it up here.

I'll probably be accused of trolling, but we moved our kids up from MCPS to FCPS, and...they are behind.

Not only the extra time spent virtual was hard for them, I think the virtual program itself was less rigorous in MCPS

Thing was, in MCPS, teachers kept tell us they were right on track. It's not until we changed their peer group / leadership did we realize how far behind they had fallen

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in frederick county for twenty years, originally from northern nj, and know Urbana well. It is more developed and more crowded than say fifteen years ago obviously, but I agree it (and Frederick county) are still lovely in many ways. Urbana was I think developed under a model of "new urbanism" in the past twenty five years so the new houses were meant to be close, to have alleys in the back, to have porches to facilitate community and to be walkable.

They have a great, modern library that offers a lot of programming. Like s pp said, I have heard the Y is good. The area is physically beautiful, mountains and farm views in many areas of the county and yes most people are very friendly and often very educated, contrary to the stereotypes. Frederick currently has more registered democrats than Republicans, has its fair share too (which surprised me) of former New York and New Jersey residents . We love it here, Urbana is maybe 10 mins to Frederick and that opens up a ton of choices as well: for eating out, antiquing, shows and speakers at the weinburg, dance schools, coffee shops, funky clothes stores and interesting/high end home stores as well. And finally my experiences giving birth and having a couple medical emergencies over the past years have resulted in getting very good, solid care at Frederick memorial hospital. I still see a few specialists in dc area but overall there is access here to high quality healthcare.

Nice summary. We are on the same boat as OP. Not because of the home price reason but for quality (lack of) education in MCPS schools. Schools are rated high. We visited the area multiple times and one thing I noticed is that people are generally very nice and welcoming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in frederick county for twenty years, originally from northern nj, and know Urbana well. It is more developed and more crowded than say fifteen years ago obviously, but I agree it (and Frederick county) are still lovely in many ways. Urbana was I think developed under a model of "new urbanism" in the past twenty five years so the new houses were meant to be close, to have alleys in the back, to have porches to facilitate community and to be walkable.

They have a great, modern library that offers a lot of programming. Like s pp said, I have heard the Y is good. The area is physically beautiful, mountains and farm views in many areas of the county and yes most people are very friendly and often very educated, contrary to the stereotypes. Frederick currently has more registered democrats than Republicans, has its fair share too (which surprised me) of former New York and New Jersey residents . We love it here, Urbana is maybe 10 mins to Frederick and that opens up a ton of choices as well: for eating out, antiquing, shows and speakers at the weinburg, dance schools, coffee shops, funky clothes stores and interesting/high end home stores as well. And finally my experiences giving birth and having a couple medical emergencies over the past years have resulted in getting very good, solid care at Frederick memorial hospital. I still see a few specialists in dc area but overall there is access here to high quality healthcare.

Nice summary. We are on the same boat as OP. Not because of the home price reason but for quality (lack of) education in MCPS schools. Schools are rated high. We visited the area multiple times and one thing I noticed is that people are generally very nice and welcoming.

Lol. That's always the biggest surprise when leaving MoCo for FredCo! People are nice.

They say hello. They might engage in some small talk.

You don't realize how grumpy MoCo is until you leave it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in frederick county for twenty years, originally from northern nj, and know Urbana well. It is more developed and more crowded than say fifteen years ago obviously, but I agree it (and Frederick county) are still lovely in many ways. Urbana was I think developed under a model of "new urbanism" in the past twenty five years so the new houses were meant to be close, to have alleys in the back, to have porches to facilitate community and to be walkable.

They have a great, modern library that offers a lot of programming. Like s pp said, I have heard the Y is good. The area is physically beautiful, mountains and farm views in many areas of the county and yes most people are very friendly and often very educated, contrary to the stereotypes. Frederick currently has more registered democrats than Republicans, has its fair share too (which surprised me) of former New York and New Jersey residents . We love it here, Urbana is maybe 10 mins to Frederick and that opens up a ton of choices as well: for eating out, antiquing, shows and speakers at the weinburg, dance schools, coffee shops, funky clothes stores and interesting/high end home stores as well. And finally my experiences giving birth and having a couple medical emergencies over the past years have resulted in getting very good, solid care at Frederick memorial hospital. I still see a few specialists in dc area but overall there is access here to high quality healthcare.

Nice summary. We are on the same boat as OP. Not because of the home price reason but for quality (lack of) education in MCPS schools. Schools are rated high. We visited the area multiple times and one thing I noticed is that people are generally very nice and welcoming.

Lol. That's always the biggest surprise when leaving MoCo for FredCo! People are nice.

They say hello. They might engage in some small talk.

You don't realize how grumpy MoCo is until you leave it

I live in PG county and I have always noticed the general vibe of Moco as being significantly worse.

[Anonymous]

LOL. A thread about Urbana turns into a MoCo/MCPS bash-fest, as usual on DCUM. People just cannot get away from MoCo/MCPS , even when they're supposedly "happy" where they are now.
The envy and hate are real...