Tell me about Columbia, Clarksville, Ellicot City, or Severna Park MD

[Anonymous]

Here's the lowdown:

Columbia is a master planned community that originated in the 1960s. It was designed around seven villages with a town center. Most of Columbia was built in the 1970s-1980s, but there are some 1990s housing. The typical SFH housing in Columbia is a modest split level to comfortable sized but not large colonial. The houses are the least interesting part of Columbia but the landscaping is lovely and Columbia has a woodsy feel because the Rouse Company (developer of Columbia) incorporated open spaces and greenways and trails throughout all of Columbia. The village centers were supposed to be where the retail activities would be but most of them are struggling now and most Columbians go to the big box retail on the outskirts of Columbia for shopping. Columbia was also founded to be a diverse community and was one of the first new suburbs to actively attract African American homeowners, and Columbia still retains a liberal feel in its politics and has a high percentage of African Americans compared to other parts of Howard County. However, Columbia schools aren't the best schools in the county (they're still fine) and the Columbia villages were designed to be a mixture of SFH, townhouses and apartments, and there's a fair amount of Section 8 in the apartments. Some villages are deemed "better" than others. River Hill (Clarksville PO) is the most expensive and the least "Columbian" and the newest (and feeds into River Hill high school, which is one of the top if not the top schools in HoCo). It's hard to say who comes second, Dorsey's Search or the villages that feed into Atholton High School. While the landscaping is kept up brilliantly, a lot of the housing is showing its age. But the town center around the mall is being rebuilt and enlarged into a more proper "town center." All of Columbia is under the administration of a HOA and HOA fees are high but it pays for the pools and many other amenities.

Ellicott City is a very large area because the PO district is huge (basically the northeastern 1/3 of HoCo), and it ranges from a small and quant historic village (very pretty) with lots of antique shops and a few restaurants to multi-million dollar housing. Ellicott City schools are very good, among the best in Howard County. In the 1980s EC was a resolutely middle class suburb so the older housing from the 1980s and early 1990s reflect this, but towards the end of the 1990s EC (and HoCo) became more attractive to higher income families and the housing sizes went up, as you would expect, so there's a lot of 1990s McMansions in EC. The typical Ellicott City house is a 5-bedroom colonial on a cul-de-sac and it's a fairly diverse area with a large Asian population. A number of Asian supermarkets along Route 40 and Asian (mostly Korean) restaurants as well. The St. John's area of Ellicott City just outside the old village was built in the 1950s-1960s and is a very lovely area due to the lavish landscaping and has a bit of personality that the newer portions of EC don't have. There's also some historic housing available around the village but don't assume it's a walkable place, because of the steep hills. EC schools are top notch, split between Centennial and Mount Hebron.

Clarksville (which includes Columbia's River Hill Village) is upscale suburbia. It doesn't have the range of housing that EC does as it's a much newer area. Housing stock is primarily SFH on cul de sacs and range from 3-4,000 all the way up to 10,000+ sqft. It's a very open area with lots of spaces between the subdivisions and custom home sites. There's a lot of overlap between EC and Clarksville in terms of housing but I'd give Clarksville the edge in cost and upscaleness.

Severna Park is probably the most mixed area as it can be utterly unremarkable suburbs to very expensive waterfront estates on the Severn.

[Anonymous]

OP here: I can't thank you enough. Incredibly helpful. THanks!

[Anonymous]

Love HoCo! Would happily move there from MoCo if I didn't work in DC. I'd probably pick a neighborhood zoned for River Hill High School or Centennial High School.