Relocating to DC...what's life like?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, where in Wisconsin do you live?! I grew up near Milwaukee (Elm Grove) and am a UW-Madison grad. I haven't found many Wisconsin transplants here. There are things about WI I miss and things I absolutely do not. We are in Cleveland Park -- two kids, ages 6 and 3 -- and generally really like it. Georgetown has always felt very touristy to me and not super neighborhood-y or kid friendly. Also it's not zoned for the "preferred" middle school (which may or may not be a big deal to you).

Most people in DC are transplants, so it doesn't have the insular vibe that Wisconsin often does, but that's a double edged sword as it also means that the area is pretty transient, people can be a bit too focused on their careers, and there's definitely a competitive vibe. It can take awhile to find "your people" but you can do it!

OP here - Very cool! We are in New Berlin. Three kids...6, 4 and 2. We aren't originally from Wisconsin, but have lived in various areas of Chicago and Milwaukee for the past seven years. Thanks for the info on Georgetown and can totally understand the tourist thing! Yes, the schools are important for us, but also conscious of hopefully not getting into this "pressure cooker" thing.

DP. This seems weird to me. You probably know this, but at your budget, you could live in an amazing house on the lake in Milwaukee, Shorewood, Whitefish Bay, etc. We moved from DC to that area and it’s been a wonderful change and a breath of fresh air. People are so much friendlier than they are in DC and the quality of life far exceeds that in DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

Yes, living in a $1.8 million Logan Circle townhouse is the “real DC experience.”

I did have to chuckle a bit. The "real" DC experience is a modest townhouse in the suburbs because that's what most people's lives are like. Patting yourself on the back because your kid knows a few token minorities in his class while the rest of his friends are rich kids. Don't kid yourself into thinking there's serious socio-economic diversity in people's lives outside the superficial. It's starting to reminds me of New York or even London, with multi-million dollar terraces right around the corner of grimy council estates. You really think the kids in the fancy houses are going to be good friends with the kids in the subsidized housing? Maybe in a politically correct version of a Hallmark movie.

OP is affluent. She knows her tribe. The move to DC is really to be part of her tribe, affluent urban people. And that is totally fine. Just be honest when talking about wanting diversity and all that. Dupont, Kalorama, Georgetown all tick the boxes. She won't get that much for 1.8M but she'll get something. But I do wonder - if they don't *have* to be in DC, why not just go straight to New York? Brooklyn, Park Slope, Cobble Hill?

LOL. You're all so defensive in your whiteness. When I referenced "1.8 million" it was only because OP said that that was what her budget is. My point was simply that she can afford to buy anywhere in the city.

Logan Circle is one of the whitest and most gentrified parts of the city. I think it's time for you to retire this "defensive in your whiteness" trope.

Not from the view from my front porch. Or the kids' public elementary school. Clearly you don't live here. How's Upper Caucasia treating you?

Not PP, but you are demonstrating that you are new here, relatively speaking.

New where? I grew up in DC.

[Anonymous]

Moving from New Berlín — which is nowheresville even in the eyes of many folks in the Milwaukee suburbs — will be parachuting into a pressure cooker. You mentioned Chicago. Think New Trier. Every high school situation in the DMV is like that to one degree or another. Plus, if you’re in Georgetown, you’ll either ultimately be paying three big private school bills down the road or moving “for the schools.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

Yes, living in a $1.8 million Logan Circle townhouse is the “real DC experience.”

I did have to chuckle a bit. The "real" DC experience is a modest townhouse in the suburbs because that's what most people's lives are like. Patting yourself on the back because your kid knows a few token minorities in his class while the rest of his friends are rich kids. Don't kid yourself into thinking there's serious socio-economic diversity in people's lives outside the superficial. It's starting to reminds me of New York or even London, with multi-million dollar terraces right around the corner of grimy council estates. You really think the kids in the fancy houses are going to be good friends with the kids in the subsidized housing? Maybe in a politically correct version of a Hallmark movie.

OP is affluent. She knows her tribe. The move to DC is really to be part of her tribe, affluent urban people. And that is totally fine. Just be honest when talking about wanting diversity and all that. Dupont, Kalorama, Georgetown all tick the boxes. She won't get that much for 1.8M but she'll get something. But I do wonder - if they don't *have* to be in DC, why not just go straight to New York? Brooklyn, Park Slope, Cobble Hill?

LOL. You're all so defensive in your whiteness. When I referenced "1.8 million" it was only because OP said that that was what her budget is. My point was simply that she can afford to buy anywhere in the city.

Logan Circle is one of the whitest and most gentrified parts of the city. I think it's time for you to retire this "defensive in your whiteness" trope.

Not from the view from my front porch. Or the kids' public elementary school. Clearly you don't live here. How's Upper Caucasia treating you?

Not PP, but you are demonstrating that you are new here, relatively speaking.

New where? I grew up in DC.

I don't know how anyone who grew up in DC can tout Logan Circle in 2021 as "diverse."

[Anonymous]

Have you even been to DC, OP? Because I have to say, your view of DC seems “dreamy” and doesn’t really comport with the reality of living there, at least for the vast majority of people. Given that you don’t have to move there for a job, you have to ask yourself “why DC?” And you have to ask whether uprooting your kids to move to a very, very different place that is exponentially more expensive is worth it to chase some dream in your head. Oh, and if your answer is to be around “international” people, you are on for a surprise, as the insularity and clannishness on those groups will make Midwestern insularity look like child’s play.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

Yes, living in a $1.8 million Logan Circle townhouse is the “real DC experience.”

I did have to chuckle a bit. The "real" DC experience is a modest townhouse in the suburbs because that's what most people's lives are like. Patting yourself on the back because your kid knows a few token minorities in his class while the rest of his friends are rich kids. Don't kid yourself into thinking there's serious socio-economic diversity in people's lives outside the superficial. It's starting to reminds me of New York or even London, with multi-million dollar terraces right around the corner of grimy council estates. You really think the kids in the fancy houses are going to be good friends with the kids in the subsidized housing? Maybe in a politically correct version of a Hallmark movie.

OP is affluent. She knows her tribe. The move to DC is really to be part of her tribe, affluent urban people. And that is totally fine. Just be honest when talking about wanting diversity and all that. Dupont, Kalorama, Georgetown all tick the boxes. She won't get that much for 1.8M but she'll get something. But I do wonder - if they don't *have* to be in DC, why not just go straight to New York? Brooklyn, Park Slope, Cobble Hill?

LOL. You're all so defensive in your whiteness. When I referenced "1.8 million" it was only because OP said that that was what her budget is. My point was simply that she can afford to buy anywhere in the city.

Logan Circle is one of the whitest and most gentrified parts of the city. I think it's time for you to retire this "defensive in your whiteness" trope.

Not from the view from my front porch. Or the kids' public elementary school. Clearly you don't live here. How's Upper Caucasia treating you?

Not PP, but you are demonstrating that you are new here, relatively speaking.

New where? I grew up in DC.

I don't know how anyone who grew up in DC can tout Logan Circle in 2021 as "diverse."

Where do you live?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

Yes, living in a $1.8 million Logan Circle townhouse is the “real DC experience.”

I did have to chuckle a bit. The "real" DC experience is a modest townhouse in the suburbs because that's what most people's lives are like. Patting yourself on the back because your kid knows a few token minorities in his class while the rest of his friends are rich kids. Don't kid yourself into thinking there's serious socio-economic diversity in people's lives outside the superficial. It's starting to reminds me of New York or even London, with multi-million dollar terraces right around the corner of grimy council estates. You really think the kids in the fancy houses are going to be good friends with the kids in the subsidized housing? Maybe in a politically correct version of a Hallmark movie.

OP is affluent. She knows her tribe. The move to DC is really to be part of her tribe, affluent urban people. And that is totally fine. Just be honest when talking about wanting diversity and all that. Dupont, Kalorama, Georgetown all tick the boxes. She won't get that much for 1.8M but she'll get something. But I do wonder - if they don't *have* to be in DC, why not just go straight to New York? Brooklyn, Park Slope, Cobble Hill?

LOL. You're all so defensive in your whiteness. When I referenced "1.8 million" it was only because OP said that that was what her budget is. My point was simply that she can afford to buy anywhere in the city.

Logan Circle is one of the whitest and most gentrified parts of the city. I think it's time for you to retire this "defensive in your whiteness" trope.

Not from the view from my front porch. Or the kids' public elementary school. Clearly you don't live here. How's Upper Caucasia treating you?

Not PP, but you are demonstrating that you are new here, relatively speaking.

New where? I grew up in DC.

I don't know how anyone who grew up in DC can tout Logan Circle in 2021 as "diverse."

It's a little known fact that Parliament's album Chocolate City was actually inspired by a fair trade coffee elixir that they sell at Salt & Sundry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

Yes, living in a $1.8 million Logan Circle townhouse is the “real DC experience.”

I did have to chuckle a bit. The "real" DC experience is a modest townhouse in the suburbs because that's what most people's lives are like. Patting yourself on the back because your kid knows a few token minorities in his class while the rest of his friends are rich kids. Don't kid yourself into thinking there's serious socio-economic diversity in people's lives outside the superficial. It's starting to reminds me of New York or even London, with multi-million dollar terraces right around the corner of grimy council estates. You really think the kids in the fancy houses are going to be good friends with the kids in the subsidized housing? Maybe in a politically correct version of a Hallmark movie.

OP is affluent. She knows her tribe. The move to DC is really to be part of her tribe, affluent urban people. And that is totally fine. Just be honest when talking about wanting diversity and all that. Dupont, Kalorama, Georgetown all tick the boxes. She won't get that much for 1.8M but she'll get something. But I do wonder - if they don't *have* to be in DC, why not just go straight to New York? Brooklyn, Park Slope, Cobble Hill?

LOL. You're all so defensive in your whiteness. When I referenced "1.8 million" it was only because OP said that that was what her budget is. My point was simply that she can afford to buy anywhere in the city.

Logan Circle is one of the whitest and most gentrified parts of the city. I think it's time for you to retire this "defensive in your whiteness" trope.

Not from the view from my front porch. Or the kids' public elementary school. Clearly you don't live here. How's Upper Caucasia treating you?

Not PP, but you are demonstrating that you are new here, relatively speaking.

New where? I grew up in DC.

I don't know how anyone who grew up in DC can tout Logan Circle in 2021 as "diverse."

It's a little known fact that Parliament's album Chocolate City was actually inspired by a fair trade coffee elixir that they sell at Salt & Sundry.

[Anonymous]

OP I think DC can be whatever you make of it. But, in areas where you can afford a $1.8 million house, you're self-selecting to be in a neighborhood with wealthy, upper middle class, educated people who were mostly the "smart" kids growing up in their non-DC towns, and now live in Chevy Chase, AU Park, Georgetown, etc. where they expect their kids to be as smart as they were.

There are absolutely friendly, kind families in DC. There are also a disproportionate amount of people who are strivers and expect that same level for their kids. This worked for me and our family, and I know at least 10 of the high achieving kids from my Ohio high school graduating class all left surburban Ohio to live in DC.

Is this your personality? You might fit right in.

[Anonymous]

I don't get why so many Ohioans gravitate to this area, it's unreal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why so many Ohioans gravitate to this area, it's unreal.

Ohio is hell on earth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why so many Ohioans gravitate to this area, it's unreal.

Ohio is hell on earth.

I thought that was NOVA during rush hour.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I've been following this thread with interest.

Not one poster so far has recommended that you move into the heart of the city and put your elementary school aged children in one of the downtown schools and give you and them any exposure to real city living and diversity. For $1.8 million you could buy a very nice rowhome in Logan Circle or Shaw or Dupont. You could walk to absolutely everything. You could stoop on your front porch and meet your neighbors. You could put your kids in schools where there's real socioeconomic and racial diversity. In short, you could have a real DC experience.

The NW neighborhoods that other posters are recommending are for all practical purposes suburbs -- and rich ones at that. There was a firestorm on this website a few months ago after a couple of researchers at Brookings studied DCUM postings and concluded that it perpetuated segregation in the DC public school system by steering parents towards the richest and whitest schools in the city. What I'm seeing here is Exhibit A.

Take a chance, OP. You're smart, educated, and being a SAHM have time to watch over things and get involved. Your kids would thrive in a more diverse environment than what these folks have been pushing on you and be so much better off for it. Don't move to DC just to wall your kids off into the vanilla experience that DCUM is pushing on you.

Yes, living in a $1.8 million Logan Circle townhouse is the “real DC experience.”

I did have to chuckle a bit. The "real" DC experience is a modest townhouse in the suburbs because that's what most people's lives are like. Patting yourself on the back because your kid knows a few token minorities in his class while the rest of his friends are rich kids. Don't kid yourself into thinking there's serious socio-economic diversity in people's lives outside the superficial. It's starting to reminds me of New York or even London, with multi-million dollar terraces right around the corner of grimy council estates. You really think the kids in the fancy houses are going to be good friends with the kids in the subsidized housing? Maybe in a politically correct version of a Hallmark movie.

OP is affluent. She knows her tribe. The move to DC is really to be part of her tribe, affluent urban people. And that is totally fine. Just be honest when talking about wanting diversity and all that. Dupont, Kalorama, Georgetown all tick the boxes. She won't get that much for 1.8M but she'll get something. But I do wonder - if they don't *have* to be in DC, why not just go straight to New York? Brooklyn, Park Slope, Cobble Hill?

LOL. You're all so defensive in your whiteness. When I referenced "1.8 million" it was only because OP said that that was what her budget is. My point was simply that she can afford to buy anywhere in the city.

Logan Circle is one of the whitest and most gentrified parts of the city. I think it's time for you to retire this "defensive in your whiteness" trope.

Not from the view from my front porch. Or the kids' public elementary school. Clearly you don't live here. How's Upper Caucasia treating you?

Not PP, but you are demonstrating that you are new here, relatively speaking.

New where? I grew up in DC.

I don't know how anyone who grew up in DC can tout Logan Circle in 2021 as "diverse."

It's a little known fact that Parliament's album Chocolate City was actually inspired by a fair trade coffee elixir that they sell at Salt & Sundry.

I love you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why so many Ohioans gravitate to this area, it's unreal.

Ohio is hell on earth.

Dave Chappelle left here for Ohio.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't get why so many Ohioans gravitate to this area, it's unreal.

Ohio is hell on earth.

As the PP who is from Ohio, ha! It's true, there are so many of us here. For many of us Ohioans, it's DC or Chicago if you want a big city and job opportunities. For my extended family, the people that stayed in Ohio are either medical/dental professionals who have their own practice, were taking over a family business, or are stay at home moms. For the millennial women in my family, we all left for job opportunities and prefer being in bigger cities and in jobs surrounded by other working women, especially in leadership roles.