NWDC and safety

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Adams Morgan is fine right now, there have been a couple incidents in the last several months but we feel very safe as a family. Look for the areas that are zoned for Oyster Adams.

Other areas that will feel safe and have good schools are are woodley park, Cleveland park, van ness, tenleytown, Chevy chase. All of them will feel more urban the closer you are to the main drag of shops in each area. Mount pleasant is lovely too. The hill is worth looking at, very different vibe but has lovely areas.

Avoid Columbia heights, petworth, parkview, brightwood, Shaw, Logan circle, Brentwood, noma. I know some people love these areas but I just can’t do it with the crime. And the schools.

Carjacking by very young kids with a gun in Adams Morgan (Lanier Heights) last evening, in daylight.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of NW is no more “urban” than the suburbs on the other side of the DC line and isn’t remotely comparable to Cambridge. And the schools, while perhaps the best in DC, are average at best compared to the suburbs and below average once you are past elementary school. So it’s really the worst of both worlds: not city-like in terms of lifestyle, and not suburb-like in terms of school quality. So why bother?

Quite false

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of NW is no more “urban” than the suburbs on the other side of the DC line and isn’t remotely comparable to Cambridge. And the schools, while perhaps the best in DC, are average at best compared to the suburbs and below average once you are past elementary school. So it’s really the worst of both worlds: not city-like in terms of lifestyle, and not suburb-like in terms of school quality. So why bother?

Quite false

If you really think that Deal, Hardy and J-R are anywhere near the quality of the better middle and high schools in Montgomery, Fairfax and Arlington you have a screw loose.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I live in Glover Park DC and it's about the safest neighborhood in DC. My windows are open right now and all I hear are crickets. It is a tad boring but great for kids. Green, safe, sidewalked. You can walk to Whole Foods and a bunch of restaurants from here (Wisconsin Ave). Zoned for Stoddert ES. Def check it out.

Totally agree. GP is safe. No metro there though (probably one of the reasons for its safety).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of NW is no more “urban” than the suburbs on the other side of the DC line and isn’t remotely comparable to Cambridge. And the schools, while perhaps the best in DC, are average at best compared to the suburbs and below average once you are past elementary school. So it’s really the worst of both worlds: not city-like in terms of lifestyle, and not suburb-like in terms of school quality. So why bother?

Quite false

If you really think that Deal, Hardy and J-R are anywhere near the quality of the better middle and high schools in Montgomery, Fairfax and Arlington you have a screw loose.

They’re not in the papers for racism. Can you say the same? In any case, I’d assume private. If you need public, rather stay in Boston.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Much of NW is no more “urban” than the suburbs on the other side of the DC line and isn’t remotely comparable to Cambridge. And the schools, while perhaps the best in DC, are average at best compared to the suburbs and below average once you are past elementary school. So it’s really the worst of both worlds: not city-like in terms of lifestyle, and not suburb-like in terms of school quality. So why bother?

Hi - so where is safe and urban (comparable to Cambridge) in DC?

to the PP who asked, we live near Porter square. Yes, been hearing more about crime around Central since Covid, but there is pretty much nothing around where we live. It's safe enough that some elementary aged kids walk home on their own.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, I live in Glover Park DC and it's about the safest neighborhood in DC. My windows are open right now and all I hear are crickets. It is a tad boring but great for kids. Green, safe, sidewalked. You can walk to Whole Foods and a bunch of restaurants from here (Wisconsin Ave). Zoned for Stoddert ES. Def check it out.

Agreed. OP, try Glover Park.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of NW is no more “urban” than the suburbs on the other side of the DC line and isn’t remotely comparable to Cambridge. And the schools, while perhaps the best in DC, are average at best compared to the suburbs and below average once you are past elementary school. So it’s really the worst of both worlds: not city-like in terms of lifestyle, and not suburb-like in terms of school quality. So why bother?

Quite false

If you really think that Deal, Hardy and J-R are anywhere near the quality of the better middle and high schools in Montgomery, Fairfax and Arlington you have a screw loose.

Have you seen how much Arlington and MoCo families hate their schools? Deal, Hardy and J-R are much better.

[Anonymous]

DC crime cards is a great resource OP: https://crimecards.dc.gov/

But really everything WOTP is safe. If you can’t afford WOTP then you’ll need to dig a bit more but there are plenty of safe family-friendly neighborhoods, and not necessarily all in NW.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thanks, jotting these down. We live in Cambridge. Very safe, very urban.

OP i moved here from cambridge 3 years ago. I haven’t seen anything in dc and surrounding VA / MD that has the feel of cambridge. The closest may be old town Alexandria but that’s far out enough to not be an option for a lot of people. We are about to move to Chevy chase (near friendship heights metro) and like a PP said , it’s nothing like the feel of Cambridge. Yes, compared to a lot of Nova suburbs it’s relatively more walkable, as in you’re not in a community surrounded by high ways and strip malls, but it’s still very suburban. The density and quality of retail, restaurants do not even come close to Cambridge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Much of NW is no more “urban” than the suburbs on the other side of the DC line and isn’t remotely comparable to Cambridge. And the schools, while perhaps the best in DC, are average at best compared to the suburbs and below average once you are past elementary school. So it’s really the worst of both worlds: not city-like in terms of lifestyle, and not suburb-like in terms of school quality. So why bother?

Quite false

If you really think that Deal, Hardy and J-R are anywhere near the quality of the better middle and high schools in Montgomery, Fairfax and Arlington you have a screw loose.

Have you seen how much Arlington and MoCo families hate their schools? Deal, Hardy and J-R are much better.

Ha ha, no. Deal, Hardy and J-R families simply have lower expectations. There is no ranking of any kind (other than diversity rankings) that have any of these schools any near the top of DMV publics, and by any quantitative measurement (test scores etc) they are closer to the bottom.

The best DC elementary schools compare well to the suburbs. But that’s only because their boundaries are tighter and they’re located in neighborhoods that don’t look or feel any different than the suburbs that surround them. They’re in the “city” in name only.

[Anonymous]

Here’s the bottom line. No neighborhood school pyramid (elementary, middle, high) is “strong” because no neighborhood middle or high school is “strong” compared to the top 1/3 or 1/2 in the suburbs. And no neighborhood offering this pyramid can be called “urban” with a straight face except Mount Pleasant. If I were OP, that’s where I’d look.

[Anonymous]

Why? Other than TJ, no DMV public is even close to Cambridge, Brookline etc. and even how they used to be. None of the Ws are anything like they used to be (but sure have doubled down on racism and anti-semitism scandals — I’d sure look at that too).

There are great elementaries in super neighborhoods, like Mann, Oyster (K-8), Hearst, Murch and Key. All the top schools with great communities and education are there too: Sidwell, NCS, St Albans, GDS.

DC suburbs are really soulless and then wait for the mozzie season, ouch. Live in DC if you can afford to, as people have said the circle around the VP residence, followed by the surrounding areas is the best choice.

[Anonymous]

Here’s that circle — includes parts of Glover Park down to T and Woodley Park up to Garfield

The top schools are all in or right by the 1/2 mile circle from the VP residence in either direction

https://www.flyreagan.com/sites/flyreagan.com/files/legacyfiles/north_flow_0.png

[Anonymous]

You can also look into some big houses in Anacostia. Nice liberal part of town with a lot of history.