Moving from NYC to DC suburbs...tell me why you like the DC suburbs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you haven't already bought in the suburbs, don't do it. You'll be miserable unless you live in a place like parts of Arlington and Alexandria.

If you move to a place like Reston or McLean, you will be miserable OP.

But what about the public schools being way better in a place like McLean? Unfortunately it just seems like the more city-like areas (or DC proper) gave bad public schools.

No. Close-in Arlington or Bethesda have excellent schools and walkable (to coffee) neighborhoods.

- resident of (the horror!!) Reston

+1 I moved from another large city (not nyc) to Arlington (westover). What I like - best of both worlds, I can be downtown at a museum with my kid in about 10 minutes by car on a Saturday morning, I can still walk to coffee, a few of our favorite restaurants and the farmers market, lots of playgrounds, but I also can easily get to a grocery store (with my cargo bike on the trail or by car and enjoy the large parking lot and ease), I can easily drive places when it’s easier to with my kids but I also hate the in and out of car seats so we also have a cargo bike and tote the kids on the trails as much as possible. Next year my son will start kindergarten and we have a great public school that the neighbors all seem happy with a short walk away. No stress there which is very nice and obviously a huge privilege. Life is pretty easy. Parks and trails a block away. Neighbors who have become good friends, I can text on a Saturday morning and have impromptu get togethers with friends and their kids who are similar ages. I probably outed myself to anyone who knows me traipsing around westover on our bike but they are becoming more common by the day.

If you end up further out, we have family farther out in a suburb that isn’t walkable to shops etc and the benefits there I do see too - it’s quiet, there is a lake nearby, lots of culdesacs and neighbors are chill and friends. Kids run around (they do in Arlington too).

Whoa! This sounds great! Do you mind sharing the name of the elementary school? Is it Arlington Traditional? Is that hard to get into with the lottery? Sorry so many questions.

Sure! Cardinal elementary. Arlington traditional is also close by but like you said it’s lottery. Basically arlington has neighborhood schools and then a few “option” schools which you can try to lottery into that are all over the county. There are pros and cons like anything to doing an option school (the specialty programs can be great, but you then aren’t with neighborhood kids and often have to take the bus to school but sometimes they have a more even diversity level which is great vs either leaning more higher income or more lower income, to name a few). People that go to Arlington traditional usually seem to love it but we aren’t entering our son in the lottery at all, we’ve heard great things about cardinal and I like the neighborhood school aspect so I’d rather just go with that then add lottery stress or end up with our kids farther from home because we’d like to be able to walk/bike. Cardinal is right in westover next to the westover library so it has kind of a small town feel for us. Westover has an old hardware store (Ayers) that has been there for decades that my son adores. He gets his haircut next door by people that know him. It really does feel like a small town in a lot of ways but then you also are near everything. The middle school is also right nearby so all the middle schoolers take over the shops after school, pretty hilarious.

Ashlawn elementary is another one right by the trails that is great though not all houses are as walkable to westover.

I am bias but I truly love where we live. walk up to the farmers market on Sunday morning and then all the kids play on the playground at cardinal. We’ve made a lot of friends that way. Come visit on a Sunday morning if you want to get a feel. And I can’t believe how many places I can get on our bike. We love it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you haven't already bought in the suburbs, don't do it. You'll be miserable unless you live in a place like parts of Arlington and Alexandria.

If you move to a place like Reston or McLean, you will be miserable OP.

But what about the public schools being way better in a place like McLean? Unfortunately it just seems like the more city-like areas (or DC proper) gave bad public schools.

No. Close-in Arlington or Bethesda have excellent schools and walkable (to coffee) neighborhoods.

- resident of (the horror!!) Reston

+1 I moved from another large city (not nyc) to Arlington (westover). What I like - best of both worlds, I can be downtown at a museum with my kid in about 10 minutes by car on a Saturday morning, I can still walk to coffee, a few of our favorite restaurants and the farmers market, lots of playgrounds, but I also can easily get to a grocery store (with my cargo bike on the trail or by car and enjoy the large parking lot and ease), I can easily drive places when it’s easier to with my kids but I also hate the in and out of car seats so we also have a cargo bike and tote the kids on the trails as much as possible. Next year my son will start kindergarten and we have a great public school that the neighbors all seem happy with a short walk away. No stress there which is very nice and obviously a huge privilege. Life is pretty easy. Parks and trails a block away. Neighbors who have become good friends, I can text on a Saturday morning and have impromptu get togethers with friends and their kids who are similar ages. I probably outed myself to anyone who knows me traipsing around westover on our bike but they are becoming more common by the day.

If you end up further out, we have family farther out in a suburb that isn’t walkable to shops etc and the benefits there I do see too - it’s quiet, there is a lake nearby, lots of culdesacs and neighbors are chill and friends. Kids run around (they do in Arlington too).

Hi Westover neighbor! I was the previous poster who mentioned Westover. My son starts kindergarten next year too! No doubt we’ll see you at Tornados soccer practice/ at the beer garden. I’ll be the one holding a red rose.

Haha hi neighbor!!! See you there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you haven't already bought in the suburbs, don't do it. You'll be miserable unless you live in a place like parts of Arlington and Alexandria.

If you move to a place like Reston or McLean, you will be miserable OP.

But what about the public schools being way better in a place like McLean? Unfortunately it just seems like the more city-like areas (or DC proper) gave bad public schools.

No. Close-in Arlington or Bethesda have excellent schools and walkable (to coffee) neighborhoods.

- resident of (the horror!!) Reston

+1 I moved from another large city (not nyc) to Arlington (westover). What I like - best of both worlds, I can be downtown at a museum with my kid in about 10 minutes by car on a Saturday morning, I can still walk to coffee, a few of our favorite restaurants and the farmers market, lots of playgrounds, but I also can easily get to a grocery store (with my cargo bike on the trail or by car and enjoy the large parking lot and ease), I can easily drive places when it’s easier to with my kids but I also hate the in and out of car seats so we also have a cargo bike and tote the kids on the trails as much as possible. Next year my son will start kindergarten and we have a great public school that the neighbors all seem happy with a short walk away. No stress there which is very nice and obviously a huge privilege. Life is pretty easy. Parks and trails a block away. Neighbors who have become good friends, I can text on a Saturday morning and have impromptu get togethers with friends and their kids who are similar ages. I probably outed myself to anyone who knows me traipsing around westover on our bike but they are becoming more common by the day.

If you end up further out, we have family farther out in a suburb that isn’t walkable to shops etc and the benefits there I do see too - it’s quiet, there is a lake nearby, lots of culdesacs and neighbors are chill and friends. Kids run around (they do in Arlington too).

Whoa! This sounds great! Do you mind sharing the name of the elementary school? Is it Arlington Traditional? Is that hard to get into with the lottery? Sorry so many questions.

I’m a NYC girl who has lived in Arlington for many years now. I can’t think of any place in Arlington (the smallest county in the US) where you cannot walk to some kind of green space or park, and where you cannot walk to an elementary school. Now, because they have to balance ratios and they have a prohibition on elementary school children crossing certain major roads, your child might be bussed to school. My child was scheduled for a bus before we moved to a townhouse in a different part of Arlington, but if I wanted to walk to a school playground there were three closer to my condo than the one we were zoned for. ALL elementary schools in Arlington are good. The ones with the high proportion of lower income kids have smaller student to teacher ratios. If you stay along the Orange Line (center) of Arlington, you can definitely walk to many things. If you move to the far north, yes, you will want to drive to most things with kids.

But nothing is Manhattan or Brooklyn, so don’t expect to find it anywhere else, or NY style pizza and good bagels. But you must be coming here for a reason, so just shift your mind space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you haven't already bought in the suburbs, don't do it. You'll be miserable unless you live in a place like parts of Arlington and Alexandria.

If you move to a place like Reston or McLean, you will be miserable OP.

But what about the public schools being way better in a place like McLean? Unfortunately it just seems like the more city-like areas (or DC proper) gave bad public schools.

No. Close-in Arlington or Bethesda have excellent schools and walkable (to coffee) neighborhoods.

- resident of (the horror!!) Reston

+1 I moved from another large city (not nyc) to Arlington (westover). What I like - best of both worlds, I can be downtown at a museum with my kid in about 10 minutes by car on a Saturday morning, I can still walk to coffee, a few of our favorite restaurants and the farmers market, lots of playgrounds, but I also can easily get to a grocery store (with my cargo bike on the trail or by car and enjoy the large parking lot and ease), I can easily drive places when it’s easier to with my kids but I also hate the in and out of car seats so we also have a cargo bike and tote the kids on the trails as much as possible. Next year my son will start kindergarten and we have a great public school that the neighbors all seem happy with a short walk away. No stress there which is very nice and obviously a huge privilege. Life is pretty easy. Parks and trails a block away. Neighbors who have become good friends, I can text on a Saturday morning and have impromptu get togethers with friends and their kids who are similar ages. I probably outed myself to anyone who knows me traipsing around westover on our bike but they are becoming more common by the day.

If you end up further out, we have family farther out in a suburb that isn’t walkable to shops etc and the benefits there I do see too - it’s quiet, there is a lake nearby, lots of culdesacs and neighbors are chill and friends. Kids run around (they do in Arlington too).

Whoa! This sounds great! Do you mind sharing the name of the elementary school? Is it Arlington Traditional? Is that hard to get into with the lottery? Sorry so many questions.

I’m a NYC girl who has lived in Arlington for many years now. I can’t think of any place in Arlington (the smallest county in the US) where you cannot walk to some kind of green space or park, and where you cannot walk to an elementary school. Now, because they have to balance ratios and they have a prohibition on elementary school children crossing certain major roads, your child might be bussed to school. My child was scheduled for a bus before we moved to a townhouse in a different part of Arlington, but if I wanted to walk to a school playground there were three closer to my condo than the one we were zoned for. ALL elementary schools in Arlington are good. The ones with the high proportion of lower income kids have smaller student to teacher ratios. If you stay along the Orange Line (center) of Arlington, you can definitely walk to many things. If you move to the far north, yes, you will want to drive to most things with kids.

But nothing is Manhattan or Brooklyn, so don’t expect to find it anywhere else, or NY style pizza and good bagels. But you must be coming here for a reason, so just shift your mind space.

I’m the westover pp and will just say I totally agree with this and the food.. basically my taste buds have adjusted but I swear even in the city most places aren’t as good as my previous city. There are good places but not the same so, you accept that and take the other good things. The food is probably the one thing I still miss sometimes.

[Anonymous]

I moved from NY suburb to McLean. I would choose Westover in Arlington if I had it to do over. For me, walkability is important. We can’t walk to library (only a small part of McLean can) and I don’t like that library anyway. Also, McLean has no ice cream shops. Go figure! Westover has Toby’s, which is a gem. Also, the Italian Store right there is the closest you’ll get to NY pizza You are also close-ish to the metro, which you will appreciate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t understand why New Yorkers do this. They leave NY, move to a soulless suburb of another city and then complain nonstop how they hate X city. No, you hate the burns.

Cause we are forced to. My block very few moved here by choice. I got laid off a big NYC job and moved here for work. What I do miss which could be a perk is too much diversity.

Meaning I love to go Arthur Ave in Bronx good Italian food, Flushing Queens, good Chinese, good Jewish Bagels, everything here is so bland. Could be plus. I mean you could be odd man in NY suburbs when Lawrence is 95 percent Orthodox, Roosevelt 95 percent Black, Hicksville 95 percent Hispanic median, Garden City 95 percent white Catholic but in those towns a sense of community of you fit in. We have none of that in DMV. Which is why folks join stiff to meet their tribe.

This is BS.

Four of the country's most diverse cities/towns are in MoCo --Germantown, Gaithersburg and Silver Spring come in at Nos. 2, 3 and 4, and Rockville rounds out the top 10.

I am a MoCo native who loves our diversity, but our diversity is different from what an affluent NY’er thinks of as diversity…particularly when it comes to food.

Nonetheless, we do have legit diversity and good restaurants. As far as I can tell, the only thing NY has on us is better bagels and better pizza. (And honestly the best bagels I’ve ever had are in a little place in NJ).

[Anonymous]

Um... it smells better in DC and in the DC suburbs than in NYC. That's a plus, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you haven't already bought in the suburbs, don't do it. You'll be miserable unless you live in a place like parts of Arlington and Alexandria.

If you move to a place like Reston or McLean, you will be miserable OP.

But what about the public schools being way better in a place like McLean? Unfortunately it just seems like the more city-like areas (or DC proper) gave bad public schools.

No. Close-in Arlington or Bethesda have excellent schools and walkable (to coffee) neighborhoods.

- resident of (the horror!!) Reston

+1 I moved from another large city (not nyc) to Arlington (westover). What I like - best of both worlds, I can be downtown at a museum with my kid in about 10 minutes by car on a Saturday morning, I can still walk to coffee, a few of our favorite restaurants and the farmers market, lots of playgrounds, but I also can easily get to a grocery store (with my cargo bike on the trail or by car and enjoy the large parking lot and ease), I can easily drive places when it’s easier to with my kids but I also hate the in and out of car seats so we also have a cargo bike and tote the kids on the trails as much as possible. Next year my son will start kindergarten and we have a great public school that the neighbors all seem happy with a short walk away. No stress there which is very nice and obviously a huge privilege. Life is pretty easy. Parks and trails a block away. Neighbors who have become good friends, I can text on a Saturday morning and have impromptu get togethers with friends and their kids who are similar ages. I probably outed myself to anyone who knows me traipsing around westover on our bike but they are becoming more common by the day.

If you end up further out, we have family farther out in a suburb that isn’t walkable to shops etc and the benefits there I do see too - it’s quiet, there is a lake nearby, lots of culdesacs and neighbors are chill and friends. Kids run around (they do in Arlington too).

Whoa! This sounds great! Do you mind sharing the name of the elementary school? Is it Arlington Traditional? Is that hard to get into with the lottery? Sorry so many questions.

Arlington Traditional is basically a cult, so if you get in, you'll be a believer, but if you don't, everything will be fine, I promise

I'd look at the demographics of the various elementaries and decide which ones work for you. If possible, look ahead to middle school (avoid Williamsburg) and high school (you probably want Washington-Liberty or Wakefield)

[Anonymous]

DC suburbs absolutely suck. This place is basically like Ohio or Indiana but if the residents were 10,000% more pretentious and arrogant and full of themselves. And that 10,000% figure isn't an even an exaggeration. People will live in bland-as-f*ck Virginia and pretend they're the center of the universe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you haven't already bought in the suburbs, don't do it. You'll be miserable unless you live in a place like parts of Arlington and Alexandria.

If you move to a place like Reston or McLean, you will be miserable OP.

But what about the public schools being way better in a place like McLean? Unfortunately it just seems like the more city-like areas (or DC proper) gave bad public schools.

The public schools in McLean and Great Falls are the best in the state. Great Falls is rural and spread out but parts of McLean are walkable and there is easy Metro access.

I don’t understand people who think walkable to to anything in McLean is a benefit? They truly must never have lived in a city or like cities? It sounds awful to have the only things walking distance be soulless strip malls or a mush mash of little places surrounded by parking lots. It’s not the actual dry cleaner or coffee place that i yearn for, it’s the running into friends while walking all over, the variety of places, charm of the area, multiple options to sit outside, walking distance to parks, etc. and a real sense of community. We moved from the UWS to upper nw. While it was walkable to playgrounds and the library, it still felt isolated. We ended up moving again to old town, Alexandria and it feels a lot like the UWS. While we have cars and it’s easy to drive to the airport or beach or whatever, we pretty much walk everywhere. We go to the playgrounds and run into friends, there are lots of community events, the kids walk to sports, etc. The elementary school is excellent but we chose private for after that, although friends who stayed in public swear that it’s good as long as you’re in the gifted and talented classes

[Anonymous]

We moved from Manhattan to a different suburban area that has a rural feel to it. We LOVE it. We lived in NYC for 15 years and had three kids there. So much is easier out here. Schools, school buses, sports, libraries, other activities. There are swimming pools everywhere!! Everything is less crowded.
We started getting into hobbies that are harder to do in NYC, like woodworking, birds, and relaxed bicycling.

I deeply miss my city friends, walking everywhere, people watching, bus rides, Asian food and the general intensity and weirdness of New Yorkers. The tradeoffs are 1000% worth it for us, though. We can be back there by train for a visit in under two hours and someday we might move back, as a lot of empty nesters do.

[Anonymous]

Fewer rats

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you haven't already bought in the suburbs, don't do it. You'll be miserable unless you live in a place like parts of Arlington and Alexandria.

If you move to a place like Reston or McLean, you will be miserable OP.

But what about the public schools being way better in a place like McLean? Unfortunately it just seems like the more city-like areas (or DC proper) gave bad public schools.

The public schools in McLean and Great Falls are the best in the state. Great Falls is rural and spread out but parts of McLean are walkable and there is easy Metro access.

I don’t understand people who think walkable to to anything in McLean is a benefit? They truly must never have lived in a city or like cities? It sounds awful to have the only things walking distance be soulless strip malls or a mush mash of little places surrounded by parking lots. It’s not the actual dry cleaner or coffee place that i yearn for, it’s the running into friends while walking all over, the variety of places, charm of the area, multiple options to sit outside, walking distance to parks, etc. and a real sense of community. We moved from the UWS to upper nw. While it was walkable to playgrounds and the library, it still felt isolated. We ended up moving again to old town, Alexandria and it feels a lot like the UWS. While we have cars and it’s easy to drive to the airport or beach or whatever, we pretty much walk everywhere. We go to the playgrounds and run into friends, there are lots of community events, the kids walk to sports, etc. The elementary school is excellent but we chose private for after that, although friends who stayed in public swear that it’s good as long as you’re in the gifted and talented classes

Which elementary school? TIA!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you haven't already bought in the suburbs, don't do it. You'll be miserable unless you live in a place like parts of Arlington and Alexandria.

If you move to a place like Reston or McLean, you will be miserable OP.

But what about the public schools being way better in a place like McLean? Unfortunately it just seems like the more city-like areas (or DC proper) gave bad public schools.

No. Close-in Arlington or Bethesda have excellent schools and walkable (to coffee) neighborhoods.

- resident of (the horror!!) Reston

+1 I moved from another large city (not nyc) to Arlington (westover). What I like - best of both worlds, I can be downtown at a museum with my kid in about 10 minutes by car on a Saturday morning, I can still walk to coffee, a few of our favorite restaurants and the farmers market, lots of playgrounds, but I also can easily get to a grocery store (with my cargo bike on the trail or by car and enjoy the large parking lot and ease), I can easily drive places when it’s easier to with my kids but I also hate the in and out of car seats so we also have a cargo bike and tote the kids on the trails as much as possible. Next year my son will start kindergarten and we have a great public school that the neighbors all seem happy with a short walk away. No stress there which is very nice and obviously a huge privilege. Life is pretty easy. Parks and trails a block away. Neighbors who have become good friends, I can text on a Saturday morning and have impromptu get togethers with friends and their kids who are similar ages. I probably outed myself to anyone who knows me traipsing around westover on our bike but they are becoming more common by the day.

If you end up further out, we have family farther out in a suburb that isn’t walkable to shops etc and the benefits there I do see too - it’s quiet, there is a lake nearby, lots of culdesacs and neighbors are chill and friends. Kids run around (they do in Arlington too).

Whoa! This sounds great! Do you mind sharing the name of the elementary school? Is it Arlington Traditional? Is that hard to get into with the lottery? Sorry so many questions.

Arlington Traditional is basically a cult, so if you get in, you'll be a believer, but if you don't, everything will be fine, I promise

I'd look at the demographics of the various elementaries and decide which ones work for you. If possible, look ahead to middle school (avoid Williamsburg) and high school (you probably want Washington-Liberty or Wakefield)[/quote

Anyone know what the acceptance rate into Arlington Traditional is?

[Anonymous]

Parts of Arlington are walkable, but not to much. If I were you, I'd either do DC and private school, or just rip the band aid off and do suburbs all the way. I'd suggest MoCo like close in Bethesda or Chevy Chase for your taste.