Who lives in exurbs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP check out Ashburn, VA

Ashburn is more of a suburb. An exhurb would be somewhere like Front Royal or Warrenton.

Ashburn and Ijamsville are exurbs. Tyson's and Gaithersburg are the suburbs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We live in the exurbs (Warrenton in Fauquier County) and still work in DC. We are both lawyers, non-litigation, and telework 3-4 days a week. Most of the people we know do not commute to DC but there are some. We moved out here because we wanted more space, and even on our income (not Biglaw) we could not afford what we wanted closer in. We genuinely love it out here. We live in walking distance to old town Warrenton so there is some walkability, my kids walk to middle school and then to get ice cream or a snack with friends, there is little crime, we walk home from dinner after dark and don’t think twice about it, and it is just beautiful country. The only thing we’ve missed from our old life close in is the restaurant choices. If you are a city person the exurbs aren’t going to be for you, but if you are already out in the suburbs and don’t go into DC other than for work I much prefer being in the exurbs.

I really don't think Warrenton is an "exurb." Warrenton is an old small city that is disconnected from DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People who walk in woods not streets.

People who make their own coffee,

People who grow food instead of going to “farmers markets “.

People who cook instead of “go to hip restaurants “.

People who live ethic good.

People who go to neighbors homes to visit over the corner bar.

People who ride bikes for fun not transportation.

People who don’t breath in exhaust when they walk with their kids.

Everything you list, we do in DC. And we ride bikes both as a commute and for fun.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who walk in woods not streets.

People who make their own coffee,

People who grow food instead of going to “farmers markets “.

People who cook instead of “go to hip restaurants “.

People who live ethic good.

People who go to neighbors homes to visit over the corner bar.

People who ride bikes for fun not transportation.

People who don’t breath in exhaust when they walk with their kids.

Everything you list, we do in DC. And we ride bikes both as a commute and for fun.

Hello outlier.

[Anonymous]

Ashburn is the definition of exurb.

Vienna is the definition of suburb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP check out Ashburn, VA

Ashburn is more of a suburb. An exhurb would be somewhere like Front Royal or Warrenton.

Ashburn and Ijamsville are exurbs. Tyson's and Gaithersburg are the suburbs.

Ashburn is basically a suburb of Tysons. People seem to think that DC home to skyscrapers packed with workers like NYC or Chicago rather than having a few blocks of low rise office buildings

[Anonymous]

Living in Arlington doesn’t feel that different to us than living in Cleveland Park. People seem to work at home, commute to DC, or commute west to Tysons area. Once you get west of Tysons, few people commute to DC.

Have you ever crossed the river into VA? Most of us definitely have neighbors. Many of us even have restaurants and things we can walk to. Arlington, Fairfax, Vienna, etc. are totally different than Ashburn, Leesburg, Aldie, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People who walk in woods not streets.

People who make their own coffee,

People who grow food instead of going to “farmers markets “.

People who cook instead of “go to hip restaurants “.

People who live ethic good.

People who go to neighbors homes to visit over the corner bar.

People who ride bikes for fun not transportation.

People who don’t breath in exhaust when they walk with their kids.

Everything you list, we do in DC. And we ride bikes both as a commute and for fun.

Hello outlier.

Not really. Anyone who lives within a mile of Rock Creek Park, Glover Archibald Park, the C&O Canal, Kennilworth Gardens, Ft. Circle Parks or Oxen Run has the same opportunity. That is a LOT of DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Living in Arlington doesn’t feel that different to us than living in Cleveland Park. People seem to work at home, commute to DC, or commute west to Tysons area. Once you get west of Tysons, few people commute to DC.

Have you ever crossed the river into VA? Most of us definitely have neighbors. Many of us even have restaurants and things we can walk to. Arlington, Fairfax, Vienna, etc. are totally different than Ashburn, Leesburg, Aldie, etc.

To be fair Arlington was originally part of DC and has much more of the compact "smart growth" lifestyle of an urban/suburban mix than other DC suburbs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We live in the exurbs (Warrenton in Fauquier County) and still work in DC. We are both lawyers, non-litigation, and telework 3-4 days a week. Most of the people we know do not commute to DC but there are some. We moved out here because we wanted more space, and even on our income (not Biglaw) we could not afford what we wanted closer in. We genuinely love it out here. We live in walking distance to old town Warrenton so there is some walkability, my kids walk to middle school and then to get ice cream or a snack with friends, there is little crime, we walk home from dinner after dark and don’t think twice about it, and it is just beautiful country. The only thing we’ve missed from our old life close in is the restaurant choices. If you are a city person the exurbs aren’t going to be for you, but if you are already out in the suburbs and don’t go into DC other than for work I much prefer being in the exurbs.

I really don't think Warrenton is an "exurb." Warrenton is an old small city that is disconnected from DC.

I don’t know about a small city, the population is only a little over 10,000 people. Isn’t being disconnected from the city what makes it an exurb rather than a suburb? When we bought out here 2 years ago our realtor told us that they were seeing a surge of people from the DC suburbs buying in Warrenton and north eastern Fauquier. There were some like us who still work in DC and others who work in Tyson’s or the Dulles corridor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Living in Arlington doesn’t feel that different to us than living in Cleveland Park. People seem to work at home, commute to DC, or commute west to Tysons area. Once you get west of Tysons, few people commute to DC.

Have you ever crossed the river into VA? Most of us definitely have neighbors. Many of us even have restaurants and things we can walk to. Arlington, Fairfax, Vienna, etc. are totally different than Ashburn, Leesburg, Aldie, etc.

To be fair Arlington was originally part of DC and has much more of the compact "smart growth" lifestyle of an urban/suburban mix than other DC suburbs.

Arlington and Bethesda are "inner ring" suburbs, Vienna is a suburb, and Ashburn is an exurb.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:People who walk in woods not streets.

People who make their own coffee,

People who grow food instead of going to “farmers markets “.

People who cook instead of “go to hip restaurants “.

People who live ethic good.

People who go to neighbors homes to visit over the corner bar.

People who ride bikes for fun not transportation.

People who don’t breath in exhaust when they walk with their kids.

Haha what is this? Fanfic written by an urbanite trying to justify their flight to the boonies?

First of all, you're confusing the exurbs with rural areas. Exurbs look a lot more like this: https://goo.gl/maps/HrsYQY7GzLaMBf6n7 than whatever Green Acres nonsense you're imagining.

They're not walking in the wood, the woods got cut down to build their tract houses.

Barely anybody in the exurbs grows their own food other than maybe a raised bed or two so they can post "yay we're farmers" to their Instagram.

People cook instead of going to hip restaurants because the hip restaurants are an hour away.

People who live the "ethic good" wouldn't be caught dead in a 3,000sf McFarmhouse with a giant monoculture lawn and a car-dependent lifestyle.

Maybe you truly believe that's what your life will be like in east cupcake, but I assure you, the vast majority of people out there are driving to Wal-Mart and Home Depot on their weekends and binging Netflix while drinking 1.5L wine on weeknights.

[Anonymous]

We used to live in an exurb (way out area of North Potomac near Poolesville. It was absolutely gorgeous and peaceful. Huge, beautiful lots... great houses... just wonderful in so many ways.

BUT it was also very hard in other ways. I was the only woman in my neighborhood who worked, and many of our neighbors were older. My husband and I had DC-facing jobs and found that was unique so far out (mostly because the commute was god-awful) - most of our neighbors were doctors, dentists, or corporate C suite people who either owned their own businesses or commuted by plane somewhere far afield Monday-Thursday. The wives were home taking care of kids and homes.

Most people who live in areas you are talking about live on huge pieces of land because they don't want to deal with neighbors. It means it can be really hard to build community.

So we ultimately moved closer in. We wanted shorter commutes, a community pool, a school our kids could walk to, and mainly - people more like us who wanted community.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'd never have called Annapolis or Columbia exurbs. Columbia is a major employment center in its own right and is only 30 minutes from downtown Baltimore and has 80k people. It's always been a suburb.

Exurbs were on the fringes of suburbia where the land transitions into proper rural. For exurbs you need to go into deep western Howard, Frederick County, Carroll County, outer Loudon, towards WVA.

As for who lives in exurbs, plenty of people do these days. Larger and yet more affordable housing is usually the main reason. But others also like the sense of open space and being more pastoral.

Agree with this poster re: Columbia. It’s very much a suburb, just not of DC but Baltimore. My office is in Columbia, I mainly WFH now (live in MoCo), but many of my coworkers live in Columbia or elsewhere in Howard County and most seem very pleased. Although the commute to DC would be tough, or at least it was pre-pandemic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I know but who are these people who don’t need to go in frequently?

I work at a large tech company and my office isn’t in DC, I go to DC maybe once a year for something social and that’s it.