Why do you live in the DC area?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Curious what brought you here or keeps you here. What do you like about it, and what do you hate?

I have since moved but loved:
The food scene
The spring scenery
The free activities/museums/etc
The ease of meeting new people because everyone seemed to be a transplant

I did not love:
The cookie-cutter feel of so many suburbs -- felt manufactured
Distance to ocean or other recreation -- no real charming destinations nearby
The "what do you do?" government/noncreative vibe

We live inside the beltway MD. Everyone on our street and nearby streets have lived there for years. Not many people move even after retirement.

I love so many things:

The nature - so many beautiful hiking trails: national park and state parks nearby.

Wonderful spiritual community options. My large church is liberal, loving, age diverse and offers many activities outside of services.

Culture - so many options for live theater, movie theaters, musical performances and more. Plenty of options for arts classes and dance classes nearby

Book clubs - I love my book club.

People - Mix of Americans and expats. Most people moderate where we live - there are mix of Dems and Republicans but most are moderate.

Food - many great neighborhood restaurants near us and fancy restaurants not far away.

Low crime - where we live is low crime.

Great educational options both public and private



Don’t love
Agree OP - Would prefer beaches were closer

Traffic - has only gotten worse over the years

Gun violence and crime increasing in DC and nearby places

Pressure on teens since our area is very high performing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Taking the obvious “museums” out of the equation, what is there to actually DO in DC? No one goes to museums every weekend.

What is there to DO in other major cities that you think you can’t find here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think 90% of world's population would give their right arm to live a middle class life in world's most powerful country's capital.

90% of DC area residents say they hate the USA, refer to most of the US as “flyover” country, and threateningly whine they’ll abandon us for a majority-white, rich foreign country if a fair democratic election brings trump back to the WH.

So get off your “worlds most powerful country” soapbox, PP; you hate the US for that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think 90% of world's population would give their right arm to live a middle class life in world's most powerful country's capital.

90% of DC area residents say they hate the USA, refer to most of the US as “flyover” country, and threateningly whine they’ll abandon us for a majority-white, rich foreign country if a fair democratic election brings trump back to the WH.

So get off your “worlds most powerful country” soapbox, PP; you hate the US for that.

Thinking the US can do better on many fronts is only the same thing as “hating it” on Fox News.

Nice try, though.

[Anonymous]

Jobs. Prefer DC to NoVa or MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hate it here. Can’t wait to move.

Mostly Type-A strivers and mean-spirited, cold people,

No sense of hometown / no city pride,

Transient (everyone leaves)

Summers are miserably hot,

Mosquitoes and ticks everywhere

Winters cold and gray with barely any snow,

Crumbling infrastructure,

Deteriorating school system

Skyrocketing crime

Incompetent local government

Whole area stinks of weed.

We are only here for our .gov jobs.

Obviously you are not a native. For natives, we summer and winter together. DC is very small circled, so when you are in the know, you are able to attend art events, dinner parties, charity functions, etc. We also dabble in recreational drugs.

[Anonymous]

Got an internship here after college in the Midwest, where I assumed I’d just continue living. But 30 years later, here I am in the DMV, never leaving after the internship.

Pros
Milder climate and glorious springs
Plentiful, interesting jobs
Family and friends moved here after I did
Great museums and activities

Cons
The traffic
Cost of living, particularly housing
Too many selfish, egotistical people who care primarily about power and money

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've been here my whole adult life so it's home. My friends and my kid's friends are here. Ultimately that's what makes somewhere a place you want to live.

NP here. You do not have friends anywhere else? Just here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Taking the obvious “museums” out of the equation, what is there to actually DO in DC? No one goes to museums every weekend.

+1

Preach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hate it here. Can’t wait to move.

Mostly Type-A strivers and mean-spirited, cold people,

No sense of hometown / no city pride,

Transient (everyone leaves)

Summers are miserably hot,

Mosquitoes and ticks everywhere

Winters cold and gray with barely any snow,

Crumbling infrastructure,

Deteriorating school system

Skyrocketing crime

Incompetent local government

Whole area stinks of weed.

We are only here for our .gov jobs.

We could be friends in real life.

+2

[Anonymous]

I live here because I blend in

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Taking the obvious “museums” out of the equation, what is there to actually DO in DC? No one goes to museums every weekend.

At least as a metro area there are a lot of recreation centers and other places for kids to go (trampoline places, laser tag, ice skating - talking about the suburbs mostly). I have visited some beach and lake areas where the scenery is beautiful, but they have very little indoor recreation. When it rains there is nothing to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We came here for a prestige job and stayed here because our kids grew up here, went off to college, and came back here and got their own jobs. There’s a lot to like about this area. Obviously, the big downside is housing prices. Fortunately, we’re rich than most (thanks to the aforementioned prestige job) so that’s not that big of a deal. Also, yes, the commute can be terrible, but again that’s really only for people who don’t have money and have to live in places that require long commutes.

So, basically, I guess what I’m saying is this is a great place to live if you have money.

+ Would agree! Follow your heart and move OP. Living in a place you hate can really make you disoriented.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Moved here for grad school, stayed for job opportunities. Have lived here for 20 years and am married with two kids. Have lived in DC itself the whole time (though spouse used to live in suburbs).

What I like and dislike changes with time. These are the major factors of satisfaction/dissatisfaction:

-- Stuff to Do. I have always felt DC punches above its weight in this department and still do. Smaller city but amazing museums, tons of festivals, great bands come through here. Food scene was pretty bad when I moved her but now really good, though as I've gotten older I go out to eat way less so this is much less important to me (same with bars).

-- Affordability. Used to be amazing, obviously much less so. Spouse and I are in fields where we'll never make a ton of money even at the director level, and we've been slowly (or maybe not so slowly) priced out of a lifestyle we once thought we could afford. We're probably going to cash out and move in a few years and this is the main reason why -- our jobs will be less tied to DC in the next few years and our money will go so much further elsewhere. It feels like we get poorer every year even though our incomes have steadily risen. Part of that is cost of kids, but most of it is general cost of living around here.

- Culture. Super uneven. We've never been part of the political/media complex in DC so I have limited interaction with that. I work in the arts and DH works in academia. I do think DC culture can be too Type A and competitive at times. I find this especially jarring in the art world where of course there is competition but there's a joylessness to it in DC that doesn't exist in other art communities I'm a part of. DH has a similar experience in academia -- it's a different vibe than you'd find in either a bigger city (where academics are considered middle class and fairly irrelevant) or a college town (where they are top of the heap). In DC, academics are close enough to policy-making that there is an aura of power, but they make no money in their actual jobs and don't have real power. So there's this weird focus on media presence, mainstream publishing, and consulting, that I think really wears down pure academics. Most people do not go into academia because they love the hustle. But we do like that people in DC tend to be, on average, well-educated and interested in the world. That's not always the case.

All in all, I have no regrets about the time we've spent in DC, but I feel it no longer really suits us. We could move into adjacent industries, boost our income, and "keep up" with costs here, but that would require us to become slightly different people with slightly different values, and it's just not what we envisioned for ourselves. It's time for us to move on.

This is my family in a nutshell. We left a few months ago for the same reasons you stated and loved it there until we didn’t. We absolutely love where we are now and are so glad we did it. We cashed out and ‘
financially, it worked to our advantage. I wish you luck and hope you get to make the move when the timing is right for your family.

[Anonymous]

Husband is from here, otherwise no way. Hated it so much when I first moved here.

That said, in my mid-30’s I’ve attained the foundations of the life I’ve always envisioned for myself with way, way less effort than it would have taken to build it in either of the two vibrant, ultra-competitive mega-cities I’m from. (One is in the US, both are always at the top of “most expensive in the world” lists). Lots of things are surprisingly affordable here. It’s possible my shift in perspective is because my standards are slipping, since none of my circle are here so it doesn’t matter. I’m starting to not be able to tell, which scares me but is also a relief, so I can stop being so hard on myself.