Thoughts on Columbia, MD?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One downside of living in Columbia and the suburbs of Howard County is that many of the areas, especially some of the more desireable areas, are not very walkable. I have been in River Hill for many years and it's a 3.5 mile walk to the nearest store. Some neighbors will bike there on a nice day but generally I have to drive anywhere I need to go. We do have bike paths and playgrounds within walking distance, though. Some neighborhoods are within walking distance to the grocery store but they are usually townhouses and apartments. You can still find SFHs within a mile of the village centers but you'll need to pay attention if that's what you want.

This.

Demographically HoCo is MoCo without the large population of relatively-recent Latin American-heritage immigrants.

Columbia is the 1970s version of Bethesda and Rockville merged together and done so with a 1970s view to urban planning.

In some ways it is an improvement, but in other ways its a big setback.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few years ago we moved to Columbia to be closer to my husband's job.
I hated it. Thankfully we were only renting. We broke the lease after being there for 40 days. (Had to pay $$$$ for breaking lease) and then we moved back to Chevy Chase/Bethesda area.

Columbia is a very integrated area. If you aren't used to seeing a lot of different races living in the same neighborhood together, you probably do need to go back to Chevy Chase.

Agreed. The stated goal of the designer of Columbia is that a CEO could live next to a janitor. They valued economic diversity whereas CC had covenants to prevent Jews and AAs from living there. Maybe that's what they're looking for.

As recently as the 1970s and 1980s Bethesda and Chevy Chase had (I know this, I was there) areas where CEOs and drivers lived in the same neighborhood. This didn't happen in Chevy Chase Village, but that's a very small area (2-3K people out of about 150K in 20814-20817).

As for covenants, all you need to know is WHEN an area was developed. Pre-1950s suburbs almost always had covenants. This includes much of metro Baltimore, I have seen these documents myself. And post-1950s developments, like Columbia, which was largely developed in the 1970s, never have them. So no brownie points for that.

Also, realize that MoCo has an enormous population of recent immigrants from very modest backgrounds in Latin America. HoCo does NOT have those kinds of people in even moderate numbers. HoCo does have a good number of highly skilled immigrants, largely from Asia, but not entirely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One downside of living in Columbia and the suburbs of Howard County is that many of the areas, especially some of the more desireable areas, are not very walkable. I have been in River Hill for many years and it's a 3.5 mile walk to the nearest store. Some neighbors will bike there on a nice day but generally I have to drive anywhere I need to go. We do have bike paths and playgrounds within walking distance, though. Some neighborhoods are within walking distance to the grocery store but they are usually townhouses and apartments. You can still find SFHs within a mile of the village centers but you'll need to pay attention if that's what you want.

This.

Demographically HoCo is MoCo without the large population of relatively-recent Latin American-heritage immigrants.

Columbia is the 1970s version of Bethesda and Rockville merged together and done so with a 1970s view to urban planning.

In some ways it is an improvement, but in other ways its a big setback.

What? There are tons of immigrants in Columbia. They may not be widely disbursed (in fact, some of the neighborhoods looked down upon tend to have a lot of immigrants) but they are absolutely there. Columbia has a large Salvadoran/Honduran population.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few years ago we moved to Columbia to be closer to my husband's job.
I hated it. Thankfully we were only renting. We broke the lease after being there for 40 days. (Had to pay $$$$ for breaking lease) and then we moved back to Chevy Chase/Bethesda area.

Columbia is a very integrated area. If you aren't used to seeing a lot of different races living in the same neighborhood together, you probably do need to go back to Chevy Chase.

Agreed. The stated goal of the designer of Columbia is that a CEO could live next to a janitor. They valued economic diversity whereas CC had covenants to prevent Jews and AAs from living there. Maybe that's what they're looking for.

As recently as the 1970s and 1980s Bethesda and Chevy Chase had (I know this, I was there) areas where CEOs and drivers lived in the same neighborhood. This didn't happen in Chevy Chase Village, but that's a very small area (2-3K people out of about 150K in 20814-20817).

As for covenants, all you need to know is WHEN an area was developed. Pre-1950s suburbs almost always had covenants. This includes much of metro Baltimore, I have seen these documents myself. And post-1950s developments, like Columbia, which was largely developed in the 1970s, never have them. So no brownie points for that.

Also, realize that MoCo has an enormous population of recent immigrants from very modest backgrounds in Latin America. HoCo does NOT have those kinds of people in even moderate numbers. HoCo does have a good number of highly skilled immigrants, largely from Asia, but not entirely.

Have you been to Columbia recently? Columbia has a large number of recent immigrants from moderate backgrounds. Whether that's a draw or not is another story

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One downside of living in Columbia and the suburbs of Howard County is that many of the areas, especially some of the more desireable areas, are not very walkable. I have been in River Hill for many years and it's a 3.5 mile walk to the nearest store. Some neighbors will bike there on a nice day but generally I have to drive anywhere I need to go. We do have bike paths and playgrounds within walking distance, though. Some neighborhoods are within walking distance to the grocery store but they are usually townhouses and apartments. You can still find SFHs within a mile of the village centers but you'll need to pay attention if that's what you want.

This.

Demographically HoCo is MoCo without the large population of relatively-recent Latin American-heritage immigrants.

Columbia is the 1970s version of Bethesda and Rockville merged together and done so with a 1970s view to urban planning.

In some ways it is an improvement, but in other ways its a big setback.

What? There are tons of immigrants in Columbia. They may not be widely disbursed (in fact, some of the neighborhoods looked down upon tend to have a lot of immigrants) but they are absolutely there. Columbia has a large Salvadoran/Honduran population.

Come on. MoCo has on the order of 6-7 TIMES the Latino proportion that HoCo has.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A few years ago we moved to Columbia to be closer to my husband's job.
I hated it. Thankfully we were only renting. We broke the lease after being there for 40 days. (Had to pay $$$$ for breaking lease) and then we moved back to Chevy Chase/Bethesda area.

Columbia is a very integrated area. If you aren't used to seeing a lot of different races living in the same neighborhood together, you probably do need to go back to Chevy Chase.

Agreed. The stated goal of the designer of Columbia is that a CEO could live next to a janitor. They valued economic diversity whereas CC had covenants to prevent Jews and AAs from living there. Maybe that's what they're looking for.

As recently as the 1970s and 1980s Bethesda and Chevy Chase had (I know this, I was there) areas where CEOs and drivers lived in the same neighborhood. This didn't happen in Chevy Chase Village, but that's a very small area (2-3K people out of about 150K in 20814-20817).

As for covenants, all you need to know is WHEN an area was developed. Pre-1950s suburbs almost always had covenants. This includes much of metro Baltimore, I have seen these documents myself. And post-1950s developments, like Columbia, which was largely developed in the 1970s, never have them. So no brownie points for that.

Also, realize that MoCo has an enormous population of recent immigrants from very modest backgrounds in Latin America. HoCo does NOT have those kinds of people in even moderate numbers. HoCo does have a good number of highly skilled immigrants, largely from Asia, but not entirely.

Have you been to Columbia recently? Columbia has a large number of recent immigrants from moderate backgrounds. Whether that's a draw or not is another story

Would you call two weeks ago recently? Moderate backgrounds, maybe. But MoCo has a much larger population of hand-to-mouth laborers from Latin American backgrounds. Don't get me wrong, HoCo has its virtues, but like the rest of metro Baltimore, it hasn't had the recent growth of DC and has lacked the growth in low-end labor markets that counties neighboring DC has.

HoCo feels like the 70s to many of us: a much more egalitarian place with some accompanying declines in diversity. Yes, that doesn't not mean that everyone there is white, but it is notably more white and more universally educated than MoCo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Have you been to Columbia recently? Columbia has a large number of recent immigrants from moderate backgrounds. Whether that's a draw or not is another story

Would you call two weeks ago recently? Moderate backgrounds, maybe. But MoCo has a much larger population of hand-to-mouth laborers from Latin American backgrounds. Don't get me wrong, HoCo has its virtues, but like the rest of metro Baltimore, it hasn't had the recent growth of DC and has lacked the growth in low-end labor markets that counties neighboring DC has.

HoCo feels like the 70s to many of us: a much more egalitarian place with some accompanying declines in diversity. Yes, that doesn't not mean that everyone there is white, but it is notably more white and more universally educated than MoCo.

NP here. Here's some actual numbers from the 2010 Census:

Columbia: 55% Caucasian, 25% African American, 11% Asian, 7% Hispanic
Bethesda: 83% Caucasian, 3% African American, 9% Asian, 7% Hispanic
Rockville: 60% Caucasian, 10% African American, 21% Asian, 14% Hispanic
Silver Spring: 46% Caucasian, 28% African American, 8% Asian, 26% Hispanic
Wheaton: 26% Caucasian, 18% African American, 12% Asian, 42% Hispanic
Mont Cty: 57% Caucasian, 17% African American, 14% Asian, 17% Hispanic

(numbers may add to more than 100% because Hispanics come from different races and may overlap the other numbers)

So, while Columbia is not as diverse as Silver Spring and Wheaton, it is more diverse than Bethesda or Rockville. Taking MoCo as a whole, it's not that much more diverse than Columbia--certainly not enough for the emphatic insistence that MoCo is far more diverse than Columbia. It's pretty close.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hickory Ridge is more in favor than Dorsey due to Dorsey being districted for Wilde Lake High School.

River Hill is nice but it's in Clarksville so you lose a little of the convenience factor IMHO.

River Hill is one of the villages of Columbia, though parts of it are in Clarksville by address.

House prices are dramatically different. There is no comparison between $$$ in Clarksville and $$ in other parts of Ho Co. Just do a home search. People pay $1m+ to own land and huge homes in the River Hill district.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One downside of living in Columbia and the suburbs of Howard County is that many of the areas, especially some of the more desireable areas, are not very walkable. I have been in River Hill for many years and it's a 3.5 mile walk to the nearest store. Some neighbors will bike there on a nice day but generally I have to drive anywhere I need to go. We do have bike paths and playgrounds within walking distance, though. Some neighborhoods are within walking distance to the grocery store but they are usually townhouses and apartments. You can still find SFHs within a mile of the village centers but you'll need to pay attention if that's what you want.

This.

Demographically HoCo is MoCo without the large population of relatively-recent Latin American-heritage immigrants.

Columbia is the 1970s version of Bethesda and Rockville merged together and done so with a 1970s view to urban planning.

In some ways it is an improvement, but in other ways its a big setback.

What? There are tons of immigrants in Columbia. They may not be widely disbursed (in fact, some of the neighborhoods looked down upon tend to have a lot of immigrants) but they are absolutely there. Columbia has a large Salvadoran/Honduran population.

Come on. MoCo has on the order of 6-7 TIMES the Latino proportion that HoCo has.

Ho Co is also tiny.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Via Google, it's 21.5 miles to Baltimore and 31.5 miles to DC. On a weekend, it's an easy 20 minute drive up 95 to the inner harbor. It's about 45 minutes to downtown DC (but obviously longer if you use Metro). It's clearly a central location (by design) but if you have to drive to a city, Baltimore is much easier. The only reason I ever head to DC is the Smithsonian. I go to Baltimore all the time. However, there are plenty of people who commute to both places daily.

This.

Maybe if you go at 2 a.m. when no one else is one the road. I live in Baltimore and it takes 45 minutes (west side of city) to get to Columbia on weekends (for kids rec games, which is the only reason I have ever had to go in 10 years of living in Baltimore). My friends complain it is hour plus during their rush hour commutes. When I commuted to DC, the people commuting from Columbia had commutes only 15 minutes less than mine due to less convenient public transit options.

The schools, however, are very very good and crime is low. But you have a heck of a commute to either city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Via Google, it's 21.5 miles to Baltimore and 31.5 miles to DC. On a weekend, it's an easy 20 minute drive up 95 to the inner harbor. It's about 45 minutes to downtown DC (but obviously longer if you use Metro). It's clearly a central location (by design) but if you have to drive to a city, Baltimore is much easier. The only reason I ever head to DC is the Smithsonian. I go to Baltimore all the time. However, there are plenty of people who commute to both places daily.

This.

Maybe if you go at 2 a.m. when no one else is one the road. I live in Baltimore and it takes 45 minutes (west side of city) to get to Columbia on weekends (for kids rec games, which is the only reason I have ever had to go in 10 years of living in Baltimore). My friends complain it is hour plus during their rush hour commutes. When I commuted to DC, the people commuting from Columbia had commutes only 15 minutes less than mine due to less convenient public transit options.

The schools, however, are very very good and crime is low. But you have a heck of a commute to either city.

PP again, I get the sense that most folks actually work in the Columbia area, or Baltimore County (owings mills area) or Montgomery county, and don't actually commute to either city, which makes a helluva lot more sense.

[Anonymous]

Well, Ho Co relies on Baltimore. It has BG&E versus PEPCO, for example, and the news is from Baltimore. I have friends who moved to Ho Co for the schools but they commute to Balt. for work.

Ho Co is not DC-based at all.

And I can say from an educator's perspective that the school system is solid. We would have moved there, but as a two-teacher HH in Mo Co, it's easier to stay on the same schedule as your kids.

Anonymous wrote:I grew up in Baltimore and Columbia was never on anyone's radar. We never went to Columbia for the shopping or the mall (that would have been Towson or Owings Mills or even White Marsh). No one talked about Columbia. You occasionally met people who lived in Columbia but it was "out there" in a different land, quite unlike Cockeysville or Hunt Valley which were much more integrated with Baltimore itself. The other Baltimore suburbs in Baltimore County and even Anne Arundel and Harford Counties were always much more part of the metro area than Columbia. Even Ellicott City is somewhat accepted as a Baltimore suburb more than Columbia.

Part of the problem may have to do with the geographic isolation of Columbia. There's no direct road from Columbia to Baltimore (unlike I83 connecting the northern suburbs to downtown) and the Patapsco Valley State Park also buffers Howard County from Baltimore County with minimal linkage between the two. That helps fuel the sense that Columbia wasn't a proper part of Baltimore. Columbia, being a new master planned community, didn't attract many Baltimore families so few people in Baltimore had relatives or cousins who moved out to Columbia (unlike Towson, for example).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Baltimore doesn't view Columbia as one of its suburbs.

It's a stepchild, unloved by both Baltimore and DC

I did hear a HoCo planning professional say that roughly 1/3 of Columbia residents work in the DC area, another 1/3 in the Baltimore area and the remaining 1/3 in Columbia itself.

That is entirely untrue. It is a Baltimore suburb and is well loved by many people from Baltimore (who cares about DC ). Columbia and Howard County routinely make national lists on the best places to live.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Schools are not good. Look at Baltimore privates.

Now you are just making shit up.

Troof. Baltimore privates are just exercises in playing with their, wait for it, privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hickory Ridge is more in favor than Dorsey due to Dorsey being districted for Wilde Lake High School.

River Hill is nice but it's in Clarksville so you lose a little of the convenience factor IMHO.

River Hill is one of the villages of Columbia, though parts of it are in Clarksville by address.

House prices are dramatically different. There is no comparison between $$$ in Clarksville and $$ in other parts of Ho Co. Just do a home search. People pay $1m+ to own land and huge homes in the River Hill district.

I wasn't disputing that. I was just pointing out that River Hill is part of Columbia. Clarksville is a separate town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Schools are not good. Look at Baltimore privates.

Strange statement. Howard County routinely tops national lists for its school system.