Which neighborhood?

[Anonymous]

Taking into account: elementary school, commuting time to downtown and a neighborhood feel (kids everywhere, nice down to earth parents) where would you live?:

Glover Park
Van Ness/Forest Hills
Georgetown
AU Park

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Yes, I would like to know too, we are new to the area. Id also like to know abot Chevy Chase and Bethesda......

[Anonymous]

I absolutely love our neighborhood -- Chevy Chase DC. We rented for a year to test it out & took the leap and bought a house this year. Friendly, down-to-earth neighbors and one of the best elementary schools (Lafayette) in the District. Also, much better parking situation than in Gtown, for example. And proximity to Rock Creek Park makes me prefer CC to AU Park.

[Anonymous]

Answering your question honestly, I would say Glover Park. You'd have to rank your priorities and I could give you a more accurate answer.

ie, if your priority item is "kids everywhere," I would rank Forest Hills last. But its school (Murch) is good and the commute is good.

Glover Park and AU Park win for the 'kids everywhere' . AU's school (Janney) puts up better test numbers than Glover's (Stoddert), but both schools have great parental involvement, some teachers, etc. So visit both.

Glover has no Metro, so you'd need to bus it or drive. Same w. Gtown.

If "neighborhood feel" is your #1 priority, I'd take Forest Hills out of the mix. It's undoubtedly beautiful, manicured and serene. But the streets are also empty, comparatively speaking. The demographic there is definitely older/retired/ambassador-with-no-kids.

[Anonymous]

wesley heights is great. it has kids everywhere, the highest scores for an elementary school, close commute to downtown, but it is one of the wealthiest communities with houses starting at 1 million and up. that being said, everyone is really friendly and it is in walking distance to upper georgetown and the foxhall square area.

[Anonymous]

Wesley Heights has a good school, too (Mann), but no Metro access.

[Anonymous]

Mclean, VA, you get more house for the money and it is equal to Bethesda. Best of everything and metro on the way

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure about metro on the way. And McLean is very, very different from the neighborhoods mentioned in the OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure about metro on the way. And McLean is very, very different from the neighborhoods mentioned in the OP.

Not to get too far off the OP's original question, but in what way is McLean "very, very" different from the neighborhoods mentioned in the OP? I'm just curious because it is one of the neighborhoods we're considering when we house hunt this spring.

[Anonymous]

Well, for one thing McLean is in VA, not DC which is where all the neighborhoods are that the OP asked about. It has much more of a suburban feel - no metro, more spread out. I suppose if you lived right near downtown McLean, you might get something sort of similar, but I think they are really different.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Thanks for the suggestions and advice. To the McLean poster - we do want to stay in the city. We would consider N Arlington, but for the next few years, we'd prefer to be in the city. Thanks!

[Anonymous]

I would rule out Glover Park & Georgetown due to the lack of Metro access. Georgetown is also extremely expensive, and parking is a real pain. Perhaps more important, when we were considering buying there, we were told that while there are lots of little kids around, there aren't that many kids who are school-age and above because families tend to move farther out at that stage.

Forest Hills has nice houses, but I don't find that it has much of a family feel. And while you can walk to the Metro at Van Ness, the strip there is not much of an attraction, IMHO.

We lived in AU Park and really liked it. Easy access to two Metro stops in our case (FH & Tenley); lots and lots of shopping (including, soon, two Whole Foods); one of the best parks in the city (Turtle Park) plus a great playground at St Columba's and a newly renovated one at Western & River (Fort Bayard); a good though crowded elementary (Janney); and lots of families.

The other neighborhood I would consider is on the other side of Wisconsin near Tenley. The school for that area is Murch, which is also good.

[Anonymous]

McLean also tends to attract much more politically conservative families. Just FYI.

[Anonymous]

I actually think Georgetown would be a nice place to raise kids, if you could afford it (and that includes private school, because the public school really isn't that great). Montrose Park has an excellent playground and there are always families with young kids on weekend days - we drive down there to use the playground for a change of pace. St. Johns has a great Reggio Emilio preschool, and there are other good private schools to walk to. I also lived in Glover Park without a car for a number of years and didn't have any problems getting around via bus. I think it would be a nice place to raise a family - Stoddert isn't great, but I think a lot of people use it through 3rd grade and there is a very active PTA. The commute to downtown is much easier than from Chevy Chase, DC, BTW.

[Anonymous]

We live in Vienna and really love it! When we didn't have any kids, we also lived in NW DC but now we've grown really attracted to the space and vast parks around here. It's very family friendly and quite diverse in terms of nationalities and political views. And you get a downtown feel in the town center + it's only 8 miles from DC.

I'm not sure about McLean but be careful because some people on these forums tend to stereotype all the time (like PP!!!).

Just some food for thought.