Thoughts on Columbia, MD?
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Anonymous
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My husband might be taking a job in Columbia, MD. We formerly lived in Bethesda, but most recently live in Texas.
What are the best neighborhoods in Columbia? What are the schools like? Is there a downtown area in Columbia? Should we be checking out any other areas in MD to live in? I'm most familiar with Bethesda, Potomac, Rockville, and Gaithersburg. Would living in Columbia be totally different than these areas? Thanks! |
Anonymous
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Columbia is a master planned community built around (I think) nine villages, each with its own village center. And in the middle of it all is the "downtown" area. But it's nothing remotely urban by any stretch of the imagination, even though parts of downtown is being redeveloped on a slightly more urban/dense scale. There was a distinct philosophy in developing Columbia because it was meant to be a racially and socially diverse area from the get go.
Columbia is a pleasant place. The nine villages do differ slightly as some are older and others are a bit newer. River Hill is the newest and both River Hill and Dorsey's Search are probably the "nicest." Wilde Lake and Oakland Mills are the oldest and least desirable. The older villages have more apartments while the newer ones have less so, and the villages with the larger number of apartments are less popular as they have some Section 8 housing (especially Long Reach) but that's not to imply they are unsafe. A lot of Columbia is dated these days, but the landscaping is lovely and there are paths and greenways throughout the entire community. It really is a very leafy area. All of Columbia is under a large HOA and you pay dues but the dues cover the maintenance of the public spaces, the pools and other facilities, so many find it well worth the expense. Columbia schools are perfectly fine. They're not the best in Howard County but they're not bad either. Truth be told, most of the rest of HoCo is more "desirable" than Columbia, especially Clarksville to the west and Ellicott City to the north, as well as Fulton to the south (closer to DC). Altogether, Columbia is very suburban. Shopping and dining caters to the suburban market. It's probably most comparable to Gaithersburg. |
Anonymous
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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. |
Anonymous
| You may want to look in other areas. My husband works in Columbia. We live in DC because it opens the entire area up for job change. His commute time is often shorter than those who live in Columbia. It is very suburban. |
Anonymous
Parts of Hickory Ridge are also districted to Wilde Lake. |
Anonymous
Agree with this - nothing against Columbia but if you buy a house and he changes jobs in 5 years, you are in Columbia, and if his job moves closer to DC or surrounding areas it is not a great commute. |
Anonymous
| Ellicot City which is nearby was voted one of the best places to live by Money magazine. |
Anonymous
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What's your budget? Columbia is nice. So are Ellicott City, Fulton, Maple Lawn, etc depending on what you're looking for. There was just a thread on best parts of Columbia - go back a few pages, title was about Howard County.
There is a downtown but it isn't downtown like DC or even like Fairfax. It's a good place to live and a good place to raise kids, though. |
Anonymous
That makes no sense. Your husband's commute from DC to Columbia is not going to be shorter than his coworker's commute from one part of Columbia to another unless he is flying between locations. Columbia is also a lot cheaper. It really depends on if her spouse will be staying at his job for awhile. Silver Spring is also a straight shot down 29 to Columbia and an easy commute to DC. |
Anonymous
River Hill is one of the villages of Columbia, though parts of it are in Clarksville by address. |
Anonymous
I don't believe that commute either. Idk why ppl always want to stear ppl to DC. He's working in a Baltimore suburb. They should live on that side of town. |
Anonymous
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I think the poster was saying that the commute from DC to Columbia is quicker than the commute from Columba to DC (and this is pretty much true). What she was also saying was that you could start working in Columbia and buy a house in Columbia, but a few years down the road you get a better job in DC or close in but you're now stuck with a much longer commute. You could potentially avoid this by buying closer to DC and commuting to Columbia, which isn't too bad, and if you get a job in Bethesda later, you are better positioned.
It's a lot of ifs, of course, but as someone once said to me, everyone works in Columbia for a few years at some point before moving onwards and given the number of people I know who have actually had this happen to them, I didn't laugh. Columbia seems to have a high concentration of companies especially in the Gateway area that seem to be "transitional" workplaces where people work for a few years in some anonymous corporate position before moving onwards to something better paying or more professionally satisfying.
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Anonymous
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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.
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Anonymous
| I commuted to Columbia from Petworth in DC last year. Like a PP said, it was surprisingly not terrible at all. I went NH Ave > 495 > 95 and got there in about 30 minutes. It's a reverse commute and AM traffic going north/PM traffic going south is not bad at all. The inverse is NOT true, traffic going into DC in the AM/out of DC in the PM was often horrendous. |
Anonymous
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