Pregnant and considering buying a house in Petworth

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:pregnant now and live in south petworth (Parkview technically, about two blocks south of metro). We moved here from CH a year ago and so happy we did. Its much more family oriented than CH and less drama. Truly less crime, trash, shit talking etc. CH has the highest concentration of public housing this side of anacostia and its not going anywhere anytime soon, therefore the problems aren't either. I work in real estate development and I am thrilled with our investment in Petworth. the downside are schools of course. But quite frankly there aren't any good public schools in CH or petworth. Council is looking to pass a bill though to give preference to neighbors of charter schools. We are two blocks from EL Haynes which is an awesome charter school but with 300 people on the waiting list. A lot of new development is coming GA avenue too. the crappy safeway will be torndown this fall and rebuilt similar to City Vista Safeway with housing on top.

CH resident here, so I may be biased, but if you avoid 14th street, there are lots of quiet, mellow streets in CH with families. Most of the issues with CH are, like you said, related to the public housing on 14th, and if you avoid a few blocks, you're going to avoid much of those issues, in my experience. For us the advantages of CH (you can walk downtown and to a lot of places (Dupont, Logan, Eckington, Adams Morgan, Woodley Park) that you can't walk to from Petworth, most commutes will be shorter) are greater than avoiding the public housing drama. Otherwise, let's get real - the demographics in Petworth and CH are very similar, and there's crime, drug violence, and gang activity in both neighborhoods. It's ridiculous to try to paint Petworth as a different type of neighborhood.