Do you think the Pimmit Hills area will eventually become upscale?
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Anonymous
| It will never be upscale. The newer construction are mostly tacky McMansions. Most upscale neighborhoods (Georgetown, Wesley Heights, Chevy Chase, Great Falls) have some sense of history or charm to them. You can't create history or charm in PH, thus, it will never be near upscale. |
Anonymous
You lost credibility by saying tacky. There are many examples of tacky in all of the places you have listed above but one man's tacky is another's dream home. I for one think that historic and modern homes are tacky but I respect them. |
Anonymous
Cool website - it gives Alexandria an A for education, as well as for crime. Make of that what you will. Alexandria is a nice place to live. But, seriously, if you think either Pimmit Hills or McLean has much crime, you need to get back to your bunker fast. |
Anonymous
| I don't think any neighborhood "becomes" upscale. Some may gentrify, but "upscale neighborhoods are based on biases that took root long-ago. |
Anonymous
What you call history or charm is really generational affluence, nothing else. |
Anonymous
But generational affluence is what defines "upscale." You can try to imitate it, but it never really rings true. |
Anonymous
Alexandria is a nice place to live. But, seriously, if you think either Pimmit Hills or McLean has much crime, you need to get back to your bunker fast. Alexandria is certainly a nice place to live, but that a website gives it an A for education, suggests the website is not a valuable source of information. By the way, I am a different poster. I am not at all suprised that there is relatively little crime, even burglaries, in Pimmit Hills. |
Anonymous
many of the neighborhoods considered historic and charming (though perhaps not by the above PP) are areas that were working class until very recently. Del Ray for example. Many areas of Baltimore near the waterfront (the tiny size of the rowhouses is a giveaway to their historic SES - wealthy folks in that era lived in larger homes, with room for servants) Among those that the PP above does list - Georgetown began life as an economically diverse small port town, then became an affluent suburb of the new federal city, then declined and became a (mostly working class?) african american area. It did not gentrify (AFAICT) till after WW2, and as late as the early 1960's was still pretty hip and not uniformly affluent. |
Anonymous
Alexandria is certainly a nice place to live, but that a website gives it an A for education, suggests the website is not a valuable source of information. By the way, I am a different poster. I am not at all suprised that there is relatively little crime, even burglaries, in Pimmit Hills. I feel the same way about the "Niche" website that some Arlington posters cite. Areavibes appears to crunch and spit out of very high-level data, Niche aggregates meaningless survey results. |
Anonymous
I don't doubt that, I was just pointing out that thing that you prefer to label with genteel terms like "history" or "charm" is really money. Lots and lots of money over a long period of time. |
Anonymous
That's BS insofar as this area is concerned, since the area is transient and generations don't really stay in one place. Just admit you want to plug your neighborhood of old houses. It's OK, really. Some of us might even like it. You can blather about history or charm all you want, but all "upscale" really means is an area where even the entry-level housing is expensive. By that measure, Pimmit Hills isn't upscale, but I'd argue that it's really irrelevant to most people who live there. Some people there may oversell it as an investment opportunity, and others will defend it when it's attacked, but for the most part it's a place that attracts people who are more concerned about finding a convenient place to live and getting on with their own lives than about their neighbors' homes or income levels. That's probably a hard concept for you to grasp. |
Anonymous
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I don't think it will ever be truly upscale - there are only a few neighborhoods around here that are truly upscale. It has too many houses at different price points and ages and styles to probably get that descriptor.
Country Club Hills is upscale. There are a couple of neighborhoods near CCH that are pretty upscale. Parts of McLean are definitely upscale, but not all of them. Lyon Village has certain upscale streets and the price tags to match. Pimmit Hills has gotten a LOT nicer there than when I looked at houses there in 1999, and will continue to get nicer as more of the original houses get torn down and new houses go in. |
Anonymous
The same could be said of most of the D.C. area, which is not exactly known for its charm or architecture. Unless you reside in a monument. PH will be turning over slowly, one house at a time, just like the rest of the suburbs, OP. Either you want to live there or you don't. The old house owners will be cashing in gradually. I would imagine their sole investments are their houses. And the old houses are mostly slabs (with one or more sheds in the yard), so yes, there will be all new construction there before long. PH has sidewalks and proximity to the Metro. No one can detract from that; and most McLean neighborhoods do not have sidewalks. Let's face it, sidewalks are not always a luxury. PH may be eclectic, but for the money, you can't beat the location. If you don't like it, consider PH or McLean. No big deal. Someone will always want to live in PH. |
Anonymous
Actually, most of McLean, while not as "dumpy" as some consider old PH; is of the same era and similar construction as PH. You are paying for the land, unless you have a new house, just like PH. There is not as much of a difference as some would lead you to believe. |
Anonymous
| I don't think Pimmit Hills will ever be upscale, but I think because of the lot size, school district, and access to public transit, it'll continue to see development and will eventually be considered a less controversial desirable location. |