Union Market DC
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Anonymous
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It’s almost like different people value different things.
No one wants to walk where bullets are flying and a crack house is down the street. But beyond that, there are varying levels. NW DC isn’t a utopia for everyone. I lived there and moved to Capitol Hill to raise my family, which is the reverse of what most people on DCUM will do, but DCUM doesn’t represent lots of people in DC. |
Anonymous
This. For us, upper NW is not a real possibility for us because it would make absolutely no sense for our commutes. For us, being within walking distance to Union Station is worth a lot in terms of quality of life, because it means one of us has a short train commute instead of a two hour driving commute. It's huge. The other option for us would be to move to a suburb convenient for that commute, but that would mean giving up walkability and city amenities, and in our case it would not result in an upgrade in school quality (not all suburban school districts are better than DCPS/DCPCS, by a long shot). So even setting aside everything else, CH/H Street has a huge leg up on a lot of other options just by virtue of location. If it were a crime ridden hell hole, that would certainly override these benefits and we'd figure something else out. But it's not -- it's a lovely neighborhood full of families with some good school options and a lot of great city amenities (public transit, good retail/grocer/entertainment options, access to green space, etc.). It's the obvious default option for us the same way American University Park or Bethesda is the obvious default option for many people who work downtown. People need to remember that not everyone has the exact same life or priorities. It's actually better this way! If it really was true that the ONLY good place to live in the District was upper NW, we'd all be worse off. Thankfully, it's not the case. |
Anonymous
| Mildly less walkable according to Walk Score. But what you walking past is very different |
Anonymous
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My point is different. Not questioning anyone’s choice which is based on many things, $/sqft, commute, tolerance for and desire for certain things.
Based on my experience, if one magically took out people from these neighborhoods and plopped them into Cleveland Park or Woodley Park or Massachusetts Heights (not Bethesda, please no), they would see their living environment differently afterwards. It would be hard to normalize the myriad daily inconveniences, challenges and stresses. That’s it. |
Anonymous
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Why is this relevant? Because we are literally advising someone to move into what is objectively a sketchy area these days saying it’s a glorious family enclave. It’s not. There’s now more crime than anyone should have to deal with and it’s your choice. But let’s not normalize sketchy
By the way DC Basis is a windowless cram house. Let’s be honest |
Anonymous
where? |
Anonymous
Yes, we have amply established that you think we're children who don't know any better. 
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Anonymous
Yes please magically plop me in a $1.5 mil house! I’ll take it. Cleveland Park has less crime in great part because it is less dense, and in turn the housing is more expensive. The Hill is more affordable and dense. |
Anonymous
No I’m saying and the person on Twitter that was quoted here was saying the same that WE didn’t know better until WE moved. And we thought we were fully aware. And that low grade stress just is a silent killer that we didn’t know was oppressing us and the children until WE left. We didn’t go far. But there are many townhomes and houses in ChCh, Burleith, Glover Park that cost the same and have none of the problems. In our case we moved to one of the mixed areas of the town very centrally but it’s expensive. I’m saying it’s not “city living” or the burbs (which I think are soul crashing and would take crime over Bethesda) but “city living” and “city living” |
Anonymous
No, those NW neighborhoods are MUCH more expensive. The alternative is to move out to the burbs. |
Anonymous
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We are in the suburbs now, but lived on the Hill before a popular area in NW as a young family. We’d never rule either out if life brought us back to DC.
But—and I don’t know if this is going to make me sound like a snowflake, but is honest—we did see a lot more troubled people (folks yelling obscenities and/or clearly high to the point of dangerous, etc.) when on the Hill. It was stressful in a way I didn’t really realize until we moved to the very suburban-y area in NW we lived in; I realized I was no longer scanning the block to make sure I didn’t need to try to distract my toddler from anything inappropriate or what would be scary to her. And, of course, there were a lot more cops generally around. I would imagine, from when I have been to Union Market, that general sense of needing to be “on alert” would only be heightened. That’s not to say the Hill isn’t a great place to live, but my two cents. I will say when we’ve visited friends back on the Hill, the general feeling we’ve gotten is that areas like Barrack’s Row have gotten a little grittier in a not-terrific way but that could just be a bias from living in what many would consider boring, bland suburbia. |
Anonymous
| Maybe I’m missing something but a TH in Foggy Bottom and a TH in some parts of Union and Eastern Market are the same; ditto even SFHs in ChCh. |
Anonymous
Exactly. Same experience. Now I open local list serve to check out a block party or a book club. Previously I’d brace myself before opening it for what newest atrocities befell the neighborhood overnight |
Anonymous
If only there were cops around. A decade ago it was a different story. |
Anonymous
This, plus it's just even really clear that Cleveland Park would get rid of the stress associated with urban crime and other issues. I live near H Street and recently spent the afternoon in Cleveland Park, and I had a nice time. The library is gorgeous and feels brand new, there are lots of little shops there, I had a great lunch at Vace, stopped in at Streets to pick up a few items, and swung by the Target to grab a few other things. The metro is right there. I absolutely had a moment of "wow I could totally live here, I like the scale of this neighborhood a lot and the things I needed today were all closer together than they would be on H Street." Seems like a really nice place to live. But: (1) a house in Cleveland Park would easily cost twice what my house off H cost. Maybe if I wanted to live in a condo it would make sense -- the condo buildings in CP are older and a little less expensive, though they also seem to have higher fees. But if I wanted to live in a house, we're talking about a difference of like 1.5 million to get the same size house. Not negligible. (2) The commercial area is compact and convenient and has a metro, which is great. But H Street has a lot more stuff. It has multiple proper grocery stores, plus the Trader Joes on Florida's is walking distance as well. The streetcar offers more hyper-local transportation (and is free) than the buses on Connecticut Ave. (3) I actually saw more homelessness and experienced more panhandling in CP over a few hours than I usually do on H Street on a weekday afternoon. There were multiple people camped out under the marquis at the old Uptown theater (plus how sad that theater is now closed!), there was panhandling in and around the metro, I saw people sleeping on benches near the Target, etc. Not judging -- I live in the city and I'm used to this sort of thing. But the idea that my extra 1.5 million in housing price in CP would buy me a magically upscale environment without some of the issues that are endemic to city life? I'm sorry, but no. You see this throughout the city, sadly. I will give you that schools in CP are probably more consistently better than on H Street, but I'd argue that is a direct result of the cost of housing -- those schools have a broad base of wealthy families and fewer FARMS kids overall, which enables them to more easily raise money and then channel it towards extras that are appealing to a UMC person like myself. The schools near H Street have higher rates of FARMS kids and actually do a pretty great job with them despite the fact that they need a lot more from the school than your average CP resident. This is a permanent feature of education in the US -- the more money you have, the easier your access to high quality education, full stop. It's true in the burbs, too. The suburbs we could afford have schools that are not considered to be as good as the schools in parts of MoCo or NoVa that people rave about, but buying inbound for those schools costs a premium. This is not rocket science. |