Was Your Neighborhood Nicer 20 Years Ago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:20002. It peaked about 10 years ago. Downhill since.

Absolutely this. The standard of living has nosedived. Nearly everyone I know on my block -- one block south of H Street, which has gone to shit -- is talking about moving.

Yep. Areas like H Street had a magic and energy to them in the 2010s. Then cracks started to show in 2018/2019 and it went to h*ll during COVID and has never bounced back.

This happened in Columbia Heights, Petworth, and U Street as well. 2010-2015 was the peak for these areas.

This is so true. I lived in Petworth and there was a noticeable change by 2015. Ended up leaving in 2018. Would have left sooner if I could have afforded too.

[Anonymous]

Not sure why we're picking out zipcodes, towns and cities. The entire area has declined significantly in 20 years. No question.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Silver Spring was probably nicer 20 years ago. It had a trendy clothing retail scene with American Apparel and others. Discovery HQ was a shining beacon for the neighborhood. The area felt safer, but not sure about the actual crime stats. 25-plus years ago, Montgomery Blair HS was still a strong anchor for the neighborhood, before it left. Since then the historic facility has largely been neglected and left to deteriorate.

People always see what they want to see, and I guess you're a glass-half-full type of person. American Apparel was always empty and the entire company went out of business. We now have H&M, Loft, Ulta, Nike, and Uniqlo, which is actually a very good retail mix of stores that people actually use. Discovery was never a "shining beacon" -- that building has always looked and functioned the same because it has no street-level retail, which is a major flaw from when it was built. In fact, the Discovery "garden" used to be only open during certain hours, but since they left, it is a much more open park area that is open all the time. As for Blair, I have no clue what you're referring to -- it was never an "anchor" for anything as it is a good distance away from the commercial area.

I've lived in the area for 25 years, and it is way, way better than it was back then -- it's not even close. The AFI theater was restored in the early 2000s, we also now have the Fillmore concert venue (which is constantly packed for all of its shows), we have the Black Box independent live theater, we have the new county-run indoor pool, we have the ice rink and veterans plaza building, we have more and better restaurants (including two breweries with a third on the way, as well as one food hall with a second one about to open).

+1. I lived in Silver Spring 25 years ago. Nothing was there. No downtown, no real shopping, etc.

[Anonymous]

We bought near Eastern Market 15 years ago. Most homes on our street still had bars on their windows. Now no one does.

[Anonymous]

Our neighborhood in Montgomery County was nice 20 years ago but much much nicer back in the 60's.

[Anonymous]

I agree that the H Street NE corridor is recently in a bit of a slump. But I would argue that most of Hill East and 20003 is nicer than before.

[Anonymous]

I grew up in Bronx you have to go back 75-90 years ago last time my block was nice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We bought near Eastern Market 15 years ago. Most homes on our street still had bars on their windows. Now no one does.

That's interesting, because we've had a number of houses put bars back on their windows on our Hill block after taking them down a few years ago.

[Anonymous]

Neighbors used to be welcoming, collaborative, quite respectful of boundaries. Today, I have new neighbors who don’t seem to understand boundaries and wrongfully judging without getting to know each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Depends on what you mean by “nicer.” Are you equating it with “wealthier?“

For example, a previous poster from 22207 says that that area was not “nicer“ 20 years ago. Actually, we were in the thick of raising kids there 20 years ago and from what I read on DCUM now I would argue that it was, in fact, “nicer” then. It was more affordable, the schools were smaller and less crowded, and the people generally seemed a lot nicer. We still live in the area and on occasion find ourselves in 22207, and the only thing different that we say about it now is that the smaller houses have been replaced with McMansions and I don’t think that makes it a “nicer” neighborhood. It just makes it a less affordable one.

22101 close to Langley. Same here. The original 5000-6000 sq ft houses are being torn down and replaced by 10,000 sq ft houses. The new homeowners aren't very friendly (not unfriendly, but there's zero interaction), the block party is gone, kids don't really play in the streets anymore, etc. Houses are all on one acre and it used to be really pretty with lots of old growth trees. Many of those were torn down to make room for the 10k homes that often have one kid and two parents.

So to echo PP, the neighborhood went from $2m to roughly $6m.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:20002. It peaked about 10 years ago. Downhill since.

Absolutely this. The standard of living has nosedived. Nearly everyone I know on my block -- one block south of H Street, which has gone to shit -- is talking about moving.

Yep. Areas like H Street had a magic and energy to them in the 2010s. Then cracks started to show in 2018/2019 and it went to h*ll during COVID and has never bounced back.

It's baffling that things got significantly worse after the addition of so much high-end residential and retail on H Street, but it did. A big part of it were the illegal weed shops that swooped in to fill vacancies created by businesses that closed during the pandemic. At one point, there were 15 weed shops in a 10-block stretch of H Street. I have no problem with legalized weed and smoke it myself from time to time, but 15 is far too many.

There's also the eternal problem of the bus stops at 8th and H, which have been a problem for decades and apparently will never be solved.

Yeah I'm all for legalized weed but H Street had... A lot. But also it's poorly served by transit for being theoretically well positioned and the nature of it being busy with cars and then ending at a terrible intersection makes it rough. Other areas of the city with more access and walkability

If they want to really transform some of these places they need to do with H St and Georgia Ave what they've done with 14th in Shaw and make it transit, pedestrian, and bike focused.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Alexandria City. Our neighborhood was nice when we moved in nearly 20 years ago and now it might be considered "nicer" because so many people have expanded and renovated their houses. When we moved there, many of the neighbors were retired military who were very neighborly. The "neighborliness" has declined significantly.

Different neighborhood, same experience. Housing stock drastically more expensive now, but Bloomingdale was much more neighborly 20+ years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on what you mean by “nicer.” Are you equating it with “wealthier?“

For example, a previous poster from 22207 says that that area was not “nicer“ 20 years ago. Actually, we were in the thick of raising kids there 20 years ago and from what I read on DCUM now I would argue that it was, in fact, “nicer” then. It was more affordable, the schools were smaller and less crowded, and the people generally seemed a lot nicer. We still live in the area and on occasion find ourselves in 22207, and the only thing different that we say about it now is that the smaller houses have been replaced with McMansions and I don’t think that makes it a “nicer” neighborhood. It just makes it a less affordable one.

Spoken like a true middle classer who would probably complain about their increased property taxes. I’d much rather have a $3m house in my neighborhood than the $500k teardowns that were there 20years ago.

And you’d be wrong. My spouse was a Biglaw partner.

and then he divorced you

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There really seems to be a downward trend in maintaining homes. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or what, but even in very expensive areas some homes and yards just look terrible. Do people not have pride anymore?

The avg home price in my neighborhood is probably $2M - 2.25M and some of the yards are horrendous. Shutters are peeling, old roofs, etc.

If you can't afford maintenance, sell the house and move to a nice condo!

I'm guessing a lot of this is very aged Boomers refusing to move out of their homes but no longer able to manage upkeep and stay on top of maintenance.

My Dad who is 81 and has Alzheimers is still in his $2 million CCMD home and won't leave. My parents bought it in the 1970's. He has piles of money, landscapers, cleaning service, etc but certainly isn't up to hiring someone to replace the broken shutter (for example). Luckily I'm around to do that for him. The family estate lawyer has told us it is way better financially for him to die owning the house than to sell it as it will exempt the family from tax on the appreciation of the property. I'm not sure how true that is.

His street is full of 70+ year olds hanging on to these 3, 4, 5 bedroom homes that could be sold to younger families. Unfortunately plenty of houses are instead just sitting there with professionally maintained landscapes while the paint starts to peel and more complicated maintenance projects don't get done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:22044 doesn't seem to have changed much (unfortunately). It's overdue for an overhaul.

I really like 22044. It could be a great area, not sure why the development was mostly low-income housing and strip malls. I would much rather live there than my outside the beltway home.. but the schools....

Most of 22044 consists of expensive single-family houses in nice neighborhoods. And then you get to Leesburg Pike, and most of what's on the other side of Leesburg Pike is low-income garden apartments and an aging shopping center (Seven Corners). There are more kids crammed into the low-income apartments than there are in the single-family houses, so they account for the school demographics. If you look at the latest FCPS boundary proposals, however, they are proposing to make Sleepy Hollow ES in 22044 fairly high-income; the lower-income apartments would end up at Beech Tree ES, Bailey's ES, and Glen Forest ES.

Hooray for FCPS boundary redesign if this comes to pass.