Please recommend your family friendly neighborhood with playground, metro and good schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live near Haycock Road in the fairfax county section pf Falls Church. It's lovely. Those neighborhoods are a mixture of nice and really nice homes. Not many mansions like other parts of McLean school district but certainly above average with more renovations happening.

What I like is the accessibility factor. I can walk to the metro. I can walk to the neighborhood pool. I can walk to the Falls Church farmers market. I can walk to some decent (not fancy but decent) restaurants. I can walk to the grocery store. It takes me 25 minutes to drive to work, door to door, to L street. I have a hybrid so I can zip down 66. And the schools (McLean high) are great. It's pretty ideal for me but certainly not status-y like McLean or Great Falls.

word of warning OP - I would be surprised if you will be able to consistently get to work in 25 minutes if you live here. i often drive this route on weekends and it takes me 25-30 minutes then. I would think during the week it would be more like 45.

It took me 30-40 minutes to get from Vienna (I cut along Idylwood) to Crystal City -- typically it was shorter in the afternoon actually, and that was everything from leaving my driveway to sitting at my desk. So 45 minutes or so from FCC to L Street seems about right; Metro might save some time depending on location, etc. I was able to get from the Reagan building to my home in Vienna in under an hour and that was getting off a bus stop three before the one I could have taken.

HOWEVER, OP won't be able to use the hybrid exemption anymore (or not much longer) as the folks in Richmond have closed that HOV exemption.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The earlier PP really needs to learn the difference between Falls Church and the City of Falls Church. The City of Falls Church is small, with expensive houses and condos and very good schools and a charming little downtown. The areas of Falls Church in Falls Church high school and Stuart are not as nice. (the demographics are not as wealthy, or as caucasian.) There's also West Falls Church, which is the part of Falls Church (some of Falls church city, some in Fairfax County) closer to Tysons.

And yeah, some of the areas that feed into Falls Church HS are rougher. there's a fair amount of lower-income housing in that boundary. Not unusual around here.

LOL!! "Charming Little Downtown"...yeah right...it's cramped little strips of stores running down Rt. 7 that most people drive to and fight over to get parking.

That's why it's great to live there, you don't need to drive to them! We love walking everywhere - Farmers Market, library, huge town events like Memorial Day festival and parade, tons of restaurants (like Mad Fox, Dogwood Tavern, lots others). It's definitely not what I'd ever call "charming", and not what I'd call a destination for a night out like Clarendon. But it's such a cute place to live, it really has a small town vibe, in a great location....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: PP (Capitol Hill) here-- sorry-- CHDS = Capitol Hill Day School, the independant private school on Capitol Hill. BTW, plenty of folks from the suburbs enroll their kids at CHDS so . . . . hmmmm. Again, just something to think about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:LOL!! "Charming Little Downtown"...yeah right...it's cramped little strips of stores running down Rt. 7 that most people drive to and fight over to get parking.

Parking in Arlington gets pretty crowded,
too ... what's your point?

Live in a part of Arlington where you don't have to drive AT All. That's what we did.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live near Haycock Road in the fairfax county section pf Falls Church. It's lovely. Those neighborhoods are a mixture of nice and really nice homes. Not many mansions like other parts of McLean school district but certainly above average with more renovations happening.

What I like is the accessibility factor. I can walk to the metro. I can walk to the neighborhood pool. I can walk to the Falls Church farmers market. I can walk to some decent (not fancy but decent) restaurants. I can walk to the grocery store. It takes me 25 minutes to drive to work, door to door, to L street. I have a hybrid so I can zip down 66. And the schools (McLean high) are great. It's pretty ideal for me but certainly not status-y like McLean or Great Falls.

PP, do you live north or south of I-66? and where is the neighborhood pool?

[Anonymous]

I'm the PP who lives near Haycock. I don't know if it's N or S of 66. It's closer to Falls Church City than Tysons. The pool is High Point.

[Anonymous]

OP, in response to the PP that claims Capitol Hill is an "absurd" suggestion (and likely feels the same about every DC neighborhood, including Dupont) I can't help but think of those friends that moved out to the burbs for the great public schools and then found that a DC private school is actually a better fit for their kid. they feel a bit "absurd" at this point. If you want to leave the city, awesome, go for it! But don't assume that your kids will be any better off in the suburbs. If you are happy in the city, there is a high likelihood that your kids will love it too-- after all, they are your kids! HTH!

PP here. Love the assumptions. I actually lived on the Hill for 10 years, up until a month ago. Loved it and still do. I never said it was absurd for ANYONE to raise kids on the Hill, I said it was absurd that people kept making suggestions to the OP based on their criteria rather than hers. Read her posts--she wanted great schools in the neighborhood, through high school. Certainly the Hill has viable options, but it can't fairly be said to meet OP's definition. So yes, it's absurd to make everything about YOU and YOUR choices, when OP is a different person (a stranger even) who has specifically set forth the things she wants.

I'm also the person who said Haycock area was average for the area. I have no gripe with Haycock at all, but OP has insinuated that her budget is unlimited and I just don't see Haycock as a place where I would live if money was no object. With a few outliers, the homes are very average, and it has a very anytown USA type of feel. Not much character. Nothing wrong with that at all, and the schools are great. But just not where I'd live if I didn't have to make the budget tradeoffs. (Which I do, and we looked very seriously at a couple of homes in the Haycock area.)

OP, it's hard to get meaningful advice on something like this unless you provide some more specific information about your price range. Is money really NO object? Are you looking to spend $1 million? $2 million? More? It really makes a difference. For example--if I had $2 million to spend, I'd be looking at the most desirable areas of N. Arlington, Chevy Chase, Bethesda, or Mclean. If I had $1.2 million to spend, I'd be looking at other areas of N. Arlington or Falls Church City. If I had $750K to spend I'd be looking at Haycock-type neighborhoods or maybe Silver Spring, and thinking very hard about whether I was willing to live in a tiny house to be closer in or in a neighborhood I preferred.

I bet 90% of the people on here who have touted their neighborhoods wouldn't stay if they had an unlimited budget to move. That's all I'm saying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I live near Haycock Road in the fairfax county section pf Falls Church. It's lovely. Those neighborhoods are a mixture of nice and really nice homes. Not many mansions like other parts of McLean school district but certainly above average with more renovations happening.

What I like is the accessibility factor. I can walk to the metro. I can walk to the neighborhood pool. I can walk to the Falls Church farmers market. I can walk to some decent (not fancy but decent) restaurants. I can walk to the grocery store. It takes me 25 minutes to drive to work, door to door, to L street. I have a hybrid so I can zip down 66. And the schools (McLean high) are great. It's pretty ideal for me but certainly not status-y like McLean or Great Falls.

are the houses in that area expensive? what is the price range? anything for $500K?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Where is this charming downtown city of Falls Church? Is it that little strip where Lost Dog is?

That's Arlington (Westover). City of Falls Church is at the intersection of Lee Highway and Rte. 7 (Broad St.). Ireland's 4 Provinces is right there.

Oh yes i know the area. It is kind of cute. Is it near a metro?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So yes, it's absurd to make everything about YOU and YOUR choices, when OP is a different person (a stranger even) . .

Yes, but I actually used to live in dupont, so I felt some kinship there. I apologize for projectIng my own happy move from dupont tp Capitol hill on to the OP.

[Anonymous]

Haycock Road looks like its really close to 66. Do you hear the incessant hum of the traffic?

[Anonymous]

I just like to complain about where i live -- in the ghetto of Falls Church. Awesome.

[Anonymous]

I like the Ridge Road area in Arlington, near Crystal city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am amazed by the thinly veiled racism on this thread. I hope that all of you talking about avoiding "the ghetto" or "free and reduced lunch" are really just using euphemisms for "people of color" and you sound like bigots.

I'm the poster who used "free and reduced lunch." I explicitly avoided mentioning race, because there's plenty of poor white trash where I'm from that I am reluctant to have my kids around either.

I'm also not one who'll freak out over a FRL percentage greater than 5%. Some folks are poor, and let's face it -- it's probably not ideal to be in an extreme low-poverty environment.

But once that percentage starts creeping up above 40-50%, you gotta start wondering. Will your kid be busy teaching his classmates the English he learned at 3-4? Will the teacher be teaching a 3rd grade class at a 1st grade level? Will the parents simply not be committed to education (come on, they can't ALL be hard-working folks who've just met a little misfortune?) In some cases, you can give it a try, but in others, you just get the vibe that the administration is all about the at-risk kids and yours is going to get ignored unless he is in the top 10% of self-starters.

But for full disclosure, since I'm a bigot and all, where do YOU live and send your kids to school?

I am a the PP you are responding to. I realize what you are saying, and those are valid concerns. When backed up by your thought process, rather than just thrown out, they sound much less bigoted. Also, I don't know you, have no idea if you are a bigot or not. I was not calling you one. I was simply stating that comments like yours, when set apart from any knowledge of your deeper thought processes, makes you sound like one.

I live in Mount Pleasant with an infant. Not sure where the little one will go to school when the time comes. Also not sure how that has any bearing on my opinion about racist comments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am amazed by the thinly veiled racism on this thread. I hope that all of you talking about avoiding "the ghetto" or "free and reduced lunch" are really just using euphemisms for "people of color" and you sound like bigots.

I'm the poster who used "free and reduced lunch." I explicitly avoided mentioning race, because there's plenty of poor white trash where I'm from that I am reluctant to have my kids around either.

I'm also not one who'll freak out over a FRL percentage greater than 5%. Some folks are poor, and let's face it -- it's probably not ideal to be in an extreme low-poverty environment.

But once that percentage starts creeping up above 40-50%, you gotta start wondering. Will your kid be busy teaching his classmates the English he learned at 3-4? Will the teacher be teaching a 3rd grade class at a 1st grade level? Will the parents simply not be committed to education (come on, they can't ALL be hard-working folks who've just met a little misfortune?) In some cases, you can give it a try, but in others, you just get the vibe that the administration is all about the at-risk kids and yours is going to get ignored unless he is in the top 10% of self-starters.

But for full disclosure, since I'm a bigot and all, where do YOU live and send your kids to school?

I am a the PP you are responding to. I realize what you are saying, and those are valid concerns. When backed up by your thought process, rather than just thrown out, they sound much less bigoted. Also, I don't know you, have no idea if you are a bigot or not. I was not calling you one. I was simply stating that comments like yours, when set apart from any knowledge of your deeper thought processes, makes you sound like one.

I live in Mount Pleasant with an infant. Not sure where the little one will go to school when the time comes. Also not sure how that has any bearing on my opinion about racist comments.

I also called things ghetto and talked about reduced lunches. It has nothing to do with race, it has everything to do with the fact that with poverty comes crime. We can't deny it. COME ON! OPEN UR EYES. And a high rate of kids who don't speak English is a problem too b/c the teachers spend more time helping them than keeping up with the class.