Has anyone w/ kids chosen to leave NoVA for DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Our kids' activities are either at or near their school, at WGCC, or way out in the Virginia countryside. No one has shunned friendship with my children because they have to cross a bridge to see them.

Maybe your kids are still young so you havent yet seen how much this will affect their social and sports lives. First, WGCC is not a place people at DC priavtes belong to - its either Chevy or Congressional. The one private school family from VA that we know that joined WGCC did it to try and get their kids some friends in VA (all neighbors went to publics and had their school friends). The WGCC gambit didnt work. Summer at the pool or courts or course just werent enough to make real freindships like those they have with their school friends. Those folks moved to DC in the end. So much for WGCC.

The kids in DC and MD also dont go out to the VA Countryside for activties. If they ride they go to RockCreek or Potomac. As for sports: soccer, lax, footbal, baseball, with the exception of Madlax, which is still only a tiny group compared to the kids who play for the DC and/or MD clubs or rec leagues, all the most popular sports etams amnd leagues are, again, in DC and/or MD. Your kids' are going to want to have their out of school activities with their school friedns. It is only natural.

Their social and sports lives are just fine. They don't actually need to spend all of their time with children from school. Instead, they have friends from the neighborhood, school, and their stable. As for summer at the pool or courts, that's irrelevant. We spend most of the summer on Cape Cod. And yes, that is an entirely different set of friends. Thanks to technology, it is fairly easy for them to stay in touch.

It is very sad that you are poisoning anyone with such inane snobbery. And it is more than a little pathetic that you are trying to lecture me on the alleged DC/MD superiority.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"So- yes we could afford DC but the thought of paying $1,200,000.00 million dollars to send our 3 kids to private school when we are top publics that rival the education at those institutions seemed batshit crazy."

I guess you don't get that there are top publics in D.C., too, ones that rival the top NOVA and MoCo publics. So no, you don't have to be "batshit crazy" to do it.

Yes--but not with the walkability we have over here. You cutoff that post too soon...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"So- yes we could afford DC but the thought of paying $1,200,000.00 million dollars to send our 3 kids to private school when we are top publics that rival the education at those institutions seemed batshit crazy."

I guess you don't get that there are top publics in D.C., too, ones that rival the top NOVA and MoCo publics. So no, you don't have to be "batshit crazy" to do it.

Yes--but not with the walkability we have over here. You cutoff that post too soon...

Those good NW publics are in neighborhoodsuch more suburban than my nova hood.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"So- yes we could afford DC but the thought of paying $1,200,000.00 million dollars to send our 3 kids to private school when we are top publics that rival the education at those institutions seemed batshit crazy."

I guess you don't get that there are top publics in D.C., too, ones that rival the top NOVA and MoCo publics. So no, you don't have to be "batshit crazy" to do it.

Yes--but not with the walkability we have over here. You cutoff that post too soon...

Those good NW publics are in neighborhoodsuch more suburban than my nova hood.

Any DC neighborhood I'd be willing to live in does not have good publics all the way to HS. They are too suburban--so than it if I am in a suburb anyways why not live in one with good public services. Or--why not move to an urban/walkable neighborhood that has good publics through HS but is just across the line?

These are the considerations people make. They will come to different conclusions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"So- yes we could afford DC but the thought of paying $1,200,000.00 million dollars to send our 3 kids to private school when we are top publics that rival the education at those institutions seemed batshit crazy."

I guess you don't get that there are top publics in D.C., too, ones that rival the top NOVA and MoCo publics. So no, you don't have to be "batshit crazy" to do it.

Realistically, there are only a handful of good elementary schools, so why would someone who's already in VA move to DC to swap a Taylor, ASF or Chesterbrook for a JKLM? Just wouldn't happen. You might find someone in VA who is at a DC private who moves to DC for convenience, but it begs the question as to why those folks would be in VA in the first case.

These situations, compared to the outflow of DC parents to MD and VA, will be comparatively rare. But the OP doesn't need anyone's permission if that's what they want to do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread needs to be posted on "stuff white people like"............its almost comical

"Oh, no judgement for YOU but WE want our child to be blah blah blah"

DC is not NYC, a lot of it is pretty damn suburban. Here's a novel idea, have diverse friends- the kids will be exposed from birth.

I hate this stupid comment. NYC is not all Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights. It too has a lot of pretty damn suburban. Have you been to Queens, Far Rockaway, Staten Island, etc. They are all parts of NYC and suburban.

Not getting your point here. No one aspires to live in Far Rockaway!! Queens and Staten Island are the places you go when you either can't afford Manhattan or you move out there when you have kids.

Let me break it down for you, I think what the folks on here are trying to say is that the "pro DC" group acts like DC is this great metropolitan city and they have disdain for the NoVa burbs, this then has DC getting compared to a real city like NYC-mostly Manhattan. Then it is stated that DC is very suburban so the point is, why trade suburban NoVa life for suburban DC life?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, remember most of these people in VA like the above posters are jaded because they can't afford to live "the life" in DC. There are plenty of areas with 2 car garages and tons of parking in the District...if you can afford it. So you're going to get a lot of snarky responses from GS-10s that clog up the bridges every morning.

I dont think you can equate all of VA with NoVa. If you can afford a 2 car garage single family home in Northern VA then you probably can afford one in DC (if you are in N Arlington or McLean maybe you can get in 22216, if you are further out in Fairfax somewhere maybe that might equate to NE... etc etc)

[Anonymous]

I wanted to be able to walk or metro to work (I walk).

I wanted to be able to walk or metro to my childs school (my husband metros).

I wanted to be able to walk or metro to playground (we walk).

I wanted to be able to walk or metro to entertainment (we walk to dining, museums, etc.) We walk to grocery store.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This whole thread needs to be posted on "stuff white people like"............its almost comical

"Oh, no judgement for YOU but WE want our child to be blah blah blah"

DC is not NYC, a lot of it is pretty damn suburban. Here's a novel idea, have diverse friends- the kids will be exposed from birth.

I hate this stupid comment. NYC is not all Manhattan and Brooklyn Heights. It too has a lot of pretty damn suburban. Have you been to Queens, Far Rockaway, Staten Island, etc. They are all parts of NYC and suburban.

Not getting your point here. No one aspires to live in Far Rockaway!! Queens and Staten Island are the places you go when you either can't afford Manhattan or you move out there when you have kids.

Let me break it down for you, I think what the folks on here are trying to say is that the "pro DC" group acts like DC is this great metropolitan city and they have disdain for the NoVa burbs, this then has DC getting compared to a real city like NYC-mostly Manhattan. Then it is stated that DC is very suburban so the point is, why trade suburban NoVa life for suburban DC life?

And not all of DC is Ward 3. Penn Quarter, Logan circle and Dupont is very urban.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"So- yes we could afford DC but the thought of paying $1,200,000.00 million dollars to send our 3 kids to private school when we are top publics that rival the education at those institutions seemed batshit crazy."

I guess you don't get that there are top publics in D.C., too, ones that rival the top NOVA and MoCo publics. So no, you don't have to be "batshit crazy" to do it.

Not through high school, there aren't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, remember most of these people in VA like the above posters are jaded because they can't afford to live "the life" in DC. There are plenty of areas with 2 car garages and tons of parking in the District...if you can afford it. So you're going to get a lot of snarky responses from GS-10s that clog up the bridges every morning.

I dont think you can equate all of VA with NoVa. If you can afford a 2 car garage single family home in Northern VA then you probably can afford one in DC (if you are in N Arlington or McLean maybe you can get in 22216, if you are further out in Fairfax somewhere maybe that might equate to NE... etc etc)

Please. Learn to read the code already. There is only a handful of DC neighborhoods, a tiny sliver of all of DC, that's acceptable to families posting on DCUM. The idea that someone trades a house in average, middle-class, unfancy NoVa area like Fairfax or Burke or Springfield for a house in a questionable part of DC doesn't pass the giggle test.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wanted to be able to walk or metro to work (I walk).

I wanted to be able to walk or metro to my childs school (my husband metros).

I wanted to be able to walk or metro to playground (we walk).

I wanted to be able to walk or metro to entertainment (we walk to dining, museums, etc.) We walk to grocery store.

I'm confused - are you talking about VA or DC? We have all of that in VA. Only exception is that we're not walking distance to a museum. Just a few metro stops away though. Not that we go there every day so it hasn't been a problem.

[Anonymous]

DC is much more expensive:

"In the District, the top 1 percent of households bring in at least $617,000; in Montgomery County, more than $606,000; and in Fairfax County, $532,000"

That's $85k more in DC. You can't afford it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC is much more expensive:

"In the District, the top 1 percent of households bring in at least $617,000; in Montgomery County, more than $606,000; and in Fairfax County, $532,000"

That's $85k more in DC. You can't afford it.

Really? Well we are in Arlington and have HHI of $775 k. Most of the neighbors in our former NW neighborhood could not afford our current neighborhood.

I am going to take a gander that the pro-DC posters aren't in these brackets anyways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wanted to be able to walk or metro to work (I walk).

I wanted to be able to walk or metro to my childs school (my husband metros).

I wanted to be able to walk or metro to playground (we walk).

I wanted to be able to walk or metro to entertainment (we walk to dining, museums, etc.) We walk to grocery store.

We do all of that in our VA neighborhood.