Yes! Op here...I love Takoma Park my husband says it's too long of a commute to work. I counter he usually leaves at 630AM so would miss it in the morning...He comes home regular drive time but thinks traffic would be too bad. I have to say I am a little scared of the wealth in Bethesda schools. We could do $800,000 for a nice starter in Bethesda but I don't want to do that. I like Kensington quite a bit, but again it feeds into Bethesda schools, which make me nervous with 3 girls who will be teenagers before we know it going to high school.

We are desperately searching for the most liberal, friendly, sesame street type neighborhood we can find...and of course we need to keep it close to NIH for work. We have 3 daughters and really want a great community to make up for the one we are leaving. We have narrowed it down to North Chevy Chase, Kensington, or Rock Creek Forest. I really want to stay within the loop. What would you recommend? And Thanks!

14:51 and 16:29 My husband is half Koren, but I'm white. And we live in South Texas, so depending on what you count as diversity we have friends who are mexican-american, african-canadian, belgian, korean and same sex partners. Even if we could afford Bethesda I wouldn't want my children in that environment. I can find many posts online that talk about excessive bullying at those schools. I want a school that is very mixed racially, safe/minimal bullying (of course) and SES, I would take that over a school with high test scores any day.

Also, Texas sucks for public education. So I imagine any school in Montgomery County is going to be a major step up.

I appreciate all the traffic information. I think that is the biggest hurdling block for my husband and where to live at this point. Come on purple line, although I think they were talking about that when we moved away in 2001.

We are moving this summer. My husband will work in Bethesda at the medical center. We are city people and like to have walkable areas close to home, but we also want an area that is family friendly and the neighborhood kids for our children to have playmates (we have 3 daughters, 4, 8, and 11). Of course, we also want wonderful public schools. I am hoping for the real estate unicorn here and hope someone can recommend a place to buy. We can't afford a million dollar home and we want diversity in our schools. Any suggestions would be much appreciated. My internet search has narrowed it down to North Kensington and downtown Silver Spring, but not sure if that is accurate.