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[quote=Anonymous]It's jobs and also what comes with having a lot of a certain kind of job in one place -- lots of educated, engaged people living in the same area, many with similar values. So it's like the jobs draw a certain kind of person here, and then all those people get together, and they like hanging out because they are all similar in many ways.

To me, it cuts both ways -- I live living around lots of people who are politically engaged, well educated, and interested in current events and policy. On the other hand, it can be hard to live in a place where so many people think they are experts on EVERYTHING and where a lot of conversations devolve into people asserting they know best and it's a pissing contest. Also, I have found since becoming a parent that there's a huge downside to parenting in a community of policy wonks -- DC-area parents can be really unnecessarily wonky and competitive about parenting. Especially around education and later around college admissions. It can be toxic and I often long for a community more like the one I grew up in, where there was more diversity in parenting approaches and greater acceptance of different kinds of kids, and it was okay to be just a regular kid and not be Ivy-bound by the age of 12. When I visit my siblings, I witness parental competition and obsession but DC is on another level. Though you also find that in places like NYC and Silicon Valley for similar reasons -- get a bunch of highly successful, Type-A people in close proximity to each other, and they are going o be competitive and obsessive about their kids.

I agree with OP that a lot of parts of this area are really rundown or just very suboptimal in terms of urban planning, traffic, architecture, etc. Though if you live here long term, you come to find the best places and (assuming you can afford it) choose to live there. Right now we live on Capitol Hill and it's great -- beautiful, walkable, close to a lot of the best stuff DC has to offer, and very family friendly. But we have elementary age kids -- schools become an issue soon and we may move if we don't get lucky in the lottery. We don't like the areas with good IB MS and HS as much. Nowhere is perfect I guess.[/quote]

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