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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
OP here.

Do you want to be down the street from cafes and able to walk everywhere (Cap Hill) or are you OK with having to drive everywhere ('burbs)?

I super super hate driving and love to walk everywhere.  We don't even own a car!

Do you want to live in a very safe neighborhood ('burbs) or are you OK with the possibility that your car/home will get broken into, and you could get mugged (Cap Hill)?

I love safety, but I think that the dangers of DC are overblown.  I've had my car broken into when I used to live in Shaw 10 years ago, and I saw prostitutes/drug dealers a lot. As long as it's not too unsafe I am okay.

Do you want an urban environment where your kid will see lots of different types of people on the street, including homeless people (Cap Hill), or do you want to live in a bubble of wealth ('burbs)? 
[b]
My husband and I were both born abroad (very different countries).  Diversity is important to us.  By diversity I don't mean all AA kids, all latino kids, or all white kids - I mean a mixed bag of kids and income levels.  I know this isn't going to happen anywhere in the DC Metro area, but that would be our ideal.  [/b]

I appreciate you saying that public/private school wouldn't be the biggest concern, but that's how it feels right now.

We could swing 300k if both of us worked to afford private, but ideally we could send our kids to a good public school and have mom and dad around more.

Thanks for all the suggestions - I am still torn however.  [/quote]
OP, I saw this and I wanted to share with you something that became clear to me after living in both DC and suburbs. Both of them give lip service to diversity. But it means different things in different contexts. In DC, unless you live in upper NW that has a sprinkling of embassy/WB/IMF/foreign media corps, diversity means AA. Sometimes Latino in Columbia Heights, but truly, mostly AA.  Not much of anything else.

In the 'burbs, diversity usually means plenty of everyone, including AA or not.  I live in a non-posh part of Fairfax County and I was amazed to see the international wall in our elementary.   Way, way more diverse than my old neighborhood in a non-posh part of Capitol Hill.

This is not a deciding factor for or against any particular location. You do what works for you.  But I think you need to know that diversity means different things in different zipcodes. [/quote]

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