Reply to Upper NW DC the "Suburbs"?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, upper NWDC is suburban feeling.  But who the F cares?  Why is this such a big deal?[/quote]
It's not really a big deal, per se, I just think it's really funny when people who live in Upper NW act like their neighborhood is soo much more OMGURBAN and walkable than someone who lives just over the border in MD or in somewhere like Clarendon or Lyon Village in Arlington just because their address includes OMGWashington, DC. It's funny especially because my neighborhood in Arlington is closer to downtown than many neighborhoods in Upper NW. [/quote]

Who cares what word describes where you live. If you’re close to things, but live in a neighborhood with homes, good for you, you’re probably urban. But the names don’t matter. Just enjoy where you live and who cares where you live or what defines your area. Some of the people here are so insecure. [/quote]
+2

I was just talking about this with a friend, though, as we have a good friend living in DC who does make a big deal about it. I think it probably is because of the DC school system; it is so much worse than those in the close in suburbs, people (such as our friend) use the argument of “urban living” as a justification for living there and throwing money at privates, when it would probably make financial sense to move to MD/VA and have possibly more of a walkable lifestyle. Personally, I find the “urban/suburban” argument on par with the suv v minivan debate - at a certain point you just don’t care what people think and do what works for you. And sometimes I dream of living in the true suburbs out in Reston or Chantilly and having space from the neighbors![/quote]

[b]Again there are almost no DC suburbs that are as walkable as DC itself is.[/b]  Even the neighborhoods that border on each other are much more walkable on the DC vs the MD side.

And your other argument isn't a great one either.  All I hear about when we get together with our friends in Montgomery County is how many kids are crammed into each classroom.  And at least in DC our kids aren't getting hit by cars every day trying to get to and from school.[/quote]

The downtown Bethesda and Silver Spring neighborhoods are just as walkable and metro-accessible. [/quote]

Sure but those neighborhoods have relatively few single family homes in them (at least very few actually within walking distance of the Metro) and are also small but very dense and really more comparable to downtown DC than the single family home neighborhoods in DC.  But there is also way more traffic in those neighborhoods (again comparable to downtown DC and not a more mixed use DC neighborhood).

Most of Arlington can fairly be compared to DC in my opinion - fairly open street grid, lots of retail corridors, lots of not just Metro stops but also bus routes to get around, pretty short commute to downtown, access to a mix of parks and libraries via a means other than driving.

There are pockets of this in Maryland - near downtown Bethesda, Silver Spring, Takoma Park, Rockville where there are Metro stops and retail and the neighborhoods are somewhat walkable and you could even argue places like Mt. Rainier, Kensington, downtown Gaithersburg where there are MARC stops or proximity to downtown but in MD they really are pretty small pockets where a few thousand people might live in a county of over a million people now.  And no except for the edges that are near Friendship Heights or Bethesda I'm not really counting any of the 18 or whatever neighborhoods that make up all of the misc Chevy Chase neighborhoods which are nice places to live and walk within but not really well connected to much of anything unless you are going to drive which is what most people do there.[/quote]

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