Reply to If you're moving out of the DMV area because of the HCOL

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
There are a lot of things about the DMV that not only cost more, but are more stressful. Services in this area are weirdly limited in ways that you don't run into in other cities, partly because of how many people abandoned the city for the suburbs in the 80s and 90s. DC never really built up its service infrastructure when people started moving back in. We got lots more bars and restaurants, but not necessarily more daycares, dentists, and auto body shops.[/quote]

I'm a cheerleader for DC and have no plans to leave, but OMG this so much. This is my biggest complaint about the city, more so that HCOL (dare we say VHCOL?) and traffic. It's so freaking hard to get basic services done. Medical and dental offices don't accept new patients. My dog groomer schedules appointments two months out. You can't just walk into a chain salon and get a haircut for $20. Reliable handymen are impossible to find unless you happen to know someone through your social circle. Any type of home repair? Get three estimates? Bwahahaha. Go with the first company that actually agrees to do the job [i]and then also[/i] shows up. I'm sure part of this is that having such a high cost of living drives out the working class that would provide the home / auto / cosmetic services we want without a waiting list.

On the other end of the scale, we don't have much accessibility to a lot of the quirky/cool things other cities have. Much smaller cities have studios for circus arts. There's currently a thread on Reddit about the impossibility of signing up for a pottery class in DC. I remember in the before times I wanted to take cooking lessons, and the local options were both exorbitantly priced and sold out.

I love restaurants as much as the next person and partake in them freely. (I'm one of those weirdos whose spending actually [i]increased[/i] during the pandemic because of frequent takeout and extra booze.) But I don't understand why a metro area with such a vibrant and diverse population has very little to offer in terms of vibrant and diverse amenities. [/quote]

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