Reply to DC housing priorities and the dearth of 'family housing'

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, I definitely understand your frustration, as a parent who wants to stay in DC. I live in Columbia Heights in a 1.5 bedroom apartment that rents for the same price friends of mine pay for their mortgage on a rowhouse in the suburbs that has one bedroom more than my place does. I agree with the poster who remarked on the European cafe lifestyle and (at least one) reason for its existence.

I find it frustrating sometimes that we live in a small place, but it was a choice we made in order to remain close to other aspects of our life. I'm not saying that there are not trade offs, but they are trade offs that we made willingly and knowingly. I know a lot of people who moved to the suburbs when their kids were born. I also know a lot of people who bought &quot;smaller&quot; (read: &lt;1500 square feet) rowhouses in various parts of the city for huge amounts of money when they had kids. Some of these neighborhoods are &quot;not desirable&quot; for parents due to school concerns - including Columbia Heights, Petworth, Shaw, etc.  Note: there are a lot of families who live in these areas who do send their kids to neighborhood schools - school choice and relocation are luxuries that many, many families in DC simply do not have.

I think that your expectations of changing the DC housing market are unrealistic. It is simply more profitable for developers to knock down a block of 2-3 floor single family rowhouses that would need major renovations to be habitable and put in a 5-10 floor apartment building that can be divided into 0-2 bedroom condos/apartments that rent for $1500-3000/month. It's a better investment for them long term, as there are always new 20- and 30-somethings moving to the area who will rent those units. Developers by and large do not care about the sustainability and stability of the community. They don't care if you live there until you have a kid and then move somewhere else. They likely will not have too much trouble filling your place after you leave.

My choice was to adjust my expectations of what &quot;life with a family&quot; looks like. I wasn't raised in a city. I was raised in a medium sized college town in the midwest. My mom stayed home with us until my youngest sibling was in elementary school. We went to the neighborhood schools, with the neighborhood kids, and generally there was not tension between &quot;living in the city&quot; or &quot;living in the suburbs&quot;. There were not a lot of apartments outside of campus, so everyone basically lived in the same kind of house unless they were really poor or under 22 years old. Housing prices were relatively stable and also affordable on one decent income or two smaller incomes. Childcare did not cost the same as an apartment. DC is different than that. There are a lot of really exciting things that I love about raising a child in the city. I just had to let go of the idea that DD's childhood would look exactly like mine.[/quote]

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