Reply to Moving from NYC to DC suburbs...tell me why you like the DC suburbs

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you haven't already bought in the suburbs, don't do it. You'll be miserable unless you live in a place like parts of Arlington and Alexandria.

If you move to a place like Reston or McLean, you will be miserable OP. [/quote]

But what about the public schools being way better in a place like McLean? Unfortunately it just seems like the more city-like areas (or DC proper) gave bad public schools.[/quote]

No. Close-in Arlington or Bethesda have excellent schools and walkable (to coffee) neighborhoods.

- resident of (the horror!!) Reston

[/quote]

+1 I moved from another large city (not nyc) to Arlington (westover). What I like - best of both worlds, I can be downtown at a museum with my kid in about 10 minutes by car on a Saturday morning, I can still walk to coffee, a few of our favorite restaurants and the farmers market, lots of playgrounds, but I also can easily get to a grocery store (with my cargo bike on the trail or by car and enjoy the large parking lot and ease), I can easily drive places when it’s easier to with my kids but I also hate the in and out of car seats so we also have a cargo bike and tote the kids on the trails as much as possible. Next year my son will start kindergarten and we have a great public school that the neighbors all seem happy with a short walk away. No stress there which is very nice and obviously a huge privilege. Life is pretty easy. Parks and trails a block away. Neighbors who have become good friends, I can text on a Saturday morning and have impromptu get togethers with friends and their kids who are similar ages. I probably outed myself to anyone who knows me traipsing around westover on our bike but they are becoming more common by the day.

If you end up further out, we have family farther out in a suburb that isn’t walkable to shops etc and the benefits there I do see too - it’s quiet, there is a lake nearby, lots of culdesacs and neighbors are chill and friends. Kids run around (they do in Arlington too). [/quote]

Whoa! This sounds great! Do you mind sharing the name of the elementary school? Is it Arlington Traditional? Is that hard to get into with the lottery? Sorry so many questions.[/quote]

Sure! Cardinal elementary. Arlington traditional is also close by but like you said it’s lottery. Basically arlington has neighborhood schools and then a few “option” schools which you can try to lottery into that are all over the county. There are pros and cons like anything to doing an option school (the specialty programs can be great, but you then aren’t with neighborhood kids and often have to take the bus to school but sometimes they have a more even diversity level which is great vs either leaning more higher income or more lower income, to name a few). People that go to Arlington traditional usually seem to love it but we aren’t entering our son in the lottery at all, we’ve heard great things about cardinal and I like the neighborhood school aspect so I’d rather just go with that then add lottery stress or end up with our kids farther from home because we’d like to be able to walk/bike. Cardinal is right in westover next to the westover library so it has kind of a small town feel for us. Westover has an old hardware store (Ayers) that has been there for decades that my son adores. He gets his haircut next door by people that know him. It really does feel like a small town in a lot of ways but then you also are near everything. The middle school is also right nearby so all the middle schoolers take over the shops after school, pretty hilarious.

Ashlawn elementary is another one right by the trails that is great though not all houses are as walkable to westover.

I am bias but I truly love where we live. walk up to the farmers market on Sunday morning and then all the kids play on the playground at cardinal. We’ve made a lot of friends that way. Come visit on a Sunday morning if you want to get a feel. And I can’t believe how many places I can get on our bike. We love it. 
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