Moved here for a spouse.
Hate it here for all the reasons PPs listed. Oh and the culture sucks (music, performing arts)

DH’s job. We planned on living here for two or three years but here we are, on year eleven. The kids are old enough that I don’t want to move, but knowing what I know now I wouldn’t have picked this place to raise my kids. I would have picked Minnesota. It’s just a friendlier place and I have friends there.

But I love our house (it’s old and has character), our neighbors, the trails, the proximity of the airport (I’m in Arlington), DD’s school, and the museums. I also like a lot of people here, but you know, people are just too busy to invest in friendships.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hate it here. Can’t wait to move.

Mostly Type-A strivers and mean-spirited, cold people,

No sense of hometown / no city pride,

Transient (everyone leaves)

Summers are miserably hot,

Mosquitoes and ticks everywhere

Winters cold and gray with barely any snow,

Crumbling infrastructure,

Deteriorating school system

Skyrocketing crime

Incompetent local government

Whole area stinks of weed.

We are only here for our .gov jobs.

People who live in DC have a ton of hometown pride.

I love it here because people are really smart. When you leave, you realize that Americans are really dumb.

I find city dwellers to be very warm and community oriented.

You obviously never spend time in Anacostia / S.E. People there are, as you put it, “really dumb.”

Loved the walkability of everything. Similar to Chicago - had a car but never used it.

The food was good. I love the row houses. There's a vibe there that's just so pretty.

I was just there last week and I do miss it, but it's too expensive.

Jobs and making fun of all the odd looking people

Anonymous wrote:I've been here my whole adult life so it's home. My friends and my kid's friends are here. Ultimately that's what makes somewhere a place you want to live.

Similar to Pavlov’s frog?

Moved here for grad school, didn’t expect to stay. Met a DC native and now my job is here. He owns restaurants so while I could work anywhere, he’s tied to here. Now that we own a house and have kids in schools, it’s a lot more effort to just pick up and move.

Anonymous wrote:Hate it here. Can’t wait to move.

Mostly Type-A strivers and mean-spirited, cold people,

No sense of hometown / no city pride,

Transient (everyone leaves)

Summers are miserably hot,

Mosquitoes and ticks everywhere

Winters cold and gray with barely any snow,

Crumbling infrastructure,

Deteriorating school system

Skyrocketing crime

Incompetent local government

Whole area stinks of weed.

We are only here for our .gov jobs.

People who live in DC have a ton of hometown pride.

I love it here because people are really smart. When you leave, you realize that Americans are really dumb.

I find city dwellers to be very warm and community oriented.

Moved here for grad school, stayed for job opportunities. Have lived here for 20 years and am married with two kids. Have lived in DC itself the whole time (though spouse used to live in suburbs).

What I like and dislike changes with time. These are the major factors of satisfaction/dissatisfaction:

-- Stuff to Do. I have always felt DC punches above its weight in this department and still do. Smaller city but amazing museums, tons of festivals, great bands come through here. Food scene was pretty bad when I moved her but now really good, though as I've gotten older I go out to eat way less so this is much less important to me (same with bars).

-- Affordability. Used to be amazing, obviously much less so. Spouse and I are in fields where we'll never make a ton of money even at the director level, and we've been slowly (or maybe not so slowly) priced out of a lifestyle we once thought we could afford. We're probably going to cash out and move in a few years and this is the main reason why -- our jobs will be less tied to DC in the next few years and our money will go so much further elsewhere. It feels like we get poorer every year even though our incomes have steadily risen. Part of that is cost of kids, but most of it is general cost of living around here.

- Culture. Super uneven. We've never been part of the political/media complex in DC so I have limited interaction with that. I work in the arts and DH works in academia. I do think DC culture can be too Type A and competitive at times. I find this especially jarring in the art world where of course there is competition but there's a joylessness to it in DC that doesn't exist in other art communities I'm a part of. DH has a similar experience in academia -- it's a different vibe than you'd find in either a bigger city (where academics are considered middle class and fairly irrelevant) or a college town (where they are top of the heap). In DC, academics are close enough to policy-making that there is an aura of power, but they make no money in their actual jobs and don't have real power. So there's this weird focus on media presence, mainstream publishing, and consulting, that I think really wears down pure academics. Most people do not go into academia because they love the hustle. But we do like that people in DC tend to be, on average, well-educated and interested in the world. That's not always the case.

All in all, I have no regrets about the time we've spent in DC, but I feel it no longer really suits us. We could move into adjacent industries, boost our income, and "keep up" with costs here, but that would require us to become slightly different people with slightly different values, and it's just not what we envisioned for ourselves. It's time for us to move on.

I like it here - been here since college.

I like feel of east coast city but easier than NYC. I live uber distance from downtown DC and easily go for sports, theater, concerts, restaurants.

I like living in the suburbs with easy drive to stuff I need but still close to DC (see above)

I'm a bit of an intellectual snob so that part of DC fits me

Interesting friends and neighbors from all over the world live close

Job. No other reason after the age of 35. (I am 61.)

20s and early 30s? A blast.

I've been here my whole adult life so it's home. My friends and my kid's friends are here. Ultimately that's what makes somewhere a place you want to live.

Hate it here. Can’t wait to move.

Mostly Type-A strivers and mean-spirited, cold people,

No sense of hometown / no city pride,

Transient (everyone leaves)

Summers are miserably hot,

Mosquitoes and ticks everywhere

Winters cold and gray with barely any snow,

Crumbling infrastructure,

Deteriorating school system

Skyrocketing crime

Incompetent local government

Whole area stinks of weed.

We are only here for our .gov jobs.

3rd generation native.

It’s home.

Curious what brought you here or keeps you here. What do you like about it, and what do you hate?

I have since moved but loved:
The food scene
The spring scenery
The free activities/museums/etc
The ease of meeting new people because everyone seemed to be a transplant

I did not love:
The cookie-cutter feel of so many suburbs -- felt manufactured
Distance to ocean or other recreation -- no real charming destinations nearby
The "what do you do?" government/noncreative vibe