Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in frederick county for twenty years, originally from northern nj, and know Urbana well. It is more developed and more crowded than say fifteen years ago obviously, but I agree it (and Frederick county) are still lovely in many ways. Urbana was I think developed under a model of "new urbanism" in the past twenty five years so the new houses were meant to be close, to have alleys in the back, to have porches to facilitate community and to be walkable.

They have a great, modern library that offers a lot of programming. Like s pp said, I have heard the Y is good. The area is physically beautiful, mountains and farm views in many areas of the county and yes most people are very friendly and often very educated, contrary to the stereotypes. Frederick currently has more registered democrats than Republicans, has its fair share too (which surprised me) of former New York and New Jersey residents . We love it here, Urbana is maybe 10 mins to Frederick and that opens up a ton of choices as well: for eating out, antiquing, shows and speakers at the weinburg, dance schools, coffee shops, funky clothes stores and interesting/high end home stores as well. And finally my experiences giving birth and having a couple medical emergencies over the past years have resulted in getting very good, solid care at Frederick memorial hospital. I still see a few specialists in dc area but overall there is access here to high quality healthcare.

Nice summary. We are on the same boat as OP. Not because of the home price reason but for quality (lack of) education in MCPS schools. Schools are rated high. We visited the area multiple times and one thing I noticed is that people are generally very nice and welcoming.

Lol. That's always the biggest surprise when leaving MoCo for FredCo! People are nice.

They say hello. They might engage in some small talk.

You don't realize how grumpy MoCo is until you leave it

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in frederick county for twenty years, originally from northern nj, and know Urbana well. It is more developed and more crowded than say fifteen years ago obviously, but I agree it (and Frederick county) are still lovely in many ways. Urbana was I think developed under a model of "new urbanism" in the past twenty five years so the new houses were meant to be close, to have alleys in the back, to have porches to facilitate community and to be walkable.

They have a great, modern library that offers a lot of programming. Like s pp said, I have heard the Y is good. The area is physically beautiful, mountains and farm views in many areas of the county and yes most people are very friendly and often very educated, contrary to the stereotypes. Frederick currently has more registered democrats than Republicans, has its fair share too (which surprised me) of former New York and New Jersey residents . We love it here, Urbana is maybe 10 mins to Frederick and that opens up a ton of choices as well: for eating out, antiquing, shows and speakers at the weinburg, dance schools, coffee shops, funky clothes stores and interesting/high end home stores as well. And finally my experiences giving birth and having a couple medical emergencies over the past years have resulted in getting very good, solid care at Frederick memorial hospital. I still see a few specialists in dc area but overall there is access here to high quality healthcare.

Nice summary. We are on the same boat as OP. Not because of the home price reason but for quality (lack of) education in MCPS schools. Schools are rated high. We visited the area multiple times and one thing I noticed is that people are generally very nice and welcoming.

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in frederick county for twenty years, originally from northern nj, and know Urbana well. It is more developed and more crowded than say fifteen years ago obviously, but I agree it (and Frederick county) are still lovely in many ways. Urbana was I think developed under a model of "new urbanism" in the past twenty five years so the new houses were meant to be close, to have alleys in the back, to have porches to facilitate community and to be walkable.

They have a great, modern library that offers a lot of programming. Like s pp said, I have heard the Y is good. The area is physically beautiful, mountains and farm views in many areas of the county and yes most people are very friendly and often very educated, contrary to the stereotypes. Frederick currently has more registered democrats than Republicans, has its fair share too (which surprised me) of former New York and New Jersey residents . We love it here, Urbana is maybe 10 mins to Frederick and that opens up a ton of choices as well: for eating out, antiquing, shows and speakers at the weinburg, dance schools, coffee shops, funky clothes stores and interesting/high end home stores as well. And finally my experiences giving birth and having a couple medical emergencies over the past years have resulted in getting very good, solid care at Frederick memorial hospital. I still see a few specialists in dc area but overall there is access here to high quality healthcare.

Anonymous wrote:We moved up here to the Villages of Urbana about seven years ago from Rockville. I agree with PP - I'm never moving back. I'm a MCPS employee and much happier with the schools in Urbana than I ever was down in MoCo. The neighborhood is great, and I love the proximity to downtown Frederick.
That being said, I wouldn't want to commute past MoCo into DC and if you want high end shopping, you're not going to find it up here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with everyone else. As long as you don't have to go downtown 5 days a week, its amazing.

I will go downtown from Exit 22 to Union Station 1-2 days a week and its totally manageable.

People give FredCo a bad rap as super redneck, and some of that vibe is still there in the Ijamsville/Monrovia area, but its really much more purple than it is red.

And tbh, people mostly just dont care. Everyone is just so much nicer. It really feels like the communities you grew up with as a kid 30 years ago

In 2020 the KKK grand Marshall visited Frederick and three years before KKK flyers were distributed around town.

Wasn’t the KKK state headquarters in Frederick?

Is that what you consider a “bad rep?”

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree with everyone else. As long as you don't have to go downtown 5 days a week, its amazing.

I will go downtown from Exit 22 to Union Station 1-2 days a week and its totally manageable.

People give FredCo a bad rap as super redneck, and some of that vibe is still there in the Ijamsville/Monrovia area, but its really much more purple than it is red.

And tbh, people mostly just dont care. Everyone is just so much nicer. It really feels like the communities you grew up with as a kid 30 years ago

In 2020 the KKK grand Marshall visited Frederick and three years before KKK flyers were distributed around town.

Wasn’t the KKK state headquarters in Frederick?

Is that what you consider a “bad rep?”

Anonymous wrote:Agree with everyone else. As long as you don't have to go downtown 5 days a week, its amazing.

I will go downtown from Exit 22 to Union Station 1-2 days a week and its totally manageable.

People give FredCo a bad rap as super redneck, and some of that vibe is still there in the Ijamsville/Monrovia area, but its really much more purple than it is red.

And tbh, people mostly just dont care. Everyone is just so much nicer. It really feels like the communities you grew up with as a kid 30 years ago

Anonymous wrote:To avoid the skyrocketing prices for good school districts (Ws) in MoCo, we've been considering purchasing a house in the Urbana area instead. It seems like a really cute community with lovely townhomes and SFH in the 400-700k range. (Versus MoCo where you'd be getting very eh townhouses in general in that range, and SFH are few and far between). Specifically we're looking in the Urbana High district as it seems quite highly rated, but we're not specifically attached to the more rural part vs the townhouse part.
We both work in biotech so we'll be commuting somewhere between Rockville - Frederick.

For people who have actually lived in that area, or better yet have lived in MoCo and Urbana:
- How is the commute both up and down 270?
- Is there a lot of traffic in the downtown Urbana area? Do the rotaries get scary crowded?
- How are the schools? They're all highly rated and I'm sure in technicality the W schools are "better" but also more cutthroat. Are your kids happy at the Urbana schools? I heard it's getting overcrowded, do they not have much individualized attention? In the elementary schools are there rowdy and disruptive kids?
- What's the neighborhood vibe like, both in the Urbana townhouse area and the country-esque outskirts edging towards Ijamsville / New Market / Monrovia? I heard a lot of families live in this district, do parents often talk to each other and are there neighborhood activities or do people keep to themselves?
- How do HOAs act in these neighborhoods?
- Do you often get to go to Frederick for things like restaurants and activities, or do you find yourself only staying in Urbana? What about going to Gaithersburg/Rockville for restaurants?

Thanks to those who reply!

Anonymous wrote:I have lived in frederick county for twenty years, originally from northern nj, and know Urbana well. It is more developed and more crowded than say fifteen years ago obviously, but I agree it (and Frederick county) are still lovely in many ways. Urbana was I think developed under a model of "new urbanism" in the past twenty five years so the new houses were meant to be close, to have alleys in the back, to have porches to facilitate community and to be walkable.

They have a great, modern library that offers a lot of programming. Like s pp said, I have heard the Y is good. The area is physically beautiful, mountains and farm views in many areas of the county and yes most people are very friendly and often very educated, contrary to the stereotypes. Frederick currently has more registered democrats than Republicans, has its fair share too (which surprised me) of former New York and New Jersey residents . We love it here, Urbana is maybe 10 mins to Frederick and that opens up a ton of choices as well: for eating out, antiquing, shows and speakers at the weinburg, dance schools, coffee shops, funky clothes stores and interesting/high end home stores as well. And finally my experiences giving birth and having a couple medical emergencies over the past years have resulted in getting very good, solid care at Frederick memorial hospital. I still see a few specialists in dc area but overall there is access here to high quality healthcare.