Dc isn’t a great city. Missing a lot of big city features like excellent public transportation and grocery stores on every block, but comes with the downsides of big cities like crime and traffic.

I don’t know many people who feel emotionally connected to dc, even those who grew up there. It is just a place they are.

Dh and I met there. Him from a small town in the southeast, and me from a Western European big city. Dc didn’t ever feel like “home” for either of us, despite us coming from very different backgrounds. We gave it a go for 20 years but were glad to move on. I wanted to go “home” but it didn’t work for where we were. But we moved somewhere random and this feels a lot more like “home” after five years than dc ever did.

Anonymous wrote:Feels like they couldn’t cut it in the big leagues. Some people prefer to be a big fish in a small pond.

Lol no. Most people I know were very successfully living in dc and left. They had the jobs and money and means to do it. Dh and I were both earning seven figures when we left dc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feels like they couldn’t cut it in the big leagues. Some people prefer to be a big fish in a small pond.

And DC is a "big league"? 😂

Compared to a lot of places, yes. It's very easy to get a job earning $150K+ for someone with a college degree. And if you lose that $150K-200K job then there are many more you could get, unlike many parts of the country.

That's $300K-400K HHI for a family. Not to mention $500K+ HHI is very prevalent. This sounds like barely UMC to many on DCUM but it's very well off to most of America.

A friend in her 50's in Central Florida worked her way up to a VP role with a large company and is earning $130K. That job would easily be $250+ in DC. She out earns her Ivy educated husband who has a tech job that would easily pay $200K+ in DC. So that's $230K HHI vs around $450K if they lived in DC with similar jobs.

Have you heard about cost of living ?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Feels like they couldn’t cut it in the big leagues. Some people prefer to be a big fish in a small pond.

And DC is a "big league"? 😂

Compared to a lot of places, yes. It's very easy to get a job earning $150K+ for someone with a college degree. And if you lose that $150K-200K job then there are many more you could get, unlike many parts of the country.

That's $300K-400K HHI for a family. Not to mention $500K+ HHI is very prevalent. This sounds like barely UMC to many on DCUM but it's very well off to most of America.

A friend in her 50's in Central Florida worked her way up to a VP role with a large company and is earning $130K. That job would easily be $250+ in DC. She out earns her Ivy educated husband who has a tech job that would easily pay $200K+ in DC. So that's $230K HHI vs around $450K if they lived in DC with similar jobs.

Anonymous wrote:Feels like they couldn’t cut it in the big leagues. Some people prefer to be a big fish in a small pond.

DC is big league only for intelligence (spying), and certain very specific types of government law and contracting, including some defense work.

If you're not in these legal or extralegal activities, you are not in a big league here.