Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Geez. We get it. You enjoy driving 2 hrs to get to work, it allows you to listen to your favorite podcasts. Your favorite restaurant here is also located in every city in America which is great when you take that road trip back to Ohio and you sneer at those of us who live in "effectively suburban" parts of the District. All that being said, some of those places on the edges of the orange line, Dunn Loring and others are real holes.

Funny thing is...they don't really. I mean, there's a thread that pops up every week or so saying something to the effect of "God How I Hate This Shitty Town Washington, DC". "Oh, the mean people! Oh, the terrible traffic! Oh, the restaurants suck! Oh, I can't wait to move to California!"

Then you scratch the surface a millimeter and it turns out everyone who's complaining is from the suburbs somewhere. I never would have imagined, but it seems like there's actually one thing everyone on DCUM agrees one: the suburbs suck.

Wrong. The one thing everyone else in the nation agrees on, though, is that DC sucks.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yay for you, OP. I am super thrilled that you are happy with where you live. But not everyone can afford to live in Kent/SV. Some of us can only afford to live outside the Beltway and drive 40 minutes or take the Orange Line to downtown DC. We make that trade off so that our kids can have safe neighborhoods and good schools. Stop being so elitist.

Just curious - are you in a condo/townhouse? Or are you one of those people who "can't afford" to live in the city because you simply must have 4+ bedrooms, a sun parlor, etc?

Nope, we're a family of 6 (gasp! you probably couldn't comprehend what it's like to have a large family with your special little snowflake singleton), so it's 4 bd SFH. No sunroom, but a great deck for grilling...and yes, grilling b/c we don't live on top of each other like city dwellers.

Please, the boosters are very adept of doing the crapping and are much less shy about language and essentially highjack every thread that is unrelated to their areas

Nah, I think both sides are equally terrible. But the OP asked for an explanation of the exurbanites, not the urban boosters.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Geez. We get it. You enjoy driving 2 hrs to get to work, it allows you to listen to your favorite podcasts. Your favorite restaurant here is also located in every city in America which is great when you take that road trip back to Ohio and you sneer at those of us who live in "effectively suburban" parts of the District. All that being said, some of those places on the edges of the orange line, Dunn Loring and others are real holes.

Since the suburban areas of DC have crappy schools and may sit on top of a munitions dump, we prefer to refer to them as the "ineffectively suburban" parts of the Distrct.

Carry on.

I don't think anyone here is talking about DC.

Oh, dear. How long have you had this problem?

Zipcodes are often NOT competitive.
This is a distinctly DC and NYC phenomena.
No, not new to life. I just have one.
Zing! I win! Bye!
(ooo, you are sooo mad now aren't you? GO ALL CAPS WHY DON'T YOU, MR. LAWYER/LOBBYIST/INDUSTRY HACK!!! YAY, A CHANCE TO VENT BECAUSE YOU HAVEN'T GOTTEN YOUR RDA OF POWER TODAY!!!)

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Yes, I miss restaurants but now that its warm we end up using the grill and having people over for dinner or vice versa, let the kids play in the yards/pools which is actually much better than dropping 100+ on a restaurant dinner anyway.

+1

Are you under the impression that grills are outlawed inside the beltway? Inside the city limits?

They weren't allowed on my balcony in DC Most DC houses have very small lots so sitting outside and grilling isn't the same as grilling outside with a great view, kids playing in a pool, and being able to really run through the yard on a 2 acre lot.

I care less about grilling, and entertaining people in my home and doing all the clean up. My idea of fun with friends, is leaving kids with a family for the evening and going to a nice trendy restaurant. Or having people come over for some light snacks and wine, or take kids to a restaurant for early dinner. Or visit a good friend, who loves cooking and bring them nice dessert, wine, chocolates and enjoy the evening praising their cooking skills. I hate cooking and cleaning and would die a slow death in deep suburbia with a large yard and a huge house. I could only survive if I were super rich with a full time housekeeper, a cook, a landscaper, and a driver. To each their own, people are different.

Anonymous wrote:Some people really get their self-esteem from feeling better about their neighborhood than someone else's, don't they? This is DCism at it's most stereotypical. Competitive zipcodes... isn't this kind of embarassing?

Are you new to life? Everything is a competition. Now put the most competitive people in the country in one place and it goes into hyper drive. That's what makes USA great and North Korea bad.

Some people really get their self-esteem from feeling better about their neighborhood than someone else's, don't they? This is DCism at it's most stereotypical. Competitive zipcodes... isn't this kind of embarassing?

Anonymous wrote:I'm not an exurbanite (although some of you might think so), nor a booster, but is it really that surprising for people to stand up for their own neighborhoods? Especially when they are consistently crapped on by the urbanites/close-in suburbanites? (See for example: parts of this thread.)

I'll admit the boosterism/tearing down on either side is not my favorite part of reading here. But it happens frequently enough, some people must love it.

Please, the boosters are very adept of doing the crapping and are much less shy about language and essentially highjack every thread that is unrelated to their areas, with incessant rantings that people should look elsewhere and are stupid spending so much money on old ugly houses. Calling anything that is not a 5000 sq.ft Mcmansion a brick shit box and denigrating choices of others, who want to be near their jobs/families/urban amenities as inferior decisions. I am not talking about people that talk in civil manner about their choices to live in one of these places, which are very legitimate and make total sense. I am talking about Rat Lady, PH booster, Marshall lady, Dunn Loring booster, Mosaic booster and the likes (perhaps maybe even one person, based on language) with all of their unrealistic, juvenile aggrandizing.

Anonymous wrote:"I could never live THAT far out. <Insert stuck-up comment about chain restaurants, walkability, and the joys of urban life.>"
-says the DC resident of Falls Church/Arl
-says the Falls Church/Arl resident of Vienna/McLean
-says the Vienna/McLean resident of Loudoun

This is getting so old!

I live in Columbia Heights - who can I talk shit about? (My answer - everyone, because all of the above invariably turn up their noses at my so called dirty, rat-infested, crime-ridden, bad school havin' neighborhood, which I really, really like.)

Anonymous wrote:Yay for you, OP. I am super thrilled that you are happy with where you live. But not everyone can afford to live in Kent/SV. Some of us can only afford to live outside the Beltway and drive 40 minutes or take the Orange Line to downtown DC. We make that trade off so that our kids can have safe neighborhoods and good schools. Stop being so elitist.

Just curious - are you in a condo/townhouse? Or are you one of those people who "can't afford" to live in the city because you simply must have 4+ bedrooms, a sun parlor, etc?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yay for you, OP. I am super thrilled that you are happy with where you live. But not everyone can afford to live in Kent/SV. Some of us can only afford to live outside the Beltway and drive 40 minutes or take the Orange Line to downtown DC. We make that trade off so that our kids can have safe neighborhoods and good schools. Stop being so elitist.

THANK YOU! +1

+2

Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Yes, I miss restaurants but now that its warm we end up using the grill and having people over for dinner or vice versa, let the kids play in the yards/pools which is actually much better than dropping 100+ on a restaurant dinner anyway.

+1

Are you under the impression that grills are outlawed inside the beltway? Inside the city limits?

They weren't allowed on my balcony in DC Most DC houses have very small lots so sitting outside and grilling isn't the same as grilling outside with a great view, kids playing in a pool, and being able to really run through the yard on a 2 acre lot.

"I could never live THAT far out. <Insert stuck-up comment about chain restaurants, walkability, and the joys of urban life.>"
-says the DC resident of Falls Church/Arl
-says the Falls Church/Arl resident of Vienna/McLean
-says the Vienna/McLean resident of Loudoun

This is getting so old!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, I miss restaurants but now that its warm we end up using the grill and having people over for dinner or vice versa, let the kids play in the yards/pools which is actually much better than dropping 100+ on a restaurant dinner anyway.

+1

Are you under the impression that grills are outlawed inside the beltway? Inside the city limits?