The entire focus on Ward 3 housing is highly misplaced. Ward 3 is attractive to those who can afford SFHs in DC. If you eliminate or reduce the attractiveness of those neighborhoods, you lose some of those residents. And those are the residents that pay the bulk of DC income taxes. If you lose them, you lose your tax base. NYC has the same issue, in that its income tax revenues are highly dependent on the super wealthy. DC needs to focus on expanding and improving neighborhoods in other parts of DC, particularly Wards 7 and 8, which have legitimate complaints about insufficient focus. Further, there is no real housing in DC. DC's population was over 800K in 1950, and over 750K in 1970. Today, it is approximately 700K.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People leave when their kids aren't allowed to go to school.

This is us. Plus this absurd notion that crime is ok because the criminals are having a hard time. Bye.

For us it was the increasing crime and homeless population.

What’s getting me to start to think more seriously about leaving DC (been a resident for 15 years) is the combo of all this PLUS the fact that DC is so expensive. What value am I actually getting for all the money I’m spending? If it turns out I don’t need to go in to the office as frequently post-pandemic, then I think it will be hard to justify staying.

Looks like people stay put it ward 7 and 8 at 20020 zip code. Why is that?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People leave when their kids aren't allowed to go to school.

This is us. Plus this absurd notion that crime is ok because the criminals are having a hard time. Bye.

For us it was the increasing crime and homeless population.

We got tired of wading through the drug crew on the corner (which the police never touched). Plus the associated drive by homicide.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People leave when their kids aren't allowed to go to school.

This is us. Plus this absurd notion that crime is ok because the criminals are having a hard time. Bye.

For us it was the increasing crime and homeless population.

Personally, I don't find this particular situation a reason to leave. When we first moved here, there was significantly more crime than there is now. True, we didn't have kids then, but we both lived in neighborhoods where there was far more crime then than there is in our current neighborhood now. I don't have time to search for reliable stats on homelessness, but I suspect that was more of an issue 20 years ago than it is now, too. (I also grew up in the suburbs and spent a lot of time in the District even before I moved here, when crime was even higher than it was when I did move.)

That's not to say you shouldn't do what's right for your family. But I wonder whether the rising cost of housing had more to do with the longer-term trend than crime did -- and whether the pandemic and associated school closings and ability to work remotely from wherever had more to do with last year's.