Anonymous wrote:Lower crime, cheaper housing, no car taxes, areas of nightlife.

Don't own a car and you don't have to pay taxes.

And, in DC, the tax on a car is a one-time deal. Yes, there are annual registration fees, but not taxes.

Lower crime, cheaper housing, no car taxes, areas of nightlife.

I do think it is harder to be young and broke-ish in DC, or at least in the way my friends lived in those post-college years. Not enough apartments (too many condos), rents are high for even pretty small places, not a real long-term rental culture like in NY. Also not enough independently owned and cheap (but delicious) restaurants in DC. I know every other city has expensive and fancy restaurants, but many ALSO have great dives, holes -in-the-wall, and take out places where you can eat cheaply and quickly if you need to. Often these are ethnic restaurants and most of the great/cheap ethnic places in the DC area are in the suburbs.
DC's too corporate or something.

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Anonymous wrote:What would make DC more appealing for young professionals?

DC is not a young person's city, certainly not in the way that other cities are.

Not much you can do to change that.

Why its not? Lots of young people dream of working and living on the Hill.

And lots of people do! Hundreds of group houses. The holdback seems to be jobs? For every recent grad or summer college student I know who ends up working on the hill, I know another one who never was able to secure a hill job

Anonymous wrote:Isn't DC more appealing to young professionals than families?

I feel like it is. In fact, this is one of my complaints (if you can call it that) about the area. I grew up in MoCo and always knew I wanted to return to the area after graduation and raise my family here. I met so so so many amazing people in my "young professional" phase of life...always something going on, there always seemed to be (young) people moving here. DC is such a common post-grad destination. But it's transient. Many (most?) of my friends from my young professional years aka my 20s left the area once they entered the "marriage and kids" phase of life. Some returned to where they're originally from, some moved for lower COL, others better weather...a mix, really.

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Anonymous wrote:A lot of young people have been moving here after graduation for the past decade. I think it’s a pretty decent place to live but realistically more affordable housing and a larger 24/7 metro would make things more appealing. Also better nightlife and restaurants. I think DC has peaked in appeal though

The past decade? More like the past century. As long as it is the center of power that is not going to change. For kids just out of college the nightlife and restaurants are amazing and fun. Not sure what you guys are talking about.

This is not universally true and really depends on the administration and bigger macroeconomic trends. DC didn’t even register as potentially “cool” for young professionals until the Clinton administration and there were down years during the W administration. Made a comeback with Obama and remarkably stayed popular during Trump and now it’s tending down again.

It's been trending down for 10 years.

Some of it is demographics. There aren't as many Gen Zs as Millennials

This is exactly right. The transition to Gen Z isn’t happening. Instead it is following the Millennial cohort trends. Easier to find a microbrewery or amaro bar than a place for dancing.

Craft beer is a Gen X thing.

The entire premise of this is flawed. DC has and has always attracted large numbers of young professionals. What it has a problem with is keeping them once they get older. To solve that we need competitive secondary schools, taxes and transportation. Fixing the elementary schools was a great start but it was only a start

Parking, specifically for their Telsas.

It’s already attractive to young professionals.

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Anonymous wrote:A lot of young people have been moving here after graduation for the past decade. I think it’s a pretty decent place to live but realistically more affordable housing and a larger 24/7 metro would make things more appealing. Also better nightlife and restaurants. I think DC has peaked in appeal though

The past decade? More like the past century. As long as it is the center of power that is not going to change. For kids just out of college the nightlife and restaurants are amazing and fun. Not sure what you guys are talking about.

This is not universally true and really depends on the administration and bigger macroeconomic trends. DC didn’t even register as potentially “cool” for young professionals until the Clinton administration and there were down years during the W administration. Made a comeback with Obama and remarkably stayed popular during Trump and now it’s tending down again.

DC was popular with young pros before Clinton. Consider the DMV as a whole- MD is somewhat static but VA has been a huge job market that didn't exist in the 1970's. Young pros we know of are leaving Chicago. In DC we don't see the departure but do see a shift in where they want to live based on hassles and crime. There was a clump along Conn Ave and the clump in Shaw want out.

You realize there is more crime, per capita, in red areas, right?

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Anonymous wrote:I’ve seen some stupid anti-DC threads in the past, but this one takes the cake. You can’t swing a dead cat in this city without hitting a “young professional,” and it is consistently ranked among the most walkable cities in the US.

Where do you clueless people come from?

Gainesville, probably.

Lol, I live in the Gainesville/Warrenton area and I first moved to the DMV when I was 21 and lived in DC. It was a great place to live when I was young, and I would recommend it to young professionals. But now in my 40s, I am perfectly content to be away from the crime and live in a large home not on top of my neighbors.

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Anonymous wrote:A lot of young people have been moving here after graduation for the past decade. I think it’s a pretty decent place to live but realistically more affordable housing and a larger 24/7 metro would make things more appealing. Also better nightlife and restaurants. I think DC has peaked in appeal though

The past decade? More like the past century. As long as it is the center of power that is not going to change. For kids just out of college the nightlife and restaurants are amazing and fun. Not sure what you guys are talking about.

This is not universally true and really depends on the administration and bigger macroeconomic trends. DC didn’t even register as potentially “cool” for young professionals until the Clinton administration and there were down years during the W administration. Made a comeback with Obama and remarkably stayed popular during Trump and now it’s tending down again.

It's been trending down for 10 years.

Some of it is demographics. There aren't as many Gen Zs as Millennials

This is exactly right. The transition to Gen Z isn’t happening. Instead it is following the Millennial cohort trends. Easier to find a microbrewery or amaro bar than a place for dancing.

Anonymous wrote:A lot of young people have been moving here after graduation for the past decade. I think it’s a pretty decent place to live but realistically more affordable housing and a larger 24/7 metro would make things more appealing. Also better nightlife and restaurants. I think DC has peaked in appeal though

You mean the past century, right?

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Anonymous wrote:Fewer rats, for starters.

young people don't care about this

Of course they do. Anyone with half a brain cares about rodent infestations. Disgusting.