Anonymous wrote:

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.

+1

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.

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.

Hey now! No reason to get snippy. Different strokes for different folks and all. It's natural that people who love the suburbs would dislike the city, and those who love the city dislike the suburbs. Nothing new there. But your neighbors actually have an affinity for the suburbs in general--just hate the DC suburbs in particular. If you think they're wrong, take it up with your neighbors.

Anonymous wrote:Also, WTH do you do with a 5000 sq foot house? How do you clean it all? Do your kids get exercise by running loops through the living room?

If I could afford a 5000 sf house, I'd have enough money to hire a maid.

Can I still call them Manassholes?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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!!!)

It must suck working for some Fed agency, stuck in the bowels on Constitution ave. You came here thinking you'd change the world, and now all you do is change forms and forms and forms. You found out America doesn't care about your plight and by the way it's really expensive here. But you're stuck here because your "skill" doesn't translate into a job any where else. Unless you just want to become a clerk. Enjoy the exburbs tonight. Take those 3 hours driving home to think about it.

But you're so important and/or fulfilled you troll others on the internet. how cunty.

when what you can afford inside the city is a 1 BR condo in a not so good neighborhood and you have children...yeah, some of us CAN'T afford to live inside the beltway. This does NOT mean that we run to the exurbs and all bitch about commutes to the city. There are so many choices in between the two.

Stop acting like it is black and white.

Anonymous wrote: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!!!)

It must suck working for some Fed agency, stuck in the bowels on Constitution ave. You came here thinking you'd change the world, and now all you do is change forms and forms and forms. You found out America doesn't care about your plight and by the way it's really expensive here. But you're stuck here because your "skill" doesn't translate into a job any where else. Unless you just want to become a clerk. Enjoy the exburbs tonight. Take those 3 hours driving home to think about it.

Anonymous wrote:

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?

I love the implication that really cool, virtuous, GOOD people must continue to live in cramped quarters as long as they are within city limits instead of decamping to, SHUDDER, suburbs that are a better match for the real needs of their family, which do not include racking up UrbanCool(TM) points.

No, that's not the implication at all. Good people - and douchebags - live everywhere. The point is that ALL of us make choices, trade-offs and sacrifices. Those of us who live in the city often sacrifice square footage, outside space, etc. because other things are more important. To others, big houses and yards are more important than the convenience of living in the city. Each of those choices is fine - until you start whining that "Some of us can only afford to live outside the Beltway." Then, you're a child who just can't take responsibility for your own life and choices. It's an unattractive quality in an elementary school child; it's intolerable in an adult.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I fucking hate the posters that are blathering on about Pimmit Hills, the Mosaic District and Dunn Loring in almost every thread, but I disagree with your characterization of those as exurbs. Those are classic suburbs; exurbs are further out (think Loudoun County, or Clarksburg in MD.)

And PP is totally right - I love the posts from the people who can't hack the stress of living in say, Annandale.

Exurb is anywhere more than 1km from the District line.

exurb is outside of the beltway

Rockville is an exurb? Half of Silver Spring is an exurb? No.

some of us only have one because our bodies won't allow us to reproduce again, so the special snowflake singleton remark is offensive on MANY levels

Anonymous wrote:

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.

There you go, it's just a different choice. You "have" to live in West Bumblefuck because you chose to overpopulate the planet. It's clear from your post you'd prefer to live closer in, but your life choices preclude it. Bummer. (Unless you had quadruplets - in which case, my heartfelt sympathy.)

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?

We are in a 1950s-era brick rambler in a good-but-not-top school pyramid. Technically it has four bedrooms, but one is in the basement, which needs to be updated. The kitchen is nice, but our bathrooms were last done in the 1990s by a previous owner. The house cost $500,000 and is in a solidly middle class neighborhood because, gasp, some of us who work in the DC metro area make significantly less than $250K per year. So please get the McMansion idea out of your head.

Some people live in tiny TH's way out in the 'burbs because THAT is all they can afford. It isn't an either/or situation.

I think a post of mine yesterday was misconstrued as me thinking people were stupid for spending so much money to live in a house close in. I don't think it's stupid. It costs that much for a reason, and people will pay it. There ARE other choices for what to do with a budget approaching $1 M like that, but only the homeowner can decide which of those choices works for them. No one thinks you're dumb for making the choice you do (well, OK, maybe SOME do, but it isn't me personally).

We had a sub-$500K budget and non-DC commutes. There was absolutely no reason for us to buy closer in, but even with close to half a mil to spend, the money only goes so far. We got a 40 year old house that needed updating on the edge of Fairfax. Yes, we have a 4 BR colonial and a yard, because we were tired of being squeezed into the 2 BR TH we had lived in not far from our current location for so long. We wanted a backyard where we could have a playscape for our kid and a dog and maybe a small garden. We were NOT asking for a gargantuan house, just a house with a yard.

If people choose downtown condo, good for them. If they buy a $1M older home in Arlington, good for them. And if they choose to buy in Stafford County, VA and commute to downtown, hey, good for them. We are all different, right?

This us vs. them mentality is ridiculous.

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?

I love the implication that really cool, virtuous, GOOD people must continue to live in cramped quarters as long as they are within city limits instead of decamping to, SHUDDER, suburbs that are a better match for the real needs of their family, which do not include racking up UrbanCool(TM) points.

Both this thread and this forum are one giant train wreck.