Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The folks we know who moved entirely out of the area are happy/happier. The people we know who moved to MCPS or Arlington/Alexandria are not happier, and some are very unhappy. Those school systems have their own issues, and the suburbs here are kind of terrible compared to making a high lifestyle change (eg moving to Colorado or New England).

This is similar to the folks I have known who left Cap Hill. Moving to the close in suburbs is fine at best but it doesn't solve all your problems and sometimes creates new ones...

Anonymous wrote:The folks we know who moved entirely out of the area are happy/happier. The people we know who moved to MCPS or Arlington/Alexandria are not happier, and some are very unhappy. Those school systems have their own issues, and the suburbs here are kind of terrible compared to making a high lifestyle change (eg moving to Colorado or New England).

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an interesting threat for me, a long time Capitol Hill dweller, with a kid about to start high school at Walls. If we hadn't had lottery luck, we were definitely thinking through the options contained in this thread - move to the burbs, suck up a commute to a private, rent inbounds for JW . . . . Fortunately, it did not come to that. Capitol Hill is just an incredibly charming "village" to live in. I absolutely love being walking distance to so much - shops, restaurants, riverfront at Navy Yard, the Mall, my work. Many, many kid's activities within a mile. And the walk is always lovely - on brick sidewalks, past varied and attractive hundred plus year old rowhomes, old churches, the Supreme Court, and the Capitol Building, the Mall (on the way to work)) - you never feel like you are walking alongside a freeway, or next to a strip mall, as can happen so frequently in the burbs. We have friends who live in Bethesda, around 1.5 miles from the metro - but I can't imagine that being a pleasant walk. And most of the streets in their particular neighborhood don't even have sidewalks. I think what it comes down to is you either really, really enjoy this kind of dense, walkable and historical neighborhood (Capitol Hill), or it is just not that important to you (and you don't really like it). No doubt the uptick in crimei has me worried - but I think that a lot of places are struggling to right the ship, post-pandemic, and enough people are invested in the neighborhood that the pendulum will swing back soon enough.

If you hadn’t gotten lucky in the lottery (where did your Walls kid go for MS?), would you have moved, despite loving your neighborhood?

That’s the question.

People who got lucky in the lottery don’t get it.

This this this. All of our friends had great lottery luck. We have our own luck, but it's not without sacrifice (money and commute). They don't understand why we want to move.

+2, it's frustrating when we talk about moving and all our friends are like "but whyyyyyy? the suburbs suck" but refuse to acknowledge that we're in a much more difficult situation due to bad lottery numbers. That's it. A random algorithm assigned them better numbers than it assigned us, and now they can stay in on the Hill and enjoy the amenities without dealing with the one major glaring problem, and we have to move to address that one major glaring problem.

I'm past the point of explaining. Now when people tell me the suburbs suck, I just say "well I guess we suck too, because that's where we are headed."

I actually think they'll enjoy visiting our yard and community pool once we're there, even if it's only a few times a year.

These people don't sound like friends. Real friends would sympathize with bad lottery numbers.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NP, but in a similar boat as OP.

Folks are posting about moving from CH to other parts of the city or close in (Arlington). I don't really consider any of these the true burbs. What about folks who moved closer to the beltway? Where little is really walkable, takeout is slim pickings, etc.?

We moved from petworth to Oakton. We love it. We didn’t realize how much stress we lived with weighed on us - crime particularly- till we were out. We love being around more nature and letting the kids run around and having a bigger space for family visits. Our neighborhood has been really nice and we’ve met nice families but we made the effort to introduce ourselves when we moved in because you don’t have that row home proximity to help out. Have to be proactive in the burbs for sure. Our school has more diversity than our dc public did. We’ve had zero regrets.

um. if your public school was in Petworth, this is literally not possible. Oakton is 75% white.

People are just saying anything lol

Anonymous wrote:The folks we know who moved entirely out of the area are happy/happier. The people we know who moved to MCPS or Arlington/Alexandria are not happier, and some are very unhappy. Those school systems have their own issues, and the suburbs here are kind of terrible compared to making a high lifestyle change (eg moving to Colorado or New England).

Anonymous wrote:Is Eastern HS currently improving and attracting more Capitol Hill families? I know DCPS has been heavily investing money and programming efforts there. The marching band has national recognition.

Anonymous wrote:Is Eastern HS currently improving and attracting more Capitol Hill families? I know DCPS has been heavily investing money and programming efforts there. The marching band has national recognition.

Anonymous wrote:Is Eastern HS currently improving and attracting more Capitol Hill families? I know DCPS has been heavily investing money and programming efforts there. The marching band has national recognition.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an interesting threat for me, a long time Capitol Hill dweller, with a kid about to start high school at Walls. If we hadn't had lottery luck, we were definitely thinking through the options contained in this thread - move to the burbs, suck up a commute to a private, rent inbounds for JW . . . . Fortunately, it did not come to that. Capitol Hill is just an incredibly charming "village" to live in. I absolutely love being walking distance to so much - shops, restaurants, riverfront at Navy Yard, the Mall, my work. Many, many kid's activities within a mile. And the walk is always lovely - on brick sidewalks, past varied and attractive hundred plus year old rowhomes, old churches, the Supreme Court, and the Capitol Building, the Mall (on the way to work)) - you never feel like you are walking alongside a freeway, or next to a strip mall, as can happen so frequently in the burbs. We have friends who live in Bethesda, around 1.5 miles from the metro - but I can't imagine that being a pleasant walk. And most of the streets in their particular neighborhood don't even have sidewalks. I think what it comes down to is you either really, really enjoy this kind of dense, walkable and historical neighborhood (Capitol Hill), or it is just not that important to you (and you don't really like it). No doubt the uptick in crimei has me worried - but I think that a lot of places are struggling to right the ship, post-pandemic, and enough people are invested in the neighborhood that the pendulum will swing back soon enough.

If you hadn’t gotten lucky in the lottery (where did your Walls kid go for MS?), would you have moved, despite loving your neighborhood?

That’s the question.

People who got lucky in the lottery don’t get it.

This this this. All of our friends had great lottery luck. We have our own luck, but it's not without sacrifice (money and commute). They don't understand why we want to move.

+2, it's frustrating when we talk about moving and all our friends are like "but whyyyyyy? the suburbs suck" but refuse to acknowledge that we're in a much more difficult situation due to bad lottery numbers. That's it. A random algorithm assigned them better numbers than it assigned us, and now they can stay in on the Hill and enjoy the amenities without dealing with the one major glaring problem, and we have to move to address that one major glaring problem.

I'm past the point of explaining. Now when people tell me the suburbs suck, I just say "well I guess we suck too, because that's where we are headed."

I actually think they'll enjoy visiting our yard and community pool once we're there, even if it's only a few times a year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is an interesting threat for me, a long time Capitol Hill dweller, with a kid about to start high school at Walls. If we hadn't had lottery luck, we were definitely thinking through the options contained in this thread - move to the burbs, suck up a commute to a private, rent inbounds for JW . . . . Fortunately, it did not come to that. Capitol Hill is just an incredibly charming "village" to live in. I absolutely love being walking distance to so much - shops, restaurants, riverfront at Navy Yard, the Mall, my work. Many, many kid's activities within a mile. And the walk is always lovely - on brick sidewalks, past varied and attractive hundred plus year old rowhomes, old churches, the Supreme Court, and the Capitol Building, the Mall (on the way to work)) - you never feel like you are walking alongside a freeway, or next to a strip mall, as can happen so frequently in the burbs. We have friends who live in Bethesda, around 1.5 miles from the metro - but I can't imagine that being a pleasant walk. And most of the streets in their particular neighborhood don't even have sidewalks. I think what it comes down to is you either really, really enjoy this kind of dense, walkable and historical neighborhood (Capitol Hill), or it is just not that important to you (and you don't really like it). No doubt the uptick in crimei has me worried - but I think that a lot of places are struggling to right the ship, post-pandemic, and enough people are invested in the neighborhood that the pendulum will swing back soon enough.

If you hadn’t gotten lucky in the lottery (where did your Walls kid go for MS?), would you have moved, despite loving your neighborhood?

That’s the question.

People who got lucky in the lottery don’t get it.

This this this. All of our friends had great lottery luck. We have our own luck, but it's not without sacrifice (money and commute). They don't understand why we want to move.