So, it’s official, the lady and I are moving to D.C. for grad school,* but I know next to nothing about D.C., which I’m hoping some D.C. dopers can help me remedy.
If one goes to school/works in D.C. without a car where does he live? Sure, I assume many people actually live in D.C., but don’t they also live in Maryland and Virginia? Are such places accessible by subway, bus, bike? What areas should one look at/avoid?
Also, are there any green, LEED-certified apartment complexes in/around D.C.? Are they all too expensive for poor-student types?
*Probably American U., but I’m still waiting to hear from Johns-Hopkins (their international relations program is in D.C.) and Georgetown.
All the good areas are really expensive. Tysons Corner is nice and there are buses to take you to the Metro, but apartments are $2200 a month minimum.
Avoid Prince George’s County inside the beltway. Drab garden apartments built in the 1960s and allowed to run down. Shopping areas are just liquor stores and check-cashing parlors. Gangs, open-air drug markets.
And if you’re white, you will feel very out of place anywhere east of the Anacostia River.
Many students live in the Columbia Heights area of DC (20010). Housing is slightly cheaper, there is tons of stuff to do, it’s centrally located, and relatively safe. Lots of new housing is available too.
We lived in Arlington County, VA when we were there; in Rosslyn, specifically. Rosslyn is right across the bridge from Georgetown, has a metro and bus lines running through it. It was reasonable then, but that was in 1992. The further out on Arlington Blvd, the cheaper things seem to be, but it starts getting seedier.
While the OP is looking for a specific answer to a specific question, this one will probably fly better in IMHO, where you can get opinions as well as facts. MOved.
Your commute to AU or JHU will be shortest if you live along the Red line between, say, Bethesda and Dupont Circle. It will likely be cheaper to live in Silver Spring on the other end of the Red line or Virginia Square/Ballston on the Orange line in Va., but you will double your commute. Note that even AU is not right on a subway stop, so you will have to walk or bus it to some extent (the school probably has a shuttle).
Georgetown is not near a Metrorail stop at all, and the housing around it is astronomical. Ask the university or your particular program for housing advice.
There are bus route maps available on WMATA’s website.
I LOVE Arlington! Specifically North Arlington – It’s a great place for young student-types and is a nice and safe area. Some of it is pricey, but you can also find decently priced apartments. Look on this Metro map - anywhere between the East Falls Church and Rosslyn Metro stations on the Orange Line is great. Good luck.
You may want to avoid the Silver Spring/Weaton area, at least a bit. It’s not the best place sometimes, and the places that are nice are more expensive. I think though they are supposed to be building new areas right in the downtown Silver Spring area, but that’s not for a few more years yet. I really wouldn’t know where to live near the city though as I’ve always lived more in the suburbs, and there’s not a whole lot of good public transportation out here.
When I was looking last year for a place (May-July time frame), I did see some LEED-certified apartments/condos, but they were out of my price range, and while I’m not riding high on the hog, I’m not at your typical grad-student level of income either. The fact that I had covered parking very high on my priority list didn’t help at all though.
I’d echo previous sentiments about Arlington: depending on where you’re at you may need to take a quick hop on a bus to get to the metro, but that’s where I wound up finding most of the better compromises between location and price. Where I’m at currently I have a 8 to ?? minute bus ride to a metro station (?? because depending on traffic, you may be stuck for a bit admiring the bumpers of the cars around you), but I have a grocery store within easy walking distance, and with a bike there’s quite a bit within a reasonable biking radius.
Thank you everyone! This has been very informative. Please keep the suggestions coming.
I want to make a note. I don’t care if my commute is, say, an hour. Living in both Taipei and Paris, I had an two-hour round trip commute, and it really doesn’t bother me. I get a lot of reading done. One thing I’m looking forward to leaving behind from the last couple of months in Charleston is a good public transportation system.
nyctea scandiaca, thanks for the map! That’s great!
We live very close to there. I couldn’t tell you about the cost, but the location is good. It’s right on the red line, so you could metro to either AU or JHU. (It would be a pain to get to Georgetown from Silver Spring.) It’s within an easy walk of a couple of grocery stores, lots of restaurants, a Borders, a lovely farmers’ market, a movie theater, etc.
However, we live in Silver Spring largely because of the kids. We lived in Adams Morgan until the first kiddo was 7 months old, and I’d prefer to live there or in Dupont Circle or somewhere like that if things like storage space and access to good parks and schools weren’t issues.
I gotta ask how you arrived at your conclusions? I admit it is a little shocking to see my neighborhood surrounded by a big red circle with the word “avoid” next to it.
If the OP wants to live in the city, there are is a lot of development going on in the Petworth neighborhood including new condos and a bunch of new shopping and cafes around the metro. There are also a couple of flex car spots in the neighborhood if you want access to a car part time. Petworth is actually a pretty quiet neighborhood in the city, it has some crime, like any neighborhood, but not as much as areas like Dupont and Adams Morgan which have a lot of bar related nuisance crime.
I don’t see Kabul, Afghanistan on the map… What neighborhood is yours?
Like I said, just my own personal observations from having lived in the DC Metro area my whole life. I’ve lived in both Maryland and Virginia, but not the city – although I’ve been all over the city numerous times. My opinion is based mainly on my institutional knowledge of the areas because I follow the news and current events in the area very closely, and always have. I know where the higher crime areas are. Also, my opinion is based on my observations – what a neighborhood is like, how nice is it, how safe do I feel, do I feel safe walking or being on the Metro alone at night? I used to commute daily along the Anacostia Freeway/I-295, and believe me, it’s not a nice area. It was NOT a place that a young woman alone would want to have a breakdown. I have taken the Green Line from Greenbelt into the city many times and I never felt safe. I have frequented the areas around Capitol Hill, Union Station, RFK Stadium, U Street and around the 9:30 Club, and never felt very safe. Some of these areas may be improving, but they’re not there yet.
On the other hand, while living and working for many years in Arlington, Alexandria and Falls Church, I always felt safe walking at night alone or riding the Metro alone. Of course, YMMV.
“Most studies don’t show a link between perception and crime rate,” said Dawn Wilson King, a psychology professor at the University of South Carolina."
and
“However, in 2007 Dupont logged as much violent crime as Petworth and four times as much property crime, per capita. In fact, crime rates in tony Dupont beat those in much of the District, including some neighborhoods east of the Anacostia River.”
I remember that article. I also read an excellent article in The Washington Post sometime within the past 3 years and it had a full-page map graphic pinpointing murders all around DC. It looked something like this - of course, that is just a rough approximation of my memory of it, but it’s very similar. (I will try to look for the original.) I have also noticed that Dupont has been more violent lately. I doubt that Dupont is beating Southeast in *violent *crime rates, though. Maybe in property crime, because there’s more valuable property to steal in Dupont.
A question for you: if you are/were a woman, would you feel safe walking alone at night from the Petworth Metro station in your neighborhood? Would you feel safe leaving your laptop or iPod in plain sight in your car parked on the street in your neighborhood?
I have read The Washington Post Metro section cover-to-cover every day for the past 10 years at least, and I tend to make an ongoing mental map of where serious crime occurs. Of course it’s just my opinion, but I’d like to think it’s a partially informed opinion.
What neighborhood is yours?
