Indeed. Some good friends of mine moved from suburban Chicago to the DC area about a decade ago, when the wife of the couple got a new job in Bethesda. They built a house in Gaithersburg, and all was well…until she lost that job, and wound up getting a different job, in Tysons Corner (i.e., on the Virginia side of the Potomac). That commute was a bad one, and that was on the good days. About once every week or two, there’d be an accident on the route, or there’d be bad weather, and the 20-odd mile commute could easily become a 2 to 3 hour drive. It got so bad that they sold that house, and bought a different one in Ashburn.
My understanding is that a big part of the problem is that there are relatively few bridges across the Potomac – all of that lovely land along the river is either parkland or owned by someone with political power, and building another bypass / another bridge is politically infeasible.
Based on my friends’ experience, I’d strongly advise living on the same side of the Potomac as your job, unless public transit (i.e., the Metro) is a strong option, based on where the job is.
They’re building a “transit center” which I think translates to “fancy bus station.” They dug a huge hole, then nothing happened for awhile, then we got 5 feet of snow last winter which put them months behind schedule. I think something is actually being constructed now but it’s hard to tell. What it really means is that they have to move all the Ride-on bus stops out onto the street and so Colesville Rd. and Wayne Ave. are even more of a mess than they usually are. This one commuter bus comes by around 5pm every day and completely blocks one lane just sitting there for a good 20 minutes, causing unbelievable gridlock. I live 2 blocks away and I want to shoot whoever came up with this “transit center” idea.
Wow, I lived in Silver Spring for a couple years about 10–12 years ago. Big building right next to the library and a bit down from the mall-like thing.
Nice enough town. I had a bike that I rode to work so I can’t say much about traffic. It was up-and-coming then, the AFC cinema was on its way, but not there yet. Great little African market around the corner, nice shops about.
It’s been too long and I was in such a different place that I don’t have much to add to the OP. It’s just that I was surprised to see others familiar with SS, and I wanted to say that ISTR construction on the metro station then, too.
I actually grew up in the White Oak part of Silver Spring and live in College Park now.
Downtown Silver Spring is WAY different than it used to be. There is an enclave of good restaurants and shops clustered in the area very close to the Metro. You could commute to the FDA from Silver Spring Metro, but there would be a bus ride up Colesville Road that can easily take 25 minutes or so. (I think I’m correct in thinking that the FDA building is at the old Naval Surface Warfare Center.) As previously mentioned, Silver Spring is a vast and sprawling area, and White Oak is sort of the area name.
You can look at Takoma Park, which would definitely have the small-town feel–we are hoping to move there next year. I don’t know anything about your personal beliefs/politics, but it’s definitely a great place if you’re uber-liberal (it’s sometimes referred to as the People’s Republic of Takoma Park). The historic district is especially gorgeous, but I have no idea about your price range for housing. Keep in mind that even if you live in Takoma, that’s easily a 30-minute commute to the FDA (can be more in traffic).
While White Oak has some “cookie cutter” subdivisions, others are older and don’t have as much of a uniform feel. You’re not going to be able to walk to shops there, but there are some great walking and biking trails in the area This roughly shows the area where I grew up, and I would bike along the trails running through Paint Branch nearly every day after school.
This is what I meant. I haven’t needed to go downtown SS for a while, but the transit center plan has really messed up Ride On bus service for a while.
Also, the generic term “Silver Spring” is usually pretty vague. Somebody upthread mentioned it usually refers to downtown specifically, and most other folks refer to their own little neighborhood.
I live in Bethesda, and can’t really believe that people call their areas “downtown”, “West/East Bethesda”, and what not. Sheesh, people.
> Not all the schools in Montgomery County are good. Kennedy, Wheaton,
> Springbrook, Paint Branch, Northwood, and Gaithersburg HS are high schools
> that are subpar compared to the rest of the system.
Again, this is an example of D.C. area people having such an inflated idea of what a good school is that they don’t realize how much better the schools here are than nearly any other metropolitan area. All of those schools would be considered very good high schools almost anywhere else in the U.S. Earlier this year there was an article in The Washington Post comparing the high schools in the D.C. area to all the high schools in the U.S. using the percentage of students who take A.P. exams (which isn’t the only way to compare schools, but it’s a reasonable one). They found a level at which only 6% of the high schools in the U.S. were above. 77% of the schools in the D.C. area (including all of D.C. and both the Maryland and the D.C. suburba) were above that level. I’m so tired of hearing Montgomery Country parents complaining about how they would never let their precious little darlings attend a school that’s merely better than 99% of the schools in the U.S. They would insist that they go to a school that’s better than 99.9% of the schools in the U.S. Part of the reason that the schools are so good is that the D.C. area is the most highly educated metropolitan area in the U.S.
Incidentally, as was explained to me decades ago, long before I moved to this area, Silver Spring is neither an incorporated city nor a school district. It’s just a postal address for a large part of Montgomery County residents. Understandably then when someone says that they live in Silver Spring the next question is “Which part of it?”.
Those schools I listed have SAT scores that are below the national average. Yeah, this is a flawed way to look at a school (just like # of AP/IB exams taken) but my point was that if the OP is already going to be paying out the wazoo to move and live here, she might as well get into the district for the better schools in the system and get more bang for her housing buck.
I’m a lifelong Montgomery County resident, so I’m aware that my perspective is probably warped. My parents were some of those insane people who moved us “precious little darlings” elsewhere in the county when I was 8 because we were originally districted to Paint Branch HS and they thought it wasn’t good enough.
I’ve lived in the Maryland suburbs of DC for almost ten years and was house hunting in Silver Spring and nearby areas very recently, so am up on a lot of aspects of the current market. I decided to go a little further out to Damascus to live, where it is cheaper and less conjested at the expense of a longer commute.
Keep in mind that Montgomery County, Howard County and Prince George’s County all come together in that general area and have a lot of different characteristics. PG County for example, has lower housing costs but property tax is almost double what it is in Montgomery County.
Also, before you pick a place to live, check to see how close you would be to the new Inter-County Connector…it is going to be a game changer for travel in this region once it opens in the near future.
While I’m not a life long resident, I’ve been here for 10 and the rest in Frederick, I can say that some of the schools I’ve seen a massive change. I lived in Germantown for a few years and the couple of schools there have gotten more dangerous as well. They have full time cops in the schools, set up fences around the schools, and I’ve seen more reports on violence and such. While I’m sure it’s still safe for the majority of kids, I’d want to avoid those places if I could as well.
I really don’t know enough about the lower part of the county to say much about it though. And it doesn’t look like public transportation will work all that well from the upper side of the county.
Holy fuck you people make it sound like it’s mid-90’s South Central LA up in here.
MoCo is one of the safest, most affluent and highly-educated places to live ANYWHERE. While housing CAN be exorbitantly expensive, there are tons of affordable places to live in just about any community, even Potomac or Bethesda. I went to Blair which was at the time considered the “ghetto school” in the county with multiple “incidents” that made it seem “unsafe” to uptight up-county white people but in 4 years NOTHING happened to me or anyone. I spent many many late evenings there and it was perfectly safe 100% of the time. Not to mention that it was (and remains) one of the best high schools in the country (granted this is due to having 2 magnet programs there but it does force the rich white people to send their kids to a school where they’ll meet and interact with the most diverse student body in the county). I have lived everywhere in this county and all over Maryland and I have always felt safe and part of a community. I have been to plenty of different places all over this country and frankly there is no comparison to be made; those places were all SHIT. The diversity and sheer volume of culture here is astounding; every day I meet someone from somewhere different in the world; this is the greatest place to live in world IMO and I fully expect to never ever leave.
The only gripe I’ve ever had around here is the traffic, but that can be managed as long you don’t do something insanely stupid like move to Frederick to commute to Bethesda (like one of my co-workers has done recently; he’s miserable) it’s very easy to be perfectly happy here. Just live where you work and life here will be an absolute joy.
Good, thanks for asking. Waiting to over-indulge in Turkey.
I find it hard to consider the “New” Blair as Blair. Call me old-fashioned.
As far as the OP - Silver Spring is an awesome area. It’s beautiful, multi-cultural, close to DC, and there’s tons of shopping and things to do. You can’t go wrong living there.
I’ve been away for almost 30 years, but my folks still live in the same house where I grew up. i always enjoy going back to visit them (unlike say, visiting my sister in NJ, the most god-forsaken place to live…)
Is it really as expensive as I’ve heard? We can probably sell our current home for 350K (that’s exciting because it’s almost double what we paid for it 10 years ago) Can I buy anything reasonable in that area for that, or slightly more?
Weather:
I’ve never lived anywhere that snows. I moved to Tucson from Austin. How bad are winters there? Is there a lot of snow? What about blizzards? And summers, are they really hot, humid and miserable?
Winters are generally pretty mild, but they got really socked last year (and had a good storm a few year before that). My folks sent me photos of the snow.
It can be really obnoxiously hot and humid in the summer - not hot like Tucson, but 90° and 95% RH. Still, everything is air conditioned, so it’s not bad.
$350K should be plenty. The market is way down so this is the perfect time to come and buy. If you are so inclined and want more house for your money there are tons of unique fixer-upper opportunities that can be bought for cash cheap and you can spend the savings on repairs and upgrades.
Check out the listings on Realtor.com or similar sites. You may be pleasantly surprised at the variety of houses you find.
Depends on how many bedrooms you’re looking for with 350K…since you have 3 kids now, I’m assuming you’re looking at 4 bedrooms or more and that seems like it could be a little bit of a challenge.
We typically get socked with a good-sized snow every 6 or 7 years (Washington Post graph from February. The worst part of winter here is the sleet/freezing rain; especially treacherous when it is warm enough to do regular rain during the day and ice over just as the sun goes down and people start driving home.
Summer is quite humid. I think the biggest shock to folks from the Southwest is actually the sudden summer rainstorms we get.
Maryland has slightly higher taxes than Virginia and DC. However DC has generally crappier schools than Montgomery County in MD and Arlington and Fairfax Counties in Northern Virginia. The best schools are in Montgomery County and Fairfax County in Virginia. However, Northern Virginia will be a nightmare commute to Silver Spring.
It really depends on your budget. Bethesda, and Chevy Chase are fairly walkable, but are fairly expensive. Silver Spring is generally less expensive, but some areas are sketchier, and as mentioned above, Silver Spring is a giant area and can mean anything. Takoma Park is fairly attractive and is more affordable.
Hyattsville and Greenbelt are in Prince George’s County. The housing costs are definitely cheaper than Montgomery County. The schools don’t have as good a reputation but there are some good schools there.
However, the reality is that costs are going to be the driving factor in where you can live. The smaller cooler areas close in to the city that are walkable, safe and have great schools are going to be expensive.