I lived in Adam’s Morgan for a year - I left home to go live with my big sister. It was exciting to be within walking distance of everything: Grocery, video store, martini bar, dance clubs - you name it. Chief Ike’s Mambo Room was my favorite watering hole. I worked downtown so I would walk to work, straight down Connecticut Ave. I felt like Mary Tyler Moore - with bars on my apt windows.
One morning in broad daylight at 7 am I was held up at gunpoint right outside my apt building. I never would have thought Adams Morgan was “scary”, a bit dirty but it seemed ok. But after that, I looked at things very differently. We moved out to Vienna (Northern VA) and staying juuust outside the limits was a whole lot better for me, I stayed 3 more years. Metro commuting took me under an hour each way to work (this included walking time from station to work), and its certainly true that it is a challenge to be on time for ANYTHING before 11 am and after 4pm using the Metro system. Once you accept that and plan accordingly though, it’s not that bad. You can catch up on lots of reading!
I was a single gal, so I can’t say I paid attention to the quality of schools in Vienna. There was some hoidy toidy private elementary school a block from my apt. Kids getting dropped off in limos in the morning. The public high school was right by the Metro - and it seemed like a very nice establishment. Kids were your normal Pepsi-commercial kids, they had a spring production every year, plays, whatnot. Lots of town houses and apt complexes in that neighborhood. We rented a two-bedroom apt (wood burning fireplace and balcony) for $1200 a month (This was 5 years ago) Three and four bedroom townhouses next door were going for $1500/month. Tysons Corner was right up Rte 123 from me - that’s a big shopping mall area.
Im just tossing out info here, I hope some of it is a help to you. It is a beautiful area, I’m a history and architecture buff, so I was in my element.
If you do decide to live in DC ( or at least drive there), for the love of Pete, learn to drive in a traffic circle! Yes, the drivers are mean and rude - I was proudly one of them. But we’re not as bad as Maryland Drivers!
Okay, what neighborhoods/areas to completely avoid? As in, “There’s no way I’d drive through that area because of the crime/poverty/fear for my life and safety.” Right now I live in the city, and although I’m betting that there are plenty of people here who would say, “I’d never live in the Allison Hill section of Harrisburg, why I’m afraid to drive through that section of town”, I call it home. That being said, you couldn’t pay me enough to live Uptown Harrisburg, but there are plenty of people who live there.
Private school is out for financial reasons, however, in our current situation, Hallboy is looking at public high school in Harrisburg, which overall sucks donkeys you-know-what. Yet again, there are approximately 300+ graduates from there each year, and both Hallgirls graduated from there 3-5 years ago.
I guess I’m trying to compare apples to oranges if that’s as close as I can get to a comparison.
Basically, east of the Anacostia River inside the Beltway, in Southeast DC and inner Prince George’s County it’s mostly gang-infested ghetto areas. Deanwood, Seat Pleasant, Congress Heights, Suitland. Montgomery County was really nice when I was a kid, but it’s been going downhill lately. Parts of Silver Spring are pretty sketchy and there’s recently been several gang murders in Rockville and Gaithersburg.
You probably won’t have problems in the Bailey’s Crossroads area of Fairfax County, but that area is almost exclusively populated by recent immigrants and you may well feel out of place there. Most of the “affordable” housing in the inner suburbs is old, poorly maintained garden apartment complexes which are nearly 100% immigrant.
Be prepared for sticker shock on the price of housing. Check out classifieds on Craigslist or washingtonpost.com for ideas on rental prices. As a very specific example: my mother’s house in a Harrisburg suburb (near Linglestown) - 3000 square feet, 1+ acre of land, sold for 240,000 about 3 years ago. My townhouse in Fairfax County - 1900 square feet, postage stamp lot - sold for 291,000 2 years earlier and similar ones are going for close to 400K now. Housing prices *have stabilized somewhat but I don’t know what the rental market is like.
DC public schools are not worth it. Maybe there are some in the upper Northwest (high-rent area) that would be OK. But you’d really want to live in the 'burbs for decent schooling. I think that Arlington County schools are OK, certainly Montgomery County (northwest, Maryland) and Fairfax County VA are both good. Avoid Prince George’s County in Maryland; their schools are better than the District, but not by a whole lot.
Traffic sucks and that’s on a good day But many areas do have decent mass transit. So you might have a long commute but that’s not so bad if you’re riding a bus or Metro and not having to drive yourself.
From a safety standpoint: Neidhart’s mention of Bailey’s Crossroads is a good one - there are lots of offices around there and housing is mostly garden apartments but it’s not really a “neighborhood”. Basically people go there to shop and work and then go home.
The area around downtown Springfield is also largely populated by recent immigrants and there are some gang-related issues in the area; friends of ours live there and have had some issues. We do go there frequently to shop and so forth and are perfectly comfortable. Springfield Mall had some carjackings a few years back but as far as I know has not had any since then. Further away, there was an attempted gang initiation at my son’s school (near Kingstowne, for NoVa dopers) earlier this year and we’re about as generic average suburban as it gets.
The area around Edsall Road (first exit off of 395 coming north from the Beltway) going east as far as it dumps into Pickett Street then Duke Street seems “industrial”. There are apartments but no place I’d want to live, though there are a few newer townhouses. IIRC there was a gang-related murder along there a few years ago.
Yeah, I should have mentioned Springfield Mall: 25 years ago it was just as upscale/ritzy as Tysons Corner. Now, since Landover Mall was torn down, Springfield seems to be taking its place as the region’s “ghetto mall”.
We must have arrived when it was sliding downhill (19 years ago) because it sure was nowhere near as nice as Tyson’s!! It’s not quite “ghetto” but it does attract a lot of the “teenagers-with-no-place-else-to-hang-out” crowd and the anchor stores are Penney’s, Target and a second-tier Macy’s. We do shop there because it’s convenient to where we live and for kids’ clothes, it’s acceptable. Also - despite its proximity to the Mixing Bowl interchange, traffic is much better getting there than Tyson’s. I actually prefer Fair Oaks to Tyson’s (those are the three big “regional” malls in NoVA).
If you wanted to live in the city, I would avoid the east side, particularly the southeast (I’m not sure about the northeast, but I’ve heard it’s kind of sketch as well).
I live in the DC part of Chevy Chase (the only way I can afford it is because I split a house with 3 other ppl). We each pay $1000/month, which ends up being a rent of $48,000 a year for the house. However, Chevy Chase is the nicest, safest place I have ever lived in. So yeah, northwest, particularly Maryland border area, is very safe and nice. Further south, like DuPont and Adams Morgan, are also fairly okay if you’re street smart, but with a kid I would be a little worried. The NOVA area is also pretty safe.
I would look on Craigslist to get an idea of housing prices. Are you looking to rent or to buy? I would also add that the DC housing market is very tight and anything reasonable gets snatched up FAST, so I would recommend jumping on something you liked immediately.
There are perfectly lovely parts of Brookland and Takoma Park in Northeast. I live in a nice, quiet, pretty much crime free neighborhood up there. It’s a hell of a lot more affordable, too. I remember when I first got to DC I was told that Northeast was nothing but a murderous gangland. Although it scared me off NE for a long time, I’m glad I ignored the advice when I bought my house four years ago.
Washington is actually a small city in terms of geographic area. It’s very easy to end up in a “bad” neighbourhood by missing an exit off of I-395 or something. Given that, though, I don’t think you are risking your life just by driving through any particular neighbourhood.
The most affordable and safe neighbourhoods in Northern Virginia are basically immigrant neighbourhoods. And they have some of the best cheap restaurants and motorised vendors.
But, I agree. Many of the apartments are not well maintained and many have very bad insect problems.
But Arlington and the adjacent portions of Fairfax County are undergoing gentrification. The drug slum near Shirlington was eliminated when Arna Valley was torn down and replaced by luxury townhouses. Things are getting more expensive. And it seems every new development is “luxury.” No one builds mid- and low-range housing.
There are some very nice government-subsidized housing units in Arlington County, but the income threshold for them is so low and the rent reduction so small that I don’t see how families making such little money can afford the rent at those places!
Fair Oaks is way the hell out of the way for anyone who lives within reasonable commuting distance of the city … in my opinion anyway. The malls I go to are Ballston, Pentagon City (isn’t that one of the “major” malls?), and Tyson’s Corner.
Quite right. There’s been a shortage of mid- and low-range housing in Arlington for over a decade and it’s getting worse.
The most expensive neighborhoods are the ones closest to the subway stations. Get away from those things start getting more reasonable. I lived in an Arlington neighborhood called Westover for a few years; nice neighborhood, affordable for a low-level Government drone, and little crime. Then came the lowrider culture that once lived in Arna Valley.
Arlington does have a bit of gang activity, a few years back there was a shooting at the rec center down the hill from us. The worst part of the county is marked by Fort Barnard Park and extends for about a five block radius. The neighborhood is called Fort Barnard Heights; one of the ugliest houses I’ve ever seen was on South Kenmore between 19th & 21st. I believe was finally torn down to make room for a group of Habitats for Humanity homes.
I’ve always been interested in Brookland. The houses look like they run fairly large for the city and they seem to be fairly well preserved. How are the restaurants there? Safety wise how does it compare to the rest of the city? I’ve driven up to look at the Franciscan Monastery.
The houses are probably the best deal going in the city, IMHO. The restaurants in the neighborhood are nothing special, but it is super easy to get to U St, Columbia Heights, and elsewhere on the Green Line, and the drive is really short, too. Hyattsville, MD – about 10 mins drive away - has good shopping, with a great Giant, a Target, Circuit City, Macys, and other stuff.
Crime is like a lot of DC: some terrible blocks and others just fine. I live right between the Brookland and Ft Totten metro stops and my block is quiet. I’ve never heard of anything happening on my street, FWIW. But head down to Rhode Island nearer the Home Depot and it’s pretty sketchy. Incidentally, I heard there was an armed robbery of a wedding at the monastery last year, so I’m not claiming my area is as safe as McLean or anything.
But if you’re looking to buy, you get way, waaaay more bang for the buck in Brookland than any other part of DC.
We bought a few years ago just north of H street, NE which has gotten some new restaurants and bars as well as a theatre and playhouse. The shopping is still on its way. We are supposed to get a streetcar line running down H which will connect to Union Station.
The area near the Home Depot is sketchy? Its not surprising although that street has the potential to be a nice shopping corridor.
I’m often surprised that Brookland isn’t a lot more expensive than it is. It developed as one of the first streetcar suburbs, has decently sized houses on decently sized plots of land, has a Metro Station, and a large university in the area.
> Currently, an average two bedroom apartment in a good neighborhood will run
> in the territory of $2,500.
That’s wildly exaggerated. I live in a two-bedroom apartment that rents for a little over $1000, counting the utilities. The nearest high school is Eleanor Roosevelt, which is pretty good. The schools in the Washington area are so much better than those in small towns in other parts of the country that people here have no perspective on how much better they are. People here will say, “Oh, I don’t want to live in that neighborhood, since the schools are pretty bad,” when in fact the schools in that neighborhood are better than most in the U.S.
But many areas do have decent mass transit. So you might have a long commute but that’s not so bad if you’re riding a bus or Metro and not having to drive yourself.