Damn, that makes perfect sense. I am stupid.
I was picturing a school filled with budding Vanderbilts, Carnegies, and Gettys…
I have a friend who has done that for three years now. If you live in the city, you can get by without owning a car.
However, the schools in the District are not that good. The schools in the suburbs are, especially Fairfax County, VA and Montgomery County, MD but you really need a car to get around in those counties.
Arlington County, VA is a possibility in that you can probably find a 2BR apartment near the Metro and it has good schools. The drawback is that you may need a car to get to work if your work is in Tyson’s Corner or one of the suburbs.
You could do it in the Squirrel Hill or Shadyside neighborhoods of Pittsburgh if you got a job in Oakland (where Pitt, CMU, and a couple of the UPMC hospitals are) or in downtown Pittsburgh. The universities and the hospitals are some of the largest employers in this area.
Mr. Neville and I are essentially living a car-free lifestyle now, although we have a car. We both commute by bus (we can walk to and from work when the weather’s decent, which it isn’t right now). I take out the car maybe once a week to once every two weeks, to go to Costco or stock up on heavy stuff at the grocery store. There are restaurants, shops, and a grocery store and pharmacy that are a fairly easy walk from where we live. They have Zipcars here, so we could pretty easily do without our own car if we wanted to.
That’s a big pro here. We’re paying a little less than that for a mortgage on a 4br/2.5ba 2300sf house in a nice neighborhood. We don’t have a big yard, but that’s a pro to us, since we’re lazy and hate doing yard work. The schools here are supposed to be decent (we don’t have kids yet, so we don’t really know). The employment situation here is better than the national average now, especially if you have high-tech skills or skills that could be useful working at a hospital.
You’ll miss the Arizona weather, though.
the flex car, zip car, car share, what ever others there are, are all great programs. you sign up and can use the type of car you need. most have a list of what car, van, pick up, what have you, that you can reserve. you reserve the car, drive it about, and return it to its spot when you are done. it is easier than renting.
they have dedicated parking spaces, which is fantastic in the bigger cities where parking is a premium.
You should visit Atlanta, sometime. Or Charlotte. Or Raleigh. Or Richmond. Or Virginia Beach. This may be true in the northern states, but the large cities in the south are a real pain to get around in without a car.
That’s the truth!! When I moved back to the east coast after Denver, I realized my carless lifestyle had to end - either that, or permanently work from home and depend “ahn the kihnd-ness of strahngahs”
Well … it depends. I generally only use my car once a week, to go to the grocery store (and sometimes also to the recycling center). If I really needed to, I could even take the bus to the grocery store or just get all my groceries at Central Market. Maybe once a month I’ll need the car for something else, but it also helps that I have friends willing to drive to the Drafthouse.
Then again, I live in the middle of town. There are about half a dozen bus lines near my house I could take to get around. When I lived in Riverside, on the other hand, it was undoable. And I think you would have to be even more selective to find a place in Austin where you could raise a kid without a car. But it is doable - definitely more so than New Orleans, which was suggested upthread.
If you’re looking more for a “small town” atmosphere, Celebration, Florida is very walk-friendly. Grocery, shops, restaurants, and theater are all within a reasonable walking distance. Electric cars (glorified golf carts) are also an option. Schools are good, kid friendly neighborhoods with loads of parks nearby, and I’m guessing you could have small house or condo for $2k a month.
There are a lot of communities that would be suitable, especially if the commute is into downtown or Oakland, and not necessarily right in the heart of the city. Regent Square, North Shore, South Side, Carrick, Mt. Washington in the city would all work, as would the inner ring suburb of Brentwood, especially.
Right now, a 4 bedroom, 1.5 bath house with a nice sized yard (room for a pool, but they’re not really useful here, IMO) in Brentwood (where you’re paying a bit of a premium to be right on the border of the city, but outside its tax boundary) is going to come in at around $150,000 maximum which would be a mortgage around $1,300 - $1,500, presuming a bit of a down payment and good credit. (Without which you can’t get a mortgage now anyway.) Very doable.
If someone’s willing to walk 3-4 blocks to and from public transportation, then even some of the further flung suburbs could work, like Aspinwall, Bellevue, or some portions of Shaler, Dormont or Mt. Lebanon. Even moreso if you’re willing to walk 3-4 blocks which would include hills. (Often both up and down during both the inbound and outbound portions of your commute.)
There are suburbs which are decidedly car-centric and designed around unwalkable subdivisions and strip malls that don’t even have a sidewalk around their perimeters. There are urban neighborhoods which I would not describe as “good” or places I’d say enthusiastically “yes, live here!” and that includes my own neighborhood. (Though I won’t move, my tolerance is unquestionably higher, buoyed by hopes for improvement, than an outsider’s would be.) But a lot of this area could work well for someone who is willing to deal with the realities of weather and has the physical stamina to deal with bussing, walking, biking, etc.
Schools in the city are improving. In five years they will hopefully be much more competitive than they are now, and there are plans and policies in place for that. Schools in the suburbs are all pretty good. There is some sense of hub and spoke to our public transportation (you can get to downtown from anywhere, usually with just one bus, you can get to Oakland from many places on just one bus, otherwise, you’ll have to transfer in downtown or Oakland to get where you want to go) but since the hubs are where the jobs are, generally, it’s not such a bad thing.