Apparently I'm looking at a job offer that would require moving to DC, or at least within commuting distance. Any advice about specific areas (pro- or con-) or relocation, stuff to watch out for, thoughts about life in or around the District, etc. would be much appreciated while I work this out.

I've lived there twice, once for four months and once for seven months, in Arlington and Falls Church.

I liked it a lot. I came close to relocating there when I came back from overseas but ultimately missed Chicago too much.

Washington DC itself is pretty small, five minutes out of it and you immediately hit their "suburbs." I always considered Arlington, Annandale, Falls Church and all the other little towns around it pretty much a part of the whole. They're like Chicago neighborhoods.

Public transportation is great there. Always a good band to go see on weekends. Plenty to do and eat. 30 minutes in every direction but north and you're in the sticks. Baltimore is only about an hour drive if I remember correctly.

As far as the areas go, I really liked Falls Church. Not as busy as Arlington, but just as close to everything else.

Rush hour traffic was horrible, maybe worse than Chicago. You're going to see military wherever you go. You get paid really well out there, but the cost of living is real high. I'd expect 10-20 grand more in DC for the same job in Chicago.

I can only comment as someone who has spent a lot of time there for work, my wife's work and family but never actually lived there.

DC seems like a pretty awesome place to live if you are someone who works for one of the core industries, i.e. government or a related institution. If not, then maybe not so much. If I moved there, I would want to be sure of the following: my job was fulfilling enough to offset the company town mindset and I'd make enough money to live in the District without scrimping.

Those two prerequisites satisfied, DC has free culture, bands to see, great food, killer public transit, is very walkable, has easy access to international travel and looks cool at night. It's not the greatest city in the U.S. but I'd move there.

Edited to add: I recall that there are a number of threads slagging DC on this board if you search. You may want to search for them.

I live in a suburb about an hour north of the city in Maryland. I grew up about 45 minutes East in Annapolis so I've spent my fair share of time in and around the city.

Public transport - especially directly around the city and North of the city is EXCELLENT. If I want to - I can hop on the commuter train just outside my front door (litterally - we live next to it) and be in DC in about 1.5 hours (instead of the hellish commute in traffic.)

I like living outside the city (actually I love living where I do right now) because i'm very close to some county - some mountains - some water - some actual outdoors, but within range of two great cities (Baltimore isn't to be left out of any conversations regarding DC).

Lots of great music to be had at any number of venues too.

Lots of great food.

Good galleries.

I would not want to live in DC (or directly around it either (except MAYBE Northern Virginia - where I've spent very little time)). It's hella expensive inside the city and the amount of douche nozzle's whom call it home is astounding.

Lived there from Sep 2001 to Sep 2004.

The public transport is of high quality, but the areas of coverage are not the greatest, and there's a major drawback which is that it stops running at night. That's crazy. Maybe they changed it since I left.

Living in the district has two distinct qualities to it... first, you're closer to the cool stuff which is mostly all right around 14th and U st NW, and Dupont Circle and Adams Morgan which are just west and just northwest of there, respectively. As a part of this being close to cool stuff, you get the 202 area code for your cell phone, which is super dope and makes you immediately be all cool and stuff. BUT. The downside is HUGE. State income tax in DC (which is not actually a state, go figure) is *NINE PERCENT*. And it's a stupid-expensive town. So when I moved there from Chicago, not only did all my expenses go up, but 6% of my gross pay also disappeared to pay for DC to not be a state. TOO expensive.

Something funny about DC is that there's this weird feud between Maryland and Virginia people. It's not real, I don't think, and nobody *really* cares about it, but people love to talk shit on each other for living in the one state or the other.

After 2 years in the District (Columbia Heights, which I liked just fine as a neighborhood until being robbed on my block at what may or may not have actually been gunpoint), I moved to Arlington and liked it a million times better in every respect except that I was farther away from the 14th and U area and thus had to make more of an effort to get there than I did when it was a 10 minute walk.

It's really quite pretty, the whole area, with lots of trees and hills and rivers and Chesapeake Bay etc if you get out far enough. Even inside the district, there's lots of trees, much more nature-feeling than Chicago is. Can't speak for Pittsburgh.

There are places to go in Arlington as well, on Wilson Blvd and Arlington Blvd. The area between the Clarendon and Courthouse metro stops is where a lot of Arlington's bars are concentrated.

I lived just west of there, in Ballston. Had a great little Cape Cod style house with a basement for rocking out and a big backyard with a small jungle in it, for $1400 a month, which really wan't bad at all. I had one roommate there, we each had our own floor of the house, and we spent a lot of time in the basement playing Vice City and drinking berrs and playing rock music. That beat the hell out of my one-bedroom apartment in a get-robbed neighborhood in the district for $900 a month.

Something about DC is that it is a supremely American town, maybe one of the most "American" towns there is, in the sense that there are people from all over the world that live there. Many of them are in politics or whatever and are fancy-pants folks, but there are also refugees from El Salvador and Ethiopia and other places, too.

Mostly I found DC to be very stratified; the poor people are poor, the rich people are insanely rich, and there are a good handful of folks inbetween, but not so much like you probably have up your way. It wasn't a big manufacturing town like lots of the midwest cities are, so it doesn't have the same kinda entrenched blue collar crowd. I knew a guy who moved out of DC because he was so sick and tired of people asking "so what do you do?" (which is the default question in DC) and when he told them "I work at Enterprise Rent-a-car" they had no interest in any further conversation. I never felt that, because I've yet to meet a person who wasn't interested or at least confused when I describe my job which is a job that nobody even knows exists for the most part. So, if your job there is gonna be a cool one, you'll do well in those conversations. Ugh.

It gets hot as fuck in the summer, and humid too. The winter will seem like a fucking joke to you. Everybody goes cuckoo if it snows 1". The winter there is a cakewalk compared to Pittsburgh, I'm sure. Lotsa people out there told me "I love Chicago but I would never move there because it's just too cold".

What else...

Expect your car window to broken and little shit to be stolen from your car every couple years unless you're dilligent about never leaving anything in it. And maybe even if you are, depending on what neighborhoods you spend all your time in.

Always steer the fuck clear of the people with the red-white-blue license plates that look kinda like an old Ohio plate, cause those are Diplomat plates. They have their own laws. One of those laws is, they always win and you always lose.

Be ready to be pummelled with politics from almost every direction on a daily basis. It's kinda the whole point of that town. Also, be ready for Masonic iconography on a level you've probably never seen anywhere else. Those fuckers are all up in that town, bigtime.

If you wanna be funny and seem like you're not as much of an out-of-towner, when talking with friends, refer to the Washington Monument as "the Big Dick".

That whole Mall area, everything from the Capitol over to the Big Dick and up to the White House, all of K street, up 14th street, embassy row, Rock Creek Park, these are all really interesting and cool things to look at and hang around. I lasted almost 3 years in that town before I was ready to come back to Chicago and love it like I never loved it before.

Northern Virginia was good to me. I like Arlington. I like Falls Church. I like Ballston. There are other areas around there, too.

Oh yeah, almost forgot, the vehicle inspections in Virginia are pretty harsh, as they are in DC as well. And in Virginia, you have to pay a vehicle tax every year that's based on their assessed value of your car. Extra bills! Yay!

If you live in the district, in addition to the 202 cell phone, you can get the "Taxation Without Representation" license plates, which kinda fucking rule. I was sad to lose those when I moved to Arlingon. Oh, and when you go back to Pittsburgh to visit family or friends or whatever, when you go out to bars and they card you, and they see a Washington DC license, you can act like you're *pretending* to be a normal guy, but really you're CIA or something. That was always mildly amusing for me.

Maurice wrote:Apparently I'm looking at a job offer that would require moving to DC, or at least within commuting distance. Any advice about specific areas (pro- or con-) or relocation, stuff to watch out for, thoughts about life in or around the District, etc. would be much appreciated while I work this out.

Scott's recommendations on neighborhoods (and his reflections on the extreme class divide) reflect my experiences living in DC for a couple of short stints. I would try to avoid living anywhere that would involve commuting on the Beltway as traffic can make the worst Pittsburgh traffic jam look tame. Bethesda is just across the border in Maryland and is better connected to the train system than is Georgetown over the border. In the city, I would try to live in Addams Morgan, Cleveland Park (near the zoo), or DuPont Circle. Capitol South is walkable to the Capitol if your work is there, has some pretty townhouses, and there's a yinzer-themed bar a couple blocks south. Then again, there are many places to drink if you don't need to have an IC Light, drinking being the local pastime for all the overstressed federal staffers.

The winters are mild, but I have never seen a city that gets snow regularly be so ill-equipped to handle snow. Be prepared for traffic delays or office closures if an inch or two falls. Those complaints aside, you can have a lot of fun in DC, and I can think of worse places to locate. It will be a lot more expensive than Pittsburgh, if that's an issue.

signs point to yes

I lived there from June 2000 to March 2002, back when I was going to art school.

My first place was located right off of the East-West highway in Silver Spring (by the Metro station) and my second apartment was in the district on Massachusetts Ave. NW. I would highly recommend either apartment company if you are looking for an inexpensive rental and don't want to buy in a house or have 4 roommates in a house. The Mass. House was $850 including heat/AC and water for a 1-bedroom, which was a good deal for something in the city and as close as it was to the White House and government offices area downtown. The front desk security was friendly and always helpful, problems were dealt with immediately by management, the main living area was huge (I think my apartment there was nearly twice the size of the place I currently live), and there's a Whole Foods and a CVS within walking distance. Also? Rooftop pool.

Falkland Chase in Silver Spring was definitely a more upscale apartment scenario, but I had two roommates to split the $1475 rent with for our 2-bedroom. It was right next to a Metro station, a Giant grocery store, a Rite-Aid, etc., had free parking, was quiet and relaxing, had a fitness facility, and the apartments were spacious and organized into four-plexes, so it felt a bit more like living in a house rather than in a hotel. I really enjoyed living in Maryland much more than living in D.C., as it was easier to get around, have a car (I couldn't afford the monthly parking fees in the district), meet up with friends, and the daily commute to my school downtown really only took 30 minutes on the train. My friends Steve and Vera lived in Takoma Park and, had I not been going to school in D.C., I probably would have tried to find an apartment in their neighbourhood. Some of my other friends had a house that hosted shows out in the Beltsville-College Park area, which was also nice and one of the more inexpensive but also not terrifyingly ghetto areas around D.C.

I have a feeling that I would have enjoyed D.C. more if I hadn't been so goddamn poor the entire time that I lived there. Apart from eating the leftovers from galas and banquets at my school and going to gallery openings to stock up on the catered appetizers, I didn't really get to enjoy any of the fine dining in the area. I've heard that there are some amazing restaurants in the area, however.

I was extremely disappointed by the lack of nightlife in the city. I'm very particular about bars, and the only bar in D.C. still in existence that I enjoyed was The Black Cat. Galaxy Hut in Virginia is also nice, as were several bars in D.C. that are no longer around (Metro, Visions). Most bars were either too "clubbing all night long" or "metrosexual hipster" or "politician" in atmosphere for me to enjoy being there. The Black Cat is still hands down one of the few places in D.C. that I missed when I moved back to Wisconsin.

The art scene in D.C. sucks goat testicles. Despite having multitudes of museums and a well-known art school within its perimeters, most of the art galleries in the city are horrendous. I remember having a conversation about how conservative (non-politically, I mean) D.C. is with my friend Travis, and I think this obsession with traditional, conservative aesthetics carries over into the art world. Thus, there's a lot of art galleries that sell art that one would hang in his or her living room. Lots of landscapes, lots of non-confrontational abstracts, etc. The only decent gallery shows I went to were in Virginia.

D.C. is incredibly expensive to live in. Rent prices are high because of taxes (the district funds the upkeep on the museums and monuments and such, so taxes are high) and the stupid limit on how tall buildings can be limiting how many apartments one can have on a plot of land. Poverty is an issue and quite a few jobs do not pay more to account for the heightened cost of living. I made $7-$8 and hour at my retail jobs there, which would have not been enough to live in the manner that I did if I hadn't been supplemented due to being in college. The sad thing is that I was making more than a lot of people working in lowly jobs. I think that McDonald's in the district started people at minimum wage ($5.15/hour).

D.C. is depressing in that everyday is a constant reminder of every ailment afflicting the United States. I'm not saying that other cities in are glowing beacons of utopian love and brotherhood, but D.C. is especially depressing,. One day while waiting in line at the store, my friend Ben astutely observed, "everyone in D.C. looks like they're about to cry."

What was said above about snow/winter is dead on. When I lived there, there was a 125 car pile-up in an inch of snow. People break suddenly on hills, don't know how to avoid skids, and generally turn into morons the minute that a flurry falls. If snow is expected, they flock to CVS to buy toilet paper and bottled water. It's very silly to watch and highly entertaining to cruise past in your car at nearly normal speeds as they struggle with simple maneuvers.

I would never want to move back to D.C. If I'm going to pay that much to live in a huge city (I don't even really like living in a huge city in the first place, but still), it has to offer far more than D.C. did. However, with the right job offer and finding a decent apartment in the right neighbourhood, I think it could be tolerable. There are some great people out there in the Baltimore-D.C. area once you find them, it still has a terrific music scene, and it has a motherfuckin' PENTAGRAM designed into it. You just have to get used to the fact that the throngs of humanity will make you despise life from time to time, that you might get mugged in a neighbourhood you don't expect to be mugged in, that your bike will be stolen at least once, and that certain Metro drivers will shut the doors and trap you before you can completely board the train.

Mandroid2.0 wrote:The art scene in D.C. sucks goat testicles. Despite having multitudes of museums and a well-known art school within its perimeters, most of the art galleries in the city are horrendous. I remember having a conversation about how conservative (non-politically, I mean) D.C. is with my friend Travis, and I think this obsession with traditional, conservative aesthetics carries over into the art world. Thus, there's a lot of art galleries that sell art that one would hang in his or her living room. Lots of landscapes, lots of non-confrontational abstracts, etc. The only decent gallery shows I went to were in Virginia.

What about Art-o-matic? That's in the district, is gigantic, and the years that I went, had a ton of cool and different kinda art stuff. I haven't seen anything like it in Chicago, except maybe in the Flat-Iron building, though I think that Art-o-matic can be a lot larger.

Also, Run For Cover is a very fun annual event, where a bunch of folks in local bands (some bigger and some smaller) put together cover bands to play 3 or 4 songs by whoever. The female-fronted Motley Poo (or was it Motley Pu with umlauts on the u, I forget) was pretty funny. Playing there one year was one of the most fun shows I've ever played. Seeing it is also most excellent.

And hey, if you move there soon enough, you can see Polvo when they play the Black Cat!!!

Yinz all are great. Thanks for the data points!