If you were moving to DC, which neighborhood would you move to?

[kaxixi]

Moving to DC in the fall. Which neighborhoods should I look into? I'll be working just a half mile South-West of Union Station.

Advice?

 

[ctrlaltelite]

capitol hill and/or the h st. coridoor in ne. are you driving?

 

[scarphe]

from the research my company has had done an area called dupont circle, or adams morgan seems to be a the reasobable to live, in the center of the city but yet close to may things inlcuding masstransit. hope this helps

 

[ctrlaltelite]

admo = douchebag central. i live in columbia heights, but people complain that it's "too hipster." dupont is nice but a little pricey, it's also an integral part of the city's gayborhood, as the annual pride parade will attest to.

one of the rapidly-gentrifying areas is bloomingdale, due to its quiet nature, lack of many commercial buildings, and its equidistance from two hot nightlife spots: the aforementioned h-street corridoor and the u st. corridoor. i used to live there a year ago but moved to columbia heights because it was a better living situation.

 

[delayedReaction]

Adams Morgan proper is going to be fairly obnoxious during the late night socializing hours on Thur/Fri/Sat when all the drunk college/young professionals are stumbling around the neighborhood.

DuPont is pricey. It's hard to give any concrete guidance without a price range. Eastern market is decent for young professionals.

 

[JeffC]

admo sucks. I also live in Columbia Heights. It's still kind of ghetto. U street is a better place to live (though pricey).

I'm moving back to Eastern Market in the summer when my lease is up (I'm 25).

 

[kaxixi]

Originally Posted by ctrlaltelite

capitol hill and/or the h st. coridoor in ne. are you driving?

I'll have a car, but I prefer to walk or take mass transit to work.

 

[kaxixi]

Price range... <$1500 including parking.

 

[Hard2Fit]

(North) Cleveland Park.
You better recognize.

 

[auto90403]

Never heard of anyone calling Eastern Market a neighborhood. Most of us call it Capitol Hill.

 

[btinl]

I'd probably live in Bethesda and take the red line in.

 

[kaxixi]

Originally Posted by auto90403

Never heard of anyone calling Eastern Market a neighborhood. Most of us call it Capitol Hill.

That's good advice right there. I dunno--I'm going by Google Maps.

 

[KJT]

Most of the places you mentioned are pretty ghetto. You want to look at places that are along the redline of the metro. But all the nice places are expensive, so it really depends on your budget and your willingness to live with roommates.

Adams morgan is not close to any mass transit unless you mean the bus.

Dupont is cool but expensive, Woodley park and cleveland park are cool and near dupont but a little less expensive. The farther you go up the redline, the less of a hip city feel the neighborhoods have and the prices reflect it, until you get to bethesda where everything goes back up again.

Check out Rosslyn, Clarendon, and Courthouse in northern virginia too. Cool places to live and just a few minutes on the metro to get into dc.

 

[auto90403]

Originally Posted by kaxixi

Moving to DC in the fall. Which neighborhoods should I look into? I'll be working just a half mile South-West of Union Station.

Advice?

I take it you're single. So don't bother with Cleveland Park, Woodley Park or Bethesda. They're for married people with kids.

If you live on Capitol Hill, you can walk to work. It's the secret best undiscovered neighborhood in DC. Much of the Senate and House and their staffers live here. Just be careful not to stray too far into NE or down Penn Ave toward Anacostia -- things can get bad very quickly.

Penn Quarter is the hot new area. My sense is, its hotness is developer-driven. We'll see if it survives the collapse of the real estate market. Not a real neighborhood yet, in my opinion. You will need a car to drive to the supermarket and the like.

Adams Morgan has been the up and coming neighborhood for the last 20 years and 20 years from now it will still be on the cusp of getting hot. Ditto Columbia Heights. Don't bother.

U street is much like Penn Quarter but at a lower price point -- another developer-driven revival. Maybe you'll get lucky and stumble into a real estate steal.

The really interesting but still risky neighborhood is Logan Circle. Gays who put in a lot of sweat equity have done amazing job gentrifying a really REALLY ****** neighborhood. But there are still pockets of poverty making it dangerous to walk home late at night.

Dupont Circle is pricey and kinda boring. 20 years ago it was DC's gay neighborhood. Now they've been priced out (and into Logan Circle) so that Dupont feels like it's nothing but law firms and the classier public interest/lobbying shops and decent-but-not-great restaurants. But it's very nice. Especially the parts that back into Kalorama. Which is without a doubt the most elegant urban neighborhood in America.

Forget Maryland. And the parts of Northern Virginia where singles live feel too much like the Midwest or small-town South. Urban without really being urban. NoVa, by the way, has amazing restaurants. Unless you're prepared to spend serious money, you will eat far better in NoVa than in the District.

 

[Ambulance Chaser]

Will you be driving to work? Are you willing to live in a group house or take on a roommate? Do you want an area with more nightlife or one that feels more neighborhoody?

At $1500/month, you're going to be priced out of Dupont Circle, Adams Morgan (where parking is a nightmare anyways), and many of the close-in neighborhoods in Northern Virginia. Penn Quarter has great nightlife, but feels a bit sterile to me and lacks a supermarket. U Street lacks a supermarket as well. Columbia Heights is a transitional neighborhood and still unsafe, no matter what anyone tries to tell you.

Without knowing more, I would recommend Capitol Hill (near Eastern Market and Barracks Row, not Union Station) and Cleveland Park.