Safe and descent cities in Montogomery county (Bethesda, Gaithersburg: low income, lease)

[cindy1531]

Hi,

Plz List gud townhousing cities in & around rockville (esplly in Montgomery county...heard its a gud county education wise).

[tercel95]

Olney although its not as nice as it used to be, all of the garbage is moving from DC down through silver spring and will eventually take over all of montgomery county.

[coolnana5]

montgomery and prince georges capital are becoming the illegal capitals of the world.. and amongs the highest in crime..thanks to Governor omalley and his pushovers.. gl..

[GJHJ]

If you can afford it, I would recommend Potomac/N. Bethesda. Good schools, good neighborhoods. Parts of the greater Gaithersburg area are nice as well, but there are some "not-so-good" areas as well. Make sure you do your research before you sign a lease or make an offer on a house. Good luck!

[lscalder]

Chevy Chase

[trying2moveup]

whut iz ur buhget?

[kjg1963]

Originally Posted by trying2moveup

whut iz ur buhget?

LOL, sorry, just couldn't contain myself. Had to laugh at that.

[tonyc]

Before u buy, make sure and do ur research. Visit the areas in the summer and at night to get a true feel for what they are.

It's truely amazing how much upper county and most of MC has changed in the last 10 years.

[pythagras]

In Montgomery County you will find that crime is pretty pervasive throughout. See here for a crime map. The vast majority of it is property crime. The risk tends to be higher in easily accessible areas with high population densities (see Lake Forest Mall on the map below). You might find one area has 1/3 or 1/2 the crime per capita as another, but you'd be fooling yourself to think that you can find a place where you won't encounter it. In the past 1.5 years, we've had one attempted break in. The guy ran away instantly once my wife screamed. There was one other attempted break in on our street in the same time period. We are getting a security system.

The reason for this is that Montgomery County is very friendly to its low income residents. There's a lot of subsidized housing and its spread throughout the region pretty evenly. This tends to invite a lot of property crime.

Violent crime in Montgomery County, however is very low. In 2008 there were 18 homicides which is about the same as the count for 2007. (See here) . This is in a county of nearly 1 million people. This is less than half the national average of 42.802 homicides per 1000000 (see here).

That all being said, I doubt you will find a "nice quiet safe city" in Montgomery County if you think attempted break in does not equal safe to you. Your best bet is to look elsewhere.

There are other reasons to live in Montgomery County, however, such as: diversity, great schools (even the "bad" ones), proximity to job, proximity to DC/metro, good planning relative to NoVA, well-established neighborhoods.

We enjoy living in Montgomery county and take the good with the bad. You'll have to make the decision for yourself, however.

[TrippingJay]

Originally Posted by pythagras

The reason for this is that Montgomery County is very friendly to its low income residents. There's a lot of subsidized housing and its spread throughout the region pretty evenly. This tends to invite a lot of property crime.

Agreed, although I've noticed that the northern end of the county seems to have more low-income properties than the southern end. MoCo also has a large public transportation system, so crime does occure all over due to more mobility of residents.

Overall though, I wouldn't label northern MoCo as unsafe or undesirable, it just varies more by neighborhood.