Job in Silver Spring MD -- seeking advice

[GeorgeSpelvin]

Originally Posted by anglophile

You didn't mention your budget (that I saw), this will shape what you can afford.

Takoma Park

Takoma Park is a funky, liberal community. Its family oriented, and has a lot of nice houses. Its bordered by some gritty areas, especially Langley Park, so there is some crime-I never experienced any when I lived there, and I walked home from metro pretty late at night, but our postman was held up at gunpoint. Blair is, from what I've been told, a perfectly reasonable high school. Takoma DC should be avoided because of the schools.

Olney

A poster mentioned Olney, which is nice, but would be a bit of a commute. You can do 25-30 minutes on Saturday morning-not during rush. An option could be to park at the Glenmont metro. Good schools, very nice community. Probably the same price as Takoma Park, but probably a larger house.

Silver Spring
Very built up at the urban core, Silver Spring is very spread out. There are nice parts, and less nice parts, particularly the parts bordering Langley Park and the far east part of Takoma Park. I would look around the Forest Glen Metro, and on East West Highway going toward Bethesda. Kensington is close, and also pretty nice. As you get closer to Bethesda, it will get more expensive.

Weaton/Glenmont
Varies. Less expensive than SS/Takoma. You might find something nice around the Glenmont metro, could be a compromise between SS and Olney.

Germantown is too far to commute-there are better options. It didn't look particularly crimeriddern when I've been there, but I don't know the area too well.

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I am definitely going to print these threads for future reference! Thanks to all.

I made a separate post but thought I would also comment here that I am actually going to be moving in a couple of weeks, but it's initially going to just be me needing a rental. For that reason, I'm looking around at Silver Spring for anything really close to my job (which also happens to be very close to the SS Metro station). One of the previous posters mentioned a few specific apartment complexes within walking distance -- I actually saw a couple of them on a recent trip and will be checking those out.

It does appear that the parking issues and overall congestion near downtown SS and the Metro station cause even efficiencies to be fairly pricey. As a cost-savings measure while I'm "in transition," I wondered about finding a place a stop or two north of Silver Spring on the Red line.

Questions: The area around the Forest Glen Metro -- thumbs up or down? What about the next stop, Wheaton?

Basically, just looking to see if it's possible to get a bit better deal than the "luxury studios" ($1400 a month for a shoe box, plus extra for parking) located near Colesville Rd/East-West Highway in Silver Springs.