What's wrong with Fort Washington (Alexandria, Burke: crime, credit, house)

[toiletfix]

Originally Posted by claremarie

It's in PG County.
That's why.

Bingo!

[FindingZen]

Originally Posted by toiletfix

Bingo!

Prince Georges County is a strange paradox. On the one hand, there's significant spillover of SE DC issues in many of the communities inside the Beltway. On the other hand, some of the most affluent African-American communities in the country are located outside the Beltway in PG County.

To the OP I'd suggest, if you haven't already, to discuss this in the general Maryland forum as well.

[RaisedWell]

Originally Posted by Tone509

Prince Georges County is a strange paradox. On the one hand, there's significant spillover of SE DC issues in many of the communities inside the Beltway. On the other hand, some of the most affluent African-American communities in the country are located outside the Beltway in PG County.

To the OP I'd suggest, if you haven't already, to discuss this in the general Maryland forum as well.

So nice to see a well said post from a moderator about Prince Georges County. IT IS NOT A GHETTO IN MARYLAND CHRISTINE IN VA. I call many areas here, "SE extended". There are affluent areas and there are ghetto areas. It is not one big entire ghetto. The schools are what they are because that is what we are getting, "SE extended" (along with other issues such as leadership)

[Denton56]

Schools are a reflection of the culture of the students and their families. PG county schools are no different.

[ChristineVA]

Originally Posted by RaisedWell

So nice to see a well said post from a moderator about Prince Georges County. IT IS NOT A GHETTO IN MARYLAND CHRISTINE IN VA. I call many areas here, "SE extended". There are affluent areas and there are ghetto areas. It is not one big entire ghetto. The schools are what they are because that is what we are getting, "SE extended" (along with other issues such as leadership)

Moderator Cut

Everyone has their own definition of "ghetto" or "crime ridden" or "undesirable." PG County fits my definition. I feel that I can say that since I lived there. I know it hurts. Have you seen the Woodbridge posts on this board? They are pretty bad and it's now my hometown. Everyone defines their own standard and you can't say it isn't true. You can certainly disagree and point out what you love about it, but someone is always going think otherwise.

[RaisedWell]

Originally Posted by ChristineVA

Moderator Cut

Everyone has their own definition of "ghetto" or "crime ridden" or "undesirable." PG County fits my definition. I feel that I can say that since I lived there. I know it hurts. Have you seen the Woodbridge posts on this board? They are pretty bad and it's now my hometown. Everyone defines their own standard and you can't say it isn't true. You can certainly disagree and point out what you love about it, but someone is always going think otherwise.

No it does not hurt. Did you read where I said that there are ghetto areas? You only read what you wanted to. I said that there were ghetto areas and affluent areas. I actually live in one of the ghetto areas.

[df80umes]

OP I'm also looking to move to Fort Washington. I actually drove buy a bunch of homes today and looked at the area. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly suprised. Overall I got a good feeling from the area.
My criteria for a nice area includes maintained lawns, no people hanging out on the corner or their front porches in the middle of the day, No toys in the front lawn, no liquor, laundry, or check cash place on the main road. I didn't see any of those things. At least not in the areas I looked. Lots of greenery and nice backyards.

Alot of people on here equate Black areas as being crime ridden and poor schools.
I'm originally from NJ, I've been in MD for almost 4 yrs. My first impression of the DC was a bit of a culture shock. I didn't know people really lived so segregated in this day. Overall Mont, N.VA and PG Co have good and bad areas.
My car has never been stolen or broken into. I leave my kids bikes in the back of my minivan. I don't know anyone who's encountered any crime. PG is not the hell whole people claim it to be. Like any unfamiliar area, check it out, during the day and at night.

[live_strong28]

Originally Posted by df80umes

OP I'm also looking to move to Fort Washington. I actually drove buy a bunch of homes today and looked at the area. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I was pleasantly suprised. Overall I got a good feeling from the area.
My criteria for a nice area includes maintained lawns, no people hanging out on the corner or their front porches in the middle of the day, No toys in the front lawn, no liquor, laundry, or check cash place on the main road. I didn't see any of those things. At least not in the areas I looked. Lots of greenery and nice backyards.

Alot of people on here equate Black areas as being crime ridden and poor schools.
I'm originally from NJ, I've been in MD for almost 4 yrs. My first impression of the DC was a bit of a culture shock. I didn't know people really lived so segregated in this day. Overall Mont, N.VA and PG Co have good and bad areas.
My car has never been stolen or broken into. I leave my kids bikes in the back of my minivan. I don't know anyone who's encountered any crime. PG is not the hell whole people claim it to be. Like any unfamiliar area, check it out, during the day and at night.

PG in the burbs is sheltered from a lot of the violent crime for the most part, but it is not immune to crime such as break ins, auto thefts, and car jackings. PG is car jack city.

Beyond the aesthetics of nice new cookie cutter homes, green lawns, and sunny skies, what you'll be dealing with is high taxes, high insurance rates, mediocre schools as you go higher into MS and HS, inefficient and corrupt elected leaders, lack of abundant and high end retail, etc.

[Alicia Bradley]

I used to live in PG (College Park, near the Riverdale Park border), and, honestly, the part of NoVA where I live now (just south of Alexandria in Fairfax Co.) doesn't seem much better. In fact, the infrastructure of a *lot* of NoVA, including the way things like weeds/trash/etc. are dealt with (I *must* put up my awesome pic of some Do Not Cross ribbon tangled in median weeds in Alexandria City) by the local governments (I'm mainly talking about the Fairfax Co. gov't, here), reminds me a lot of PG County. Yes, the schools are better, but will your kids step on broken glass on the way there? And will there be working stoplights? I'm actually going to call Fairfax County tomorrow about some pedestrian stoplights which were installed this past summer and *have never been turned on*. The pieces of brown paper which were originally taped over the fronts of them have weathered off, but the things have never, ever even been turned on, to my knowledge. I almost got hit on my bike trying to cross Route 1/Richmond Highway there yesterday (heading towards the new pedestrian/cyclist bridge to Old Town), and I'm pretty steamed about it. The point of my story is, don't let people convince you there is this HUGE chasm in quality-of-life between PG and elsewhere in the D.C. metro suburbs. The "nicer" parts of PG are fairly similar to much of NoVA in many regards (possibly everything but the schools).

[live_strong28]

Originally Posted by Alicia Bradley

I used to live in PG (College Park, near the Riverdale Park border), and, honestly, the part of NoVA where I live now (just south of Alexandria in Fairfax Co.) doesn't seem much better. In fact, the infrastructure of a *lot* of NoVA, including the way things like weeds/trash/etc. are dealt with (I *must* put up my awesome pic of some Do Not Cross ribbon tangled in median weeds in Alexandria City) by the local governments (I'm mainly talking about the Fairfax Co. gov't, here), reminds me a lot of PG County. Yes, the schools are better, but will your kids step on broken glass on the way there? And will there be working stoplights? I'm actually going to call Fairfax County tomorrow about some pedestrian stoplights which were installed this past summer and *have never been turned on*. The pieces of brown paper which were originally taped over the fronts of them have weathered off, but the things have never, ever even been turned on, to my knowledge. I almost got hit on my bike trying to cross Route 1/Richmond Highway there yesterday (heading towards the new pedestrian/cyclist bridge to Old Town), and I'm pretty steamed about it. The point of my story is, don't let people convince you there is this HUGE chasm in quality-of-life between PG and elsewhere in the D.C. metro suburbs. The "nicer" parts of PG are fairly similar to much of NoVA in many regards (possibly everything but the schools).

I doubt that.

You picked one of the lower income areas with the lowest ranked schools in NoVa to compare to PG. It's always easy to compare the rock bottom worst to the rock bottom worst.