Can someone help with towns within reasonable commute to Silver Spring (schools, quality of life)

[stocktonmomma2]

My husband might be getting a job in Silver Spring. We have 2 kids ages 9 and 5. We are interested in living somwhere in a smaller community. We
currently live in Illinois in an town with 1450 people. I don't think we will find an area that small but one can always wish. Can anyone name some towns with an hour or less commute to silver spring that I could research. I keep looking at maps but its hard to tell by them. If you guys could just name some towns with smaller schools and a family oriented atmosphere I would be glad to research them.

Thanks for any help
Brandi

[lchoro]

If you're looking for a small town within an hour of Silver Spring, you're probably looking at a small town in Frederick County where you can commute via MARC commuter rail.

Maryland Transit Administration

I haven't been to Frederick, Md for 20 years so I suspect that the town is much different due to sprawl moving up Route 270. The fact that they're getting their own Wegman's is probably indicative that there's a lot of high-density residential building going on around Frederick.

[meMesa]

The traffic in and out of Silver Spring, MD was hellish if memory serves me correctly. I lived in Howard county for 10 years and commuted into Silver Springs for about 2 years. The long commute got old real fast. Also, the MARC as well as the VRE are not always reliable, (IMO). I wish they would do something about that...

Stay close by if you can. Quality of life is a big issue and the commute plays into that.