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Bethesda is very nice and on par (and in many cases) more expensive than a lot of areas in DC. Silver Spring is quaint as is Rockville. Potomac is very wealthy and quiet. College Park is a college town.
Arlington is a big town with several neighborhoods. Clarendon is very young but Ballston and Rosslyn are nice. I love Old Town Alexandria. It's very quaint. Fairfax is nice but 30 miles from the city. McLean is like Potomac. Reston is about 30 miles from DC but Reston Town Center is pretty active.
Fairfax is actually 19 miles from DC. Not far from the city at all.
Maryland:
Bethesda - Affluent, pretentious, mostly white, lots of Jews and Russians especially.
Silver Spring - Very diverse racially, economically, urban and dense around the downtown section, Ethiopian central. The White Oak and Briggs Chaney neighborhoods higher crime than most parts of MoCo.
Rockville - Very diverse, lots of Asians and Jews, family oriented, nice little downtown area around the metro station and courthouses.
Potomac - Rich people
College Park - College town, lots of young people, ghetto spots here and there, prostitutes along Baltimore ave where the hotels/motels are.
Virginia:
Arlington - Yuppies galore especially in the Rosslyn - Ballston corridor, Pentagon city and Crystal city, and in Shirlington. Calmer than D.C. in general with lots of immigrants along Columbia Pike.
Alexandria - Family friendly, charming around Old Town which is kinda like Georgetown but for republicans. A good sizable black population.
Fairfax - Soccer moms
McLean - Kinda like Bethesda
Reston - Suburbia, damn near exurban.
Honestly if you want to live somewhere that'll remind you of NC look into Manassas, Dumfries, Stafford, Fredericksburg in VA or Southern MD (southern Prince George's, Charles, Calvert, or St. Mary's counties) or lower Anne Arundel county on the MD side.
I would neither call White Oak or Briggs Chaney area part of Silver Spring. When most people say "Silver Spring" they are talking exclusively about downtown and the immediately adjacent neighborhoods. They may have the postal address, but they are removed from the downtown area that many people associate with Silver Spring, especially Briggs which is far removed. The problem with Silver Spring addresses, is many of them are not actually in Silver Spring, meaning the downtown portion that is inside the beltway. The beltway really should be the dividing line for Silver Spring addresses. One of these is so far removed it is practically in Cloverly. These other areas need to be renamed with new postal designations other than Silver Spring. This is the source of much confusion in this area. If you cannot reasonably walk to AFI, you are likely not actually in Silver Spring anymore, you may have a Silver Spring address, but you are in some other suburb. You are in Wheaton, or White Oak, or somewhere else.
I should note the same thing with Alexandria, those addresses which are not part of incorporated city of Alexandria need to drop the Alexandria address designation. Alexandria the address goes far south into who knows where.
With that being said, Silver Spring is diverse and mostly middle class and the most diverse area in the region. I would not call it affluent in the same way I would call western montgomery county affluent.
Also Rockville has a large Chinese population, Annandale Koreans.
Just to add one, there is also Takoma Park, which is a mix of affluent and middle class, lots of aging hippies, also borders DC.
Last edited by DistrictSonic; 02-23-2015 at 09:12 AM..
Having lived in both areas, I can say that the DC burbs are not really anything like the triangle. I would say the Fredericksburg area is the most like the Triangle, but that isn't really a dc suburb
Don't know much about the MD suburbs other than that Montgomery County is an upper middle class area with pockets of very wealthy people. Prince George's County is the wealthiest majority black county in America, but is still relatively poor in relation to the rest of the DMV & has a lot of crime issues
Virginia suburbs:
-Arlington is very urban & upper middle class with a large young population along the Ballston-Clarendon corridor.
-Alexandria is beautiful & also very urban, very upper class.
-Fairfax is where most of the action takes place in the region outside of DC. It has one of the top rated malls in the country, lots of offices, & is majority upper middle class with several large pockets of the uber rich.
-Prince William county is nice & developing, also upper middle class.
-Finally, Loudoun County is the richest county in America, & also the most interesting county in the DMV I think. Eastern Loudoun is upper middle class & resembles the suburban sprawl of Fairfax. Central Loudoun (Leesburg) has a beautiful historic district & amazing outlet mall. Leesburg is majority upper middle class, but has several neighborhoods of the uber wealthy with huge mansions, which can't be found much in Loudoun outside of Leesburg. South Loudoun (Aldie & Middleburg) has a strong equestrian culture, is wealthy, & has a lot of old money. Western Loudoun has a lot of wineries & farms & for the most part has retained its farming culture
So Manassas is pretty similar to the Research Triangle? The suburbs further from DC in Northern Virginia?
I would say Stafford, Spotsylania, & Fredericksburg are the most similar. But you will find nothing exactly like what you are used to. Why not move to one of the NOVA counties (Fairfax, Arlington, Prince William, Loudoun)? I guess I don't understand why you would move from a metro & try to find a place just like it in a new metro
I would say Stafford, Spotsylania, & Fredericksburg are the most similar. But you will find nothing exactly like what you are used to. Why not move to one of the NOVA counties (Fairfax, Arlington, Prince William, Loudoun)? I guess I don't understand why you would move from a metro & try to find a place just like it in a new metro
Oh, I'm just asking out of curiosity. If I move, it'll be far into the future. However, I don't visit the DC suburbs too often so I was curious to hear some insight.
I know it well too and I lived in the Triangle for 10 years, but the truth is none of DC's suburbs really compare to Raleigh.
Some people like to call Raleigh a "mini-NOVA" but it's probably more similar to Richmond. We have many transplants in the Triangle, but it's certainly more southern than NOVA and less diverse/international. Only some of the immediate surroundings around RTP (Morrisville, southern Durham County) and possibly Cary are the only areas that could resemble the outer suburbs of NOVA. Areas closer to DC like Arlington are totally different.
Last edited by JayJayCB; 02-24-2015 at 11:03 AM..
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