Wow. I'm not sure if I agree with everything you list, but I think a lot of neighborhoods in and around DC have gone through an incredible amount of change in the last 5-10 years. Lots of development both within the city as well as out very far in the suburbs. Friends of mine keep moving farther out in order to be able to afford bigger houses for growing families. So it's a double-edged sword. The DC area has had lower unemployment in general than the rest of the U.S. (I believe it's around 3-3.5% right now) mainly due to the large amount of government and government-related jobs, although there are certainly a fair share of purely technology or non-gov't related companies out there. But this also means that the cost of living is higher. More people have more income and what with the interest rates the housing market has been out of control. Not quite as high as New York, but not that far away either!
I would say your two best places to learn more about the area, its neighborhoods current events, etc., etc., is http://www.washingtonpost.com/ (The major newspaper here - they also host washingtonjobs.com), and http://www.washingtonian.com/ (the major local magazine which has lots of great resources and info about the area). Good luck! I've lived in Rocville, Gaithersburg, and Germantown Maryland, Adams Morgan in DC, Arlington, and Vienna Virginia. My personal favorite of these, and where I live now is Vienna, although there are many other cool areas that I wouldn't mind living - Clarendon, Takoma Park, Old Town Alexandria, Falls Church City, etc. Most of these places, though, are pretty pricey, at least to live in the better parts of them. As far as safety, well, there are good and bad areas throughout, although probably the worst crime areas are Souteast and Northeast DC - although the Capitol Hill area is in Southeast and that's been doing really well. It's not all cut and dry is all, but you will get a much better picture by just driving around and talking to people who live in various parts of the area... Good luck! Levi Wallach Blog: twelveblackcodemonkeys.com DVD Review Site: dvdmon.com Pictures at: http://wallachexpressions.smugmug.com/Photos%20by%20Levi From: Simon Horwith Sent: Fri 1/21/05 4:02 PM To: CF-Jobs-Talk Subject: Re: DC Jobs - What the... I lived in the DC area for 5 years before moving to London and now I'm back again. I like the DC area. In terms of nightlife - if you like clubbing, dancing, and/or drinking, DC is really good. There aren't quite as many places for that stuff as in New York City, but it's close (and usually cheaper, too). The best areas to go for that sort of stuff depends on your taste, but most likely you're going to want to hang-out in the Adams Morgan and Dupont Circle areas. Georgetown has a few bars/clubs that are fun as well. There are many very large nightclubs more downtown - closer to chinatown. There are also some nice bars in VA, though not much in terms of clubbing/dancing there. If you're into museums and culture, DC is terriffic - all of the national museums are here.... it'd take you over a year of spending every single weekend in a museum to see them all. There are also a lot of nice monuments, govt buildings to tour, and parks. It's a terriffic city, really. You'll most likely want to stay in North West DC - the rest of it can be nice but you're much more likely to end-up in bad neighborhoods/dangerous situations in those areas. Places to live: if you don't want to be downtown and also want to be in a good and convenient location, Arlington, VA is good... so are some of the neighborhoods in MD like Bethesda and Silver Spring. There are more nice neighborhoods I would also recommend if you don't require being walking distance to the Metro. I like being in extremely convenient locations personally.... yesterday my wife and I found out our offer on a condo was approved, so it looks like I'm going to be living in the Logan Circle area - very convenient to Dupont Circle as well as downtown. I used to live in Arlington, in the Courthouse/Clarendon area, and that's a very hip, young, safe, and fun place to be. It's also very convenient to getting into the heart of DC. Old Town Alexandria and it's vecinity isn't as convenient a location to get to DC from, but it's also not really inconvenient and it is really pretty and fun. Living conditions are good - it's a booming city with good property and fun stuff to do. It's expensive - that's definitely a negative. Well, the city itself isn't really more expensive than any other, but real estate is. If you're looking at buying, property tax in some areas can be pretty high - particularly in Montgomery County, MD. You don't have to worry about crime as long as you're in NW DC, Montgomery County, MD, or Arlington VA along the metro. Some other areas in VA and MD are also really safe, especially (obviously) as you move further away from the city. Regarding the job market - obviously, security clearance does help. The Federal Government is probably the largest single user of CF (if you consider all of the Federal govt. it's own entity). DC also has a VERY large number of associations.... most of them also use ColdFusion. These account for the majority of the jobs. This was also the center of the dot com boom - certainly on the East Coast, anyway, so there are still a decent number of companies here that do consuting and contracting. Even if you don't work for the govt. or an association, you'll probably be doing development on applications for them. Being the East Coast dot com capital also means that there are still several start-ups in town, though obviously a large number of them did disappear when the bubble burst. Don't worry aif you don't have clearance... therre's plenty of work without one and you may end-up working for a company or on a contract that gets you one. If you have the opportunity to get clearance, seize that opportunity... there's far more work here that requires clearance than there are people with clearance, so you'll be EXTREMELY marketable - even in this market. I don't have clearance but hope to have an opportunity to get it sometime soon. There are a lot of places to look for jobs and houses/apts. but your best bet is washingtonpost.com. The washingtonpost.com website for jobs is actually http://www.washingtonjobs.com. Hope that answers all of your questions? DC is a really cool place to live (and has a great job market) - if you have any other questions, feel free to ping me. ~Simon Simon Horwith CIO, AboutWeb - http://www.aboutweb.com Editor-in-Chief, ColdFusion Developers Journal Member of Team Macromedia Macromedia Certified Master Instructor Blog - http://www.horwith.com K Edwards wrote: >Based on the previous topic and the fact the Atlanta CF job market leaves much >to be desired, I invite any and all DC based companies to post or send me >available job opps. I am a very experienced CF'er along with many other web >related skill sets, and I would consider moving to DC if I could find the >right opportunity. > >Seems to me many jobs I see in DC or VI require a security clearance which i >don't have and I would guess the type of job that is not much fun, being >government type work. Could be wrong but let us know. > >Not being from DC I would like to know what you DC'ers thought about the area >like what is a good, central, accessable, interesting, affordable, fun, etc.. >place to work and live. Not the far out subburbs and prob not downtown, but a >happy medium and what to look for in that town in terms of good (living >conditions, etc) vs bad (traffic, crime). > >In essence, what the hell is going on in DC with CF work these days and should >the rest of us want to be there? > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Logware: a new and convenient web-based time tracking application. Start tracking and documenting hours spent on a project or with a client with Logware today. 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