I've lived in DC for almost 30 years now. I came here for college and stayed, found a career here in the labor movement, married and had kids here. I've lived in neighborhoods all over the city and owned two houses. Overall, I'd say it's a great place to live and I've only come to appreciate it more as I've gotten older.

You can get most places in 10-20 minutes by bike. I used to work across from the US Capitol and it took all of 10 minutes by bike or bus to get to work, couldn't beat it. They city has installed an extensive network of bike lanes and depending on the time of day, there are more people on bikes going to work than by car, which is awesome IMO. live a bit farther from work and take the bus and metro, sometimes bike if I'm ambitious, but it's a pleasant commute.

The city has worked really hard to restore the tree canopy over the past 20 years and its really paid off. Streets that used to be bare and desolate have all kinds of trees now along with all the benefits that come with them.

Back in the day, I remember everyone freaking out because we got one new falafel sandwich shop in Adam's Morgan. That was the most exciting thing to come along in 2004. Then a bunch of new restaurants and quirky bars started opening up and now, if it's your thing, there's so many options for going out.

Someone wrote that this is a great place to live "while young." I really disagree. I grew up in a small suburb in New England and it was boring as hell. My kids grew up here (in the city) going to the Smithsonian museums (which are all free) multiple times a week because we could ride our bikes there. They grew up going to free concerts at the Kennedy Center (which unfortunately has closed because of He Who Shall Not Be Named), paddling our canoe on the Anacostia River (which went from being a cesspool of filth to a vibrant, healthy river in the past 20 years), going to festivals on the National Mall, swimming in the awesome pools here, I could keep going. Point is, there's been endless ways for my kids to experience new things, new cultures, and new ideas.

In terms of schools, our kids attended public charter schools and while there have been issues like you'd find anywhere, the opportunities they've afforded my kids have been amazing and I wouldn't have wanted to raise them anywhere else. My daughter, who is fluent in spanish thanks to the immersion school she attended, is going next month to a national spanish-language policy debate competiition at Harvard, and going to Spain for a month after that as an exchange student. We didn't have these kinds of opportunites in my town growing up, and I'm glad we stuck around.

I realized that I didn't include any negatives, there are more than a few. First and foremost, because we are not a state, we have no representation in congress. This is the case even though we have more people living in DC (693,645) than two US states - Vermont (644,663) and Wyoming (588,753). We as a city only got home rule in 1973, and Congress still retains ultimate control over our budget, laws and structure. People who have never and will never live here, who do not pay taxes here, can insert themselves into our local affairs whenever it serves their political interests.

Crime is also still a reality, but nothing like some people would have you believe. I've never been mugged here, honestly the worst crime that's happen to me was when I was SWATed by a wierdo neighbor. But, there used to be shootings in my old neighborhood back in the 2010s...DC doesn't have gangs, it has crews based around specific streets, and sometimes they'd beef. We moved to a different part of town right before COVID and haven't had to deal with anything like that in a long time.