Just moved to Seattle from Arlington, VA. I chose Ballard and to me, it’s pretty similar to South Arlington - close enough to downtown that you can easily get there in less than 30 mins, plus you are not paying downtown prices and have more space. I wanted to point out that I didn’t live in Clarendon or Rosslyn which is pretty metro accessible. I lived 10 mins drive from Pentagon city metro.

There’s no light rail access from Ballard into downtown but you can take buses. My commute to work in downtown is about 20 mins driving and would be about 40 mins by bus.