Are the northern and western suburbs of Washington DC clean?

Question

I am referring to Alexandria Arlington, Fairfax, Loudoun, Montgommery and Howard counties in Virginia and Maryland respectively. Are these places clean? Are they cleaner than most of America? What about the Noerthwestern quadrant of Wahington DC? I mean the one that has Georgetown...is it clean too?

To those who have visited these places or lived there...when you went to other parts in America, did you find other places to be cleaner, safer, having more facilities, having more friendly people or not? How would you rank the wealthy suburbs of DC with the rest of the places that you've been to?

Answer 1

I grew up in Montgomery County near Bethesda/Rockville area so I'm mostly familiar with Montgomery County not as much with the VA suburbs but I would say for the most part the suburbs are "clean", yes... And certainly safe as well. And probably because it is one of the wealthiest counties in the country it has very good local services - one of the best public school systems in the country and a lot of other local services.

That said, I would say the people there are not friendly. They are extremely self-centered and egotistic, and just not friendly. Traffic is bad (the whole D.C. area is known for having bad traffic and actually I believe northern VA is even worse than MD... but Montgomery County still has terrible traffic). It doesn't seem to have a lot of character either - a lot of general suburbs with boxy houses that could be anywhere. The restaurant scene is improving but there aren't as many good restaurants as other cities. Bethesda has a few bars that are pretty good and Silver Spring is becoming a more trendy area but other than that it's very suburban. Public transit is also not as extensive as some - there are a couple commuter rail lines that have extremely limited service and also the D.C. Metro (subway) goes into Montgomery County as far north as Gaithersburg or Silver Spring/Wheaton at opposite ends of the Red Line.

Northwest DC is certainly the "nicest" (probably the cleanest and safest part of the city) but I wouldn't say it's clean compared to some cities.