Pros and Cons of Living in Silver Spring
Pros and Cons of Living in Silver Spring Maryland | Are you thinking of moving to Silver Spring but want to know if it’s a good idea? If so, you’re in the right spot. In this video and blog, I walk you through the pros and cons of moving to Silver Spring. From foliage and location to diversity and lifestyle, we’re going to discuss all of the factors that will affect your decision to live here.
Location
One that I can think of right out of the gate for a pro is it’s location. It is right on top of the D.C diamond, and it extends up North. But for the people in Downtown Silver Spring, you are right on top of D.C. There’s all sorts of ways to get down into D.C.- you can take the Mark train, metro, bike, or drive! Also the 495, 95, 295, 270, 200 are all right off Silver Spring. So it’s great for commuting to wherever you need to get to. It’s obviously cheaper than some of its neighbors like Bethesda, Chevy Chase, and it’s closer to D.C than Rockville and Kensington. Those are just a few of the pluses to Silver Spring’s location.
Foliage
The second most common pro that people think of is the fact that there are trees here! If you’re looking for that urban feel of living in a city, but still have trees, garages, backyards, you can get that in Silver Spring. These things can be deal breakers for people, especially people like me who have a Doberman. We want to be able to have good places to walk our dogs, nice parks and trails to go to, and big backyards to run around in. All things that you can get in Silver Spring, but still have the beauty of these big trees in the area. Being close to places like Sligo Creek Park is just one of the amazing features of living in Silver Spring.
Lifestyle
One of the other reasons why Silver Spring is such a great place to live is that there are so many things to do. I love how the area can tailor the lifestyle and hobbies of so many different people. Whether you’re looking for restaurants, shops, concerts, parks, anything that you’re looking for to do is available in Silver Spring.
Another pro of living in Silver Spring is our diversity. Silver Spring is one of the most diverse communities. Everything from racially, culturally, national origin, whether it’s young professionals, families, people who’ve lived here their whole life, everybody has a home here in Silver Spring. Learning and growing from each other and being able to experience all the benefits which the diversity has brought the neighborhood is unparalleled.
And with that diversity comes a variety of food choices!
Cons of Silver Spring Living
Now, moving on to the cons. I shared this with my “work wife” while struggling to put together this list and said, “because there are no cons!” One of the reasons why I think cons is hard for me is that I think that the cons have a lot of pros intertwined with them- a silver lining type of thing. But I’m going to do my best to provide you with some. However, I also want to tell you why I don’t think these should NOT be deal breakers for this community.
Cost of Living
So for the first one, it’s got to be the cost of living. If you haven’t seen it yet, you should check out my other blog post on the exact details of the cost of living in Silver Spring. It is expensive to live here and definitely something you should take into account. Another thing to point out is that the taxes in Silver Spring are higher than they are in D.C.
Commute Times
All right, another con is the fact that a lot of people here use their car to get around. The truth is, even though there are a lot of transportation options, a lot of people like to drive in this area. With that, comes more traffic and you have all of the negatives that come along with more congestion from that. Also, when we talk about Silver Spring, we think about Downtown Silver Spring. And that is a very different experience than living further North than Colesville, part of Silver Spring, which is much further North than Downtown. There’s a big difference in the amount of time it’s going to take you to commute. Whereas in Downtown Silver Spring, you might be able to walk to the Metro in just a few minutes, if you live further North and away from the Metro line, you might need to drive and park at the Metro stop.
Construction
Silver Spring is growing rapidly! There’s a lot of construction, expansion, new apartment buildings, new condo buildings. A LOT. This is really changing a lot of the dynamics of the neighborhood and definitely taking away some of that quieter town feel that it used to have if you go back say a decade or two.
A Great Place to Live
I think that Silver Spring is a wonderful community to live in. It has a lot of things to recommend it, and I hope that you consider it. If you have any questions about Silver Spring, living here or real estate here, text me, call me, Doberman bark it to me, get it over to me, I’d be happy to talk to you about it or get into a little more specifics about the differences within the communities. Also, stay tuned for future videos and blog posts where I will be breaking down Silver Spring as this big nebulous area and identifying the pros, cons, and unique things about different sub-neighborhoods and communities within what we call Silver Spring, aside from just Downtown.
