I live in DC, and participate in a few DC related message boards. Given the political nature of Washington DC, sadly DC-related message boards are often the target of people who don't even live here, who want to attack and denigrate and demonize, who want to make DC seem like a complete cesspool of crime, out-of-control Karens imposing unhinged wokeness or whatever else. And then there are the suburbanites, who project hate on DC because of the commute they've chosen for themselves. They constantly start threads to complain about bike lanes and other things.

We've lived in DC for almost 15 years, and enjoy it here. It's very walkable, there is a lot of green space and tons of great activities and amenities. I have a DC-area bucket list that has hundreds and hundreds of places to go and things to do which gives us fuel for every open weekend. Is DC perfect? No. Sure, there's crime - but none of us has ever been the victim of crime in the 15 years we've lived here, and I rarely hear of any of our friends and neighbors becoming victims of crime either. Yeah, there are some homeless people. Many of the DCPS schools are notoriously bad, but we got lucky and got into a good charter, and our kid got into a great university with plenty of scholarship money. Housing can be expensive. Many restaurants are overpriced for what they provide. There's always going to be things like that to complain about, but those aren't by any stretch unique to DC, you'll find the same situation in NYC, Philadelphia, Chicago, or other big cities as well.