Comment by rootbear | Hacker News Reader

Comment by rootbear | Hacker News Reader

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I live in Bowie, Maryland, a Levittown suburb of Washington, DC. (We pronounce it BOO-ee, by the way, something Alexa doesn't seem to know.) Unlike the original Levittown, Bowie is doing well. I don't live in a Levitt home, but I did look at quite a few of them when I moved back to the DC area in 1998. I passed on them because I wanted a basement and Levitt houses don't usually have basements, due to the cost. It was interesting to see all the ways in which previous owners had enhanced and renovated these homes. The Smithsonian is having trouble finding one that hasn't been extensively modified. (I ended up in a townhouse, with no mad-science basement, alas, but at least I don't have a large yard to keep up.) When Bowie was built (1964) there was no doubt systematic discrimination against minorities but, interestingly, Prince Georges County is now one of the wealthiest African American-majority counties in the US.

I don't think anything about Bowie or PG county is notable given its location. The entire DC area is propped up by the defense industry.

Everywhere else in the country is really different. DC didn't even experience the 2008 great recession

I don't know why you think we didn't experience the Great Recession. Housing prices crashed all over the DC area, except in Washington proper, which had a lesser decline, due largely to very low inventory. In my area of Prince Georges County, my townhouse lost about 30% of its value and the mega-mansions down the road lost about 50% of their value. Several friends lost jobs and had a hard time finding new ones. Yes, DC is a unique environment in some ways, but we aren't immune to economic downturns.

The metropolitan areas around certain cities, such as DC, are in a much different situation than those that experienced a structural loss in value. Around DC, there might have been a temporary loss in value due to reduced economic activity, but overall, the value trends upwards.

But if you look at places from the Northeast (excluding BOS/NYC/PHL) towns, all the way to Midwest to the South that had factories close and not come back, those are still cratered and going down. There simply isn't enough economic activity to support populations, so reduced demand, plus whatever demand there is can't afford to pay much.

I grew up in Bowie and was in elementary school at the time mandatory busing in PG County. It was a nice place to grow up - clean, safe, basically white collar stereotypical suburb in the positive sense.

I was bussed my first year in High School. It worked out okay, but it was only my second year of living in Maryland and it didn't help me in the task of finding new friends.

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