Great Place to Live
-
4/27/2013
Columbia, Maryland is one of the most affluent suburbs in the country located in wealthy Howard County about midway between Washington, DC and Baltimore, Maryland. Columbia is considered to be more of a suburb of Baltimore and it shows in the fact that most folks out here root for the Ravens and the Orioles.
Columbia is vastly different from other Maryland suburbs in the Baltimore-Washington corridor in the fact that it is a planned community. Columbia was founded by the late developer mastermind Jim Rouse. Jim Rouse's dream for Columbia was to create a community where people of all races, backgrounds and income levels lived side by side in peace. Columbia was founded as a place that was friendly to interracial couples and families. Columbia definitely lives up to the lofty ideals. Columbia is not segregated by race like most parts of Baltimore City, PG County and even most parts of Montgomery County (although Sliver Spring and Wheaton are just as diverse as Columbia). Older neighborhoods or villages like Harper's Choice, Wilde Lake and Long Reach are where most of Columbia's black population resides. Life in Columbia is quiet and uneventful for the most part.
As other posters have stated, neighborhoods in Columbia are very mixed racially and economically. There are many older Section 8 developments particularly in the neighborhoods of Wilde Lake and Harper's Choice. But even people on Section 8 in Columbia are definitely now where near as poor or disenfranchised as their inner city counterparts. These Section 8 areas in Columbia are far from "ghetto" or being truly dangerous by any means. Anybody who thinks anywhere Columbia is truly "ghetto" or dangerous needs to visit East or West Baltimore or any real inner city ghetto in America for a serious reality check. Before my family moved to Columbia, MD, we lived in one of the roughest of the roughest neighborhoods in the Bay Area in California where ten year old kids old sold crack for a living, people were getting gunned down outside every other week and there were drive-by shootings a few feet away from our home on a regular basis. Nowhere in Columbia has this level of criminal activity.
Columbia is one of the safer places in the Baltimore-Washington corridor. The biggest gang out here are the Howard County Police who will pull you over for wearing a flat billed cap and playing Rick Ross too loud in your car. Yes, Columbia does have some confused teenage wannabe thugs who watch too many dumb world star hip hop videos who have something to prove by intimidating pedestrians out of their pocket change on the bike paths, but thats the extent of "crime" out here.
All in all, Columbia is a great place to raise a family. The schools here are great and rank at the top of state. However, if you are a young adult, Columbia can be a pretty boring place to live. But most people commute to Baltimore or DC to work and play.
Lunatic | Columbia, MD