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Jul 15, 2008 8:16 - 2 Comments
I am not sure this has happened before (readers, perhaps you can set me straight in the comments section), but Our Fair City of Rockville, Maryland has cracked >Money Magazine’s top 100 “Best Places To Live” list.
Rockville is number 66 on the list. Says Money:
With a newly developed Town Center, a $352 million project, Rockville’s residents now enjoy lots of new shopping and restaurants.
Ranking high in leisure and arts, the city also boasts a civic ballet, youth orchestra, art show, university, concert series, and more.
However . . . credit where due. Our neighbors, Gaithersburg, leave us in the dust at #29.
I wondered why, so I used the “compare” feature and found that, on most every measure, Our Fair City is equal to or beats our neighbors, except for one. Median home price in Rockville is $463,700 with taxes of $3,325. In Gaithersburg, it’s $385,000 and $2,554.
The price of affluence, I guess. But it does indeed lend credence to something I have heard more than one person say: many of Rockville’s “core” residents simply can’t afford to live here anymore.
OK, but half the homes are below the median and Rockville has a lot more single family residences than Gaithersburg. The low Gaithersburg price is due to the very large condo fraction in the city. It would be interesting to see the cost distribution, identifying which units are single family homes and which are condos in multi-unit buildings. I’ll bet that you will find that Rockville has more low priced single family homes than Gaithersburg. The need is for low priced homes suitable for families – I’ll bet we are ahead on that. I don’t begrudge people with money. I’ll bet we have more big houses. They are not so great from a sustainability point of view but they help pay the taxes. Compare the budgets of the two cities. For the same value house ( as the Rockville median price) you would pay $250 less taxes in Gaithersburg. Is that enough to make a real difference? Anyhow, you get more for your money in Rockville. Yes, we need more low cost housing in Rockville, but I’ll bet we already have more low cost single family housing than Gaithersburg. Considering our increasing senior population, we need housing for people to retire to, that have more housing than they now need. This would free up more single family homes.>
Roald Schrack
I’m really glad that you added that last paragraph. Rockville (and Montgomery County for that matter) really needs to do a better job of matching available housing to the level of employment available within reasonable commuting distance. BTW, where’s that “university” that >Money gave us credit for having?