well, relative to san francisco it does, i suppose.

i belong to a few email lists where occasionally, you get a post along the lines of this:

hi! i’m moving to DC from (NY/SF/LA/pondunk) and i need to find a place to live. i’m hoping to find an apartment for under $700/month, utilities included, that is on the metro line and is also near a park.  i’d prefer not to share.

yeah, and i’m looking for my fairy godmother.

seriously, people. if you move to a major city, not to mention the CAPITOL OF THE FREE WORLD for christsakes, you can expect that the costs here aren’t exactly cheap. and depending on certain criteria, it is just as expensive as the cities that generally top the lists of most expensive places to live in the US of A.  it has hit the point here in the Commonwealth that you really need to go faaaaaaaaar out to find reasonably inexpensive digs — and we’re talking Front Royal near Skyline Drive. (yes, virginia: people actually commute to DC from there each day. they also commute from West Virginia. as in the state.)

i’m frankly a bit ashamed that developers have essentially priced most non-upper middle class folks out of the people’s republic without a lot of shrieking from the populace. that’s simply not the arlington way.

but arlington isn’t alone here. look around the beltway and you’ll find a lot of pretty damn costly places to live. even the places you really would prefer to avoid aren’t cheap.

so set your expectations appropriately before you start asking me to find you a place for so little money; that is, unless you help me build a time machine which can transport you back in time to, say, 1940 or so.