You can plan on sitting in traffic on the Beltway for hours every day.

You can plan on a high crime rate – that is slowly even creeping out into the suburbs of VA and MD.

You can plan on an extremely high costs of housing – whether renting or buying.

You can plan on lots of areas that are not well maintained (litter, etc.) and an excessively high rate of homeless not only now in the city proper but moving out into the outlying areas.

There is always a lot of road construction.

Winters can be harsh but the snow-plows are always out in full force.

I lived there for three years and, as you can probably tell, I’m glad to no longer be there . . .