We're considering moving to DC (sister and BIL live there now) and we're also considering moving to a car free lifestyle. We'd like to have a house and yard, I'd like to be close to a metro and not more than 10 miles from the capitol.

Is this possible? We're going for a visit over Labor day and we'll be looking at some area's with a Realtor.

Depends on your budget, but it works for me. That's what my wife and I wanted when we moved to DC, a house with a yard in the city.

I'm about a mile and a half east of the Capitol, was car-free for a while but now my wife and I share a car. Relatively close to a Metro, within two blocks of about 10 different bus routes, and a block and a half from my daughter's school. A bike lane was recently striped in front of my house. I paid less for the house than many of my suburban friends, but that was five years ago. Property values have doubled since then.

Check out the H street (NE) corridor, the city is supposed to be putting streetcars on H street in the next five years that will go to Union Station. H Street NE was a crackhead drug market ten years ago, now it's where some trendy restaurants are moving in, probably won't recognize it ten years from now. I would also check out Petworth, though I'm not up to date on what houses go for up there.

Good luck!

What Same Time said. Petworth is changing. I worked there until about a year ago. By last year gentrification hadn't really taken hold but you could sense the change. You need to be a pioneer if you want good real estate value. Petworth is a good bet because of the Metro station. I bought in 2000 about halfway between Columbia Heights station and Woodley park station, I think the market value on my place quadrupled or quintupled since then so the single family detached or even row houses won't be a bargain in my neighborhood. Very few people are upside down on my block. A small subset of the DC metro population is catching on to the idea that convenience isn't such a bad concept and are returning to the city. The answer is not perfect but pretty good and getting better.

I suggest if you aren't familiar with the city that you rent, go car free and bike around and get to know the place before buying something. I've been car free 8 years in DC and have never wanted to go back to car ownership. Everything in the City is less than 10 miles from the capitol. I'd be really really suspicious of anything a realtor tells you. I've heard some whoppers from them. Especially if you want to go car free. Will you find a car-free realtor to bike around with you? I really recommend renting and making a concerted effort to know the city before you buy and before you talk to a realtor.

The issue of bike parking described below isn't so serious for me but apparently
in some workplaces on capitol hill you need to jockey for a spot with a security guard. Most parking garages have bike racks inside.

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/display.php?id=35901

Check out the City Paper's article on DC neighborhoods:
http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/neighborhoods/

If you live in the District, car-free is the only way to be. Seriously... that city makes owning a car very unpleasant and costly.

If you live outside the District, it depends. A lot of the burbs are classic car-centric designs. I lived in NW DC for ten years... most of it car-free, so my experience bicycling and driving in the burbs was limited. I know one thing though: You do not want to be in a situation where you have a long commute to work in the DC area. When I first moved there I lived in NW DC and worked in Gaithersburg. That's only about 15 miles. I bicycled it a few times, but it was a miserable route. Metro would get me close, but the bus service for the final three miles was pathetic. Not only that, but using public transportation to get from NW DC to Rockville, including a bus transfer, was over $6 a day! It was cheaper to drive. It regularly took 30 minutes to drive there in the morning, and anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours to drive home. After a year of that I quit my job in Gaithersburg, got one in the District just a mile from my apartment, and got rid of my car.

Fortunately jobs are plentiful in the area, and if you're patient (and work in the right industry) you can find something that is easy to commute to by foot, bicycle, bus, metro-rail, or any combination. The devil is in the details. If you have to connect to a bus, do your research. Not all bus routes in the area are good. Some are horrible. Also calculate the cost. Metro-rail is not cheap if you have to travel far, so tally up your fares as you're trying to evaluate a commute that involves bus and/or train. Some employers will subsidize public transportation, so that might help.

The District itself is much better than the burbs when it comes to living car-free beyond just commuting to work. Driving is about the slowest way to get anywhere in the District, and many neighborhoods have multiple grocery stores within easy walking distance. Of course there are times when it is convenient to have a car, and fortunately car-sharing is plentiful. We had a ZipCar membership that we used probably once every few weeks. My wife and I loved not having to deal with maintaining a car... and we especially enjoyed not having to deal with the DC DMV.

Sean