Like everyone else said, it's an extremely safe area, great place to live (unless you are looking for an active nightlife), great schools, pretty area with a lot of amenities. The commute... well, I can't say anything nice about that lol but I moved to Columbia in 2005, and this year we finally sold our townhouse, searched all over the state within a somewhat sane commute to Silver Spring, basically looked everywhere except the western part of the state... and ended up moving into a house 2 miles from our old house LOL ... 3 months of non-stop searching smh... I think you'll really like the area :)