Since I've moved up here and been a resident for about a year now, I'd like to review the town from my own perspective.
If you had to describe this place in a nutshell to an outsider? You could say, in a word, Mayberry. Essentially, to get to Poolesville, you have to drive through Maryland's Agricultural Reserve area for a ways, where you won't see anything but trees and farmland. All of a sudden, there it is. Residents are tired of Poolesville being described as "quaint" -- but I think that's accurate.
The biggest thing Poolesville probably has going for it are the schools. The local high school has been rated the best in all of Maryland, with the elementary and middle schools not that far behind. Crime really is almost non-existent. (There were weeks where the local paper had to publish "historical crime" stories in the crime section because nothing else happened!) You'll occasionally hear about some vandalism or thefts out of parked cars (bored teenagers, typically), or the occasional drunk and disorderly complaint. That's usually it.
Economically, it's pretty diverse. You've got everything from farmers who own huge tracts of land worth millions of dollars to farm-hands working on those farms who barely earn a living wage. You've got a lot of commuters who live in Poolesville but work elsewhere in the DC metro area. You've got a number of self-employed folks who probably form Poolesville's "middle class" more closely than anyone else, doing carpentry, plumbing, electrical work, etc. And still others in town are more of "hustlers", involving themselves in all sorts of small business ventures in and around the community. Quite a few Poolesville residents work from home in some capacity, such as book authors, photographers, etc.
Interestingly, despite the perception that Poolesville is WAY far away? If you learn to use the right "back roads", you can commute to downtown Bethesda in about 45 minutes, or to Rockville in 35. Germantown is only about a 20-25 minute drive away. With most of the traffic congestion and cities to the east of Poolesville, the daily commute to and from work is a pleasant country drive with little traffic, instead of gridlock and it taking an hour to go about 6 miles. In that sense, I think it's one of the best kept secrets for a good place to live in the DC area.
On the downside? Ever since Selby's market closed up, Poolesville hasn't really had a grocery store. You can grab a few basic items from the CVS or one of the 2 gas stations in town, and there's a "Sweet Greens Market" trying to fill in the gaps a bit, offering lots of fresh produce from area farms. But residents have to drive out to Germantown or Gaithersburg to do *real* grocery shopping right now. The town's population (at 5,500 or so and in fact designed not to ever exceed around 6,000) makes it too small for most of the grocery chains to have interest in it.
Also, the town's water comes from a series of wells, and it enforces some restrictions on water usage and sewer capacities -- which complicates some new businesses opening up in the area. The relatively hard well-water tends to leave a cloudy film on dishes in the dishwasher and kill water heaters with sediment. (Overall water quality is very good, as far as being safe to drink, though.)
All in all? Poolesville was a great find for our family. When I accepted a job in the DC metro area and moved out here, I got sticker shock at the ridiculously high price of housing. In many places, renting a 3 bedroom apartment was well over $2,000 per month. Poolesville still has townhouse rentals in the $1,500/month range by comparison, in a family-friendly place where the kids can safely walk to and from school. read more
