Close, but closer to SE DC. Baltimore's maybe a 30min drive if you know how to work the beltway.
I'm down in Southern Maryland, where all the cityfolk started to flee towards when gentrification started to hit the urban centers in the 90's. It's a strange blend between country and urban, where our cities aren't anything like major metropolitan areas and our country areas are nothing like the Midwest. It's just, like.... suburbs that try to hide themselves in the woods and suburbs that want to pack as many people in as small of an area as possible, with a bunch of random outliers between the two. "Suburban" neighborhoods with 0.4mi long driveways, so next door neighbors may have driveways 100ft apart but the homes themselves are close to a quarter mile or more away from each other. Then you hit the densely populated areas and houses might have 20ft between them, if they're not townhouses/rowhouses or apartment buildings.
We've got a little bit of everything and I like it all except for the business-heavy routes.
ETA: this site gives a little bit of insight into the typical local newsweek around here:
Southern Maryland’s most reliable news source! | Calvert, Charles, St. Mary's, Prince George's, and Anne Arundel counties
smnewsnet.com
Thankfully, most of the headlines are car accidents. Unfortunately, the secondmost frequent issue revolves around violent crimes.