What Other Area of the Country Most Resembles NoVA? (Mount Vernon: unemployment rate, neighborhood)

[FindingZen]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

How about the Route 128 Corridor? It's a high tech area near a major city with a sizeable affluent population. Or is it more similar to Silicon Valley?

That would be the Boston metro, yes? (For those who may be unfamiliar.)

[Old Tired Man]

The Raleigh and Boston area have far less immigration than Northern VA. According to the Census about 45% of the population of Northern VA speak a language other than English at home and about 40% are foreign born, vs the figure is closer to 20% in Boston and Raleigh.

Also Raleigh is friendly and still southern in many ways.

www.census.gov

[hilsmom]

I don't know that there are many cities with the high percentage of immigrant/foreign residents as we have here. We also have a high proportion of highly educated immigrants.

Apparently, though - you prefer the "real south". It seems like you're more fishing for places to avoid...

On that note, I loved Boston when I visited. Could see myself living there....until winter. Then, forget that place! I have some extended family in the area, so I have some New England blood in me. Boston is the spring was pretty amazing, though.

[Fallout Zone]

ILD - interesting thread. I'm still a little confused at the fertility comment. According to the census, VA is very low in the state rankings for fertility rate (37th) (List of U.S. states and territories by fertility rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). The thing that "saves" Northern VA and the Tidewater counties is the expanding Hispanic population, who have considerably higher rates. I could see how the SF bay area might be similar with an inner core that is more professionally oriented than family, and then an outer area with more families, partially due to the ethnicity of the residents of the area.

[IndiaLimaDelta]

Originally Posted by Fallout Zone

ILD - interesting thread. I'm still a little confused at the fertility comment. According to the census, VA is very low in the state rankings for fertility rate (37th) (List of U.S. states and territories by fertility rate - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). The thing that "saves" Northern VA and the Tidewater counties is the expanding Hispanic population, who have considerably higher rates.

I'm not comparing region by region or state-by-state, but among major metro areas. Several Northern metro areas have HIGHER percentages of Hispanic population, but have lower fertility than NoVA.

I would speculate that regional culture, esp. as it relates to religion, plays a strong role. The rather large number of folks I see at ob-gyn practices who have 5+ kids in this region are not Hispanic. They are overwhelmingly non-Hispanic white, either traditional Catholics or evangelical Protestants. Religiosity plays a strong role in fertility and NoVA is blessed (pun intended ) to be perhaps the most religious of the major metro areas in the country (that does not mean it is more or even as much so as less densely-populated areas or other parts of the South), but among "big city" areas, it is.

It's interesting to me that this area's Catholics are so traditional (as we head South Catholic traditionalism tends to weaken and evangelical Protestantism strengthens) yet the area also boats a high number of the latter. It's something of a "sweet spot" in that regard.

[IndiaLimaDelta]

Originally Posted by Old Tired Man

The Raleigh and Boston area have far less immigration than Northern VA. According to the Census about 45% of the population of Northern VA speak a language other than English at home and about 40% are foreign born, vs the figure is closer to 20% in Boston and Raleigh.

Also Raleigh is friendly and still southern in many ways.

www.census.gov

Boston used to have a very high proportion of foreign-born (Irish and Italians). They have died out as immigration from those sources has dried out, but their children and grandchildren are still there.

As R-D grows, I predict the percentage of foreign-born will increase. Presence of immigrants is a lagging indicator of growth.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by IndiaLimaDelta

It's interesting to me that this area's Catholics are so traditional .

Maybe where you are, but they're not particularly conservative or traditional down my way. I think the traditionalists gravitate to certain parishes. You won't find many Opus Dei types around Mount Vernon.

[IndiaLimaDelta]

Originally Posted by CAVA1990

Maybe where you are, but they're not particularly conservative or traditional down my way. I think the traditionalists gravitate to certain parishes. You won't find many Opus Dei types around Mount Vernon.

On the contrary, the entire Diocese of Arlington has the reputation of being very traditional. I thank Bishop Loverde for the orthodoxy of diocese. He runs a "tight ship" as it were. It's a rare parish that does not celebrate Latin Mass here and the churches look like churches, not modern monstrosities. The situation is not quite the same in, say, the Diocese of Richmond. It's much better than before there, but there are ways to go.

Thankfully the recent crop of graduates from seminaries are increasingly more traditional than their counterparts of the 60's and the 70's (in addition to the fact that Pope Benedict promoted those priests obedient to the Church Universal), so orthodoxy is looking good.

[CAVA1990]

Originally Posted by IndiaLimaDelta

On the contrary, the entire Diocese of Arlington has the reputation of being very traditional. I thank Bishop Loverde for the orthodoxy of diocese. He runs a "tight ship" as it were. It's a rare parish that does not celebrate Latin Mass here and the churches look like churches, not modern monstrosities. The situation is not quite the same in, say, the Diocese of Richmond. It's much better than before there, but there are ways to go.

Thankfully the recent crop of graduates from seminaries are increasingly more traditional than their counterparts of the 60's and the 70's (in addition to the fact that Pope Benedict promoted those priests obedient to the Church Universal), so orthodoxy is looking good.

Not that rare. Apparently 56 out of 68 don't, including my local one. At those that do they're mostly offered at odd times like Thursday nights:

Worship - Celebrations of Extraordinary Form

Seems more like a retro "cult classic" than a mainstream form of worship around here, appealling more to political than spiritual needs (one reason it's more popular here than in most other parts of the country). I wouldn't even call it traditional, since I'm sure most attending latin mass are too young to have grown up with it as their tradition. Folks where I am are a lot more interested in Spanish mass. Since I grew up going to a mission church in CA, where mass was in Spanish and hymns in Latin, that's more in line with my tradition.

[cdmurphy]

We just became members of St. John Neumann in Reston. Staffed by Oblates of St. Francis de Sales, no Latin Mass, female altar servers, and "social justice" is not a dirty word. Vatican II really happened, folks! We love it. And we are not boomers, we are Jesuit-educated Gen-Xers who would probably be trekking to Holy Trinity in Georgetown if we didn't have to consider the logistics of getting our kids to CCD. We stuck it out at St. Theresa for several years but after an unfortunate personal issue there, we left and tried out some other parishes for a while before deciding to join St. John Neumann.

For anyone looking for a more progressive parish, try out some of those staffed by religious orders instead of diocesan priests (St. Joseph in Herndon, Christ the Redeemer in Sterling, Our Lady Queen of Peace in Arlington, etc.) or look for diocesan-staffed parishes that allow female altar servers (even if the issue doesn't affect you personally, it is an indication of the tone of that parish; Bishop Loverde has left it to the individual parishes to decide and some of them will never allow it.)