Is Nova community focused and friendly?

[airjay75]

Originally Posted by robbobobbo

As for cost of living, I was surprised to see it claimed that Houston's was higher. I looked at the Federal government's pay tables and yes, Houston is slightly higher pay than the DC metro - but every COL calculator I tried showed Houston as less expensive, in one case (PayScale), 33% lower (lower housing, lower groceries, lower utilities, lower transportation, lower health care).

From further reading, I see that Houston has really good wages. It would appear the Federal pay scales were adjusted to keep Federal pay in line with private sector pay in Houston - not because of high cost of living. From the Feds: "Locality compensation costs are part of the national Employment Cost Index (ECI), which measures quarterly changes in total compensation costs, including wages, salaries, and employer costs for employee benefits."

You are correct. Locality adjustments are not based on the cost of living differences between metro areas. They are based on comparable pay in the private sector (or at least a formula designed to measure the difference). Of course, one would think that comparable pay in the private sector is going to be higher in areas where the cost of living is higher and, generally speaking, that is probably true. That's where another wrinkle comes in - what locality are you measuring? In the DC area, the locality includes not only the metro DC area, but Baltimore and parts of West Virginia. I've been told by co-workers that the WV politicians made sure that WV got thrown into the DC locality so that the federal workers in their state would receive higher pay. But, the flip side of this is that workers closer in to DC have a somewhat deflated locality adjustment. In addition to Houston, I seem to recall that the entire state of Alaska has a higher locality adjustment than DC.

[majicdonjuan]

Hi OP,

I'm from Houston and I live in Northern Virginia. I have lived in Reston, Arlington, and Tysons during my time here. So perhaps I can offer you a few answers to your questions.

In terms of is Northern Virginia "friendlier" than Houston, in my opinion - no. People are generally a bit ruder from where I stand but YMMV. Traffic up here is comparable to anything out there and cost of living is much higher. However, in return you get only about 1-2 months (at the very worst) of Houston-like heat and humidity and I feel that the suburban communities in Northern Virginia are nicer than those of Houston (with the exception of Sugar Land and the Woodlands, the latter of which was actually modeled after Reston, a Nova suburb). You get four distinct seasons, and there's a lot more organization in the communities. I'm not sure in which area of Houston you previously lived, but unless it was one of the aforementioned suburbs or a few specific (expensive) areas of the COH, you will probably like your neighborhood a bit better up here. Just a guess though.

Overall, as someone who spent well over 20 years in Houston, I prefer it somewhat(since I hate any weather under 55 degrees vehemently, the people have a much more relaxed and laid back vibe, and drivers up here are slow, slow, slow) but Northern Virginia is a nice place to live overall. Falls Church specifically is something you won't find anything comparable to in the Houston area - it is in the middle of suburbia but it retains a small town feel as other posters have said. Vienna is another area that has that sort of vibe. You will pay big money to buy into either one of these communities though.

Hope that helps!

[KittyTwoShoes]

There are technically two Falls Church areas. There is the city of Falls Church, which is served by the Falls Church City Public Schools and is governed differently from West Falls Church, which falls under Fairfax County jurisdiction. That being said, I would, myself, choose to live in the City of Falls church, or even in the Pimmit Hills area slightly to the north or even Vienna/Idylwood area.

Lemon Road elementary school is a VERY good school in the Falls Church (Fairfax County area).