A short story and outside observations from a long time NoVA resident (Fairfax: house, private schools)

[The Dissenter]

Originally Posted by jbakerman

Everything has a cost. No state car inspections? More dangerous cars on the road. No emissions checks? More dilapidated, aging, noxious spewing dreck on the roads. If you've ever driven 95 in south florida between Miami and West Palm, believe me, it's no better than 95 between Springfield and Richmond. Way less taxes?!? Great - check your state fees for parks and recreation! How's the hurricane insurance industry in FL? It's all relative, sure, but everything always has a cost.

Can we not even mention the depressed wage scale down there?

I'm pretty indifferent to living in NoVA after being one of its biggest haters. I choose to stay here because it works for this season of life. I was in Kentucky over the weekend and the drivers were just as bad there as Arlington. Kentucky has embarrassing public schools, bad health ratings, and a weak job market. Leaving there to come back here, as much pride as I had to swallow, was a smart thing to do.

I'll probably leave NoVA again, probably to head to the West Coast (Seattle is the top choice.) or maybe Charlotte. But NoVA works for some in different periods of life.

[SaintCabbage]

I likely should have more specific in where we moved to in Florida, as I'm targetting a very small, specific area of the country in NoVA, and seemingly comparing it to the entire state of Florida, which wasn't my intention.

We moved to Saint Johns Florida, in Saint Johns county if you care to research it. It's south of Jacksonville, and just north of Saint Augustine. I'm aware a lot of Florida (and most states) is not ideal and have vastly different living conditions. Ironically, I call this area the Ashburn of Jacksonville in that socioeconomic status is very similar. It's Ashburn without the traffic, high cost of living, crappy weather, and lousy disposition of house poor people. The schools are 10/10, A+ rated, very low crime, and it's 9 miles from the ocean.

What's a little frightning is the growth here in the last 2 years is like nothing I've seen. Our little secret hidden gem at the beach here is exploding with growth. All our neighbors are from big cities up north, word is spreading...

While it's no utopia, it does take all the good "stuff" of a white picket fence suburb of a major city, and eliminates most of the negatives of living in a suburb of a major city. It wasn't meant as a rant or lecture, just wanted to share some positive energy based on my experiences in both places.

[NOVA_guy]

Uh... that can go both ways. I have a friend who left NoVA to move to Florida for a family emergency and her life has been hell ever since. When she lived up here she was making close to six figures and living in a nice condo in Tysons... since the job market in Florida is pretty nonexistent she's had a hard time finding work in her field and ended up working at a bar and now isn't even making half of what she was making when she lived here. Money's tight for her and although the cost of living there is low the wages are even lower.

So yeah, while NoVA is by no means perfect and your description of the drivers and traffic is pretty spot on, there's a lot here (high salaries, good schools, low crime, good job market) that you can't find in other parts of the country hence why it's the most populous part of Virginia and so overpopulated.

[FCNova]

Originally Posted by SaintCabbage

Hell on Earth.

There's too many damn people. The infrastructure can't handle it. Construction everywhere, it took us almost 45 minutes to travel 3 miles in Annapolis. Want to go get something to eat? Better get there at 4PM or 10PM. Costco? HA! Good luck finding a parking spot let alone getting in and out quickly. The weather is awful, the people are awful, just a bunch of transients who don't give two s**ts about anyone but themselves or old angry natives who grew up surrounded by cynism and bitterness. Every man for himself. I know, that was me and I didn't even realize it. Too proud and blind to accept there is a better world out there, and I implore you to seek it out.

Originally Posted by SaintCabbage

It wasn't meant as a rant or lecture, just wanted to share some positive energy based on my experiences in both places.

Oh yeah, your initial post was oozing with positive energy. And definitely didn't feel like a rant.

[tysonsengineer]

The truth is the liberalia versus conservistan divide. I don't fault the OP for not liking NOVA, the same I way I doubt the OP would fault me for thinking the place he/she is living would be hell to me. Different strokes for different folks. I do believe the OP was always a conservistanian looking for an underpopulated suburb with plenty of road for limited people, the same way I am a liberalivite (sure why not) who wants dense urban living with lots of restaurant, bar options and retail options connected via transit.

[car54]

Originally Posted by SaintCabbage

....What's a little frightning is the growth here in the last 2 years is like nothing I've seen. Our little secret hidden gem at the beach here is exploding with growth. All our neighbors are from big cities up north, word is spreading...

Ummm, then you're NOT helping the situation!


I have always marveled at the regularity that former NOVAns take time from their busy schedules, often years after the fact, to come tell us how wretched our lives are up here. Sometimes I think they're trying to convince themselves of something...

(BTW, potholes are caused by freezing and thawing of pavement...so if it ain't freezing and thawing, you shouldn't have to worry about potholes. Now, sinkholes are a different story....don't they gobble up entire houses down there in paradise?)

[HarryLou]

Just sayin'... I'd be afraid of the fire ants.

[gomason]

Its great and all that Florida has very low taxes. In return you get pretty crappy schools. It's a trade off.

I dont know why you think Florida weather is that much better. All east coast basically sucks.

[Nancy in Nokomis]

We made the escape from NOVA last year - Florida is great - Sarasota County schools are the best and my son just got admitted into a school that is rated 6th in the nation! He would never had gotten into TJ with all the competition. Florida schools are great - I have seen it first hand! Don't knock the schools until you have tried them.

No more traffic, rude people and 3 hours to the beach. Florida is paradise - best thing we ever did was move here!

[breakingbad]

Originally Posted by SaintCabbage

Having lived in various parts of the DC area my entire life (35+ years), I knew nothing else. I spent the vast majority of that time in Loudoun county, with some stints here and there in Fairfax and Montgomery after college. Around 90% of all the people I knew growing up, going to school together, all went to various colleges in VA, then immediately returned 4 years later for employment somewhere in NoVA.

We would shout from the rooftops about how great it was living there and how affluent and diverse NoVA was, simply put, there's nowhere better, and truthfully never considered living anywhere else. Life was good, employment was plentiful, wages were high, so many places to go and do whatever you wanted, the world was our oyster!

Then life happened. We were put in a situation where our oldest (and only at the time) son was diagnosed with some medical issues that our insurance company refused to covered. We did what we could, tried to keep up, but it was too much. With the housing market crashing all around us and running out of creative ways to keep up with medical expenses, we did the unthinkable... we decided to move. It was a brief search, few states (at the time) provided the insurance coverage we needed, so we made the leap and chose Florida.

We sold everything we could, clothes, cars, piles of crap we had accumulated over the years and took a complete bath on our home. Rented a place sight unseen and hopped in the car in despair and woe. How could any other place on Earth be as good as NoVA?!? We left everything we knew knowing it would be a struggle every day and accepting the inevitable downgrade in our quality of life and social standing!

Then something funny happened... we passed the VA/NC border and the fog lifted. There weren't speed traps at every possible break in the trees, traffic virtually disappeared, and we weren't getting middle fingers from people for simply trying to merge, pass, or just stay in our lane. What happened to the cut-throat people who rather you collide with the concrete barrier then let you merge in? Where was the psychotic guy going 120 swerving in and out of traffic? And the sky, it's actually blue, not a murky milky exhaust filled white haze. Odd indeed...

So we made our way down to FL and found our rented home to be spacious, clean, and surprisingly well kept for something so "cheap". We were greeted by our neighbors with gifts of flowers and cookies welcoming us. Who were these weirdos franctically waving at us as we drove through the neighborhood and introducing themselves without wanting something in return?!? Strange...

Months would pass and we began to accept these weren't anomalies... We waited a grand total of 5 minutes in the DMV, the process was clear, concise, efficient, and they actually knew what they were doing. The grocery store was of high quality, clean, with no wait at the register. Roads were wide, pot-hole free, and lacking those familar concrete barriers and orange cones at every turn. Traffic? No such thing. Employment? Plentiful. Cost of Living? About a third to half of NoVA. State income tax? None. Personal Property Tax? None. Car Tax? None. State Inspections? None. Emissions? None. Medical Care? Superb. Weather? No brainer.

Quality of Life??? Infinitely better.

That was 4.5 years ago. We found employment easily (yes even IT), built a beautful new home for 1/4 what it would have cost "up there" (as we call it now), and we've had 2 more kids since then who both consider 70 to be "chilly". After several vists from our families over the years, we've conviced almost all of them to move as well. Very few left up there at this point and things couldn't be better for all of them.

What's the point you're saying... well we recently had a tragedy in our family and we had to return to handle some old family business. It's been long enough now that the culture shock of going back north was very apparent. During the drive back up, everything was as described coming down that first time... then we crossed the NC/VA line....

Speed traps everywhere, people driving like maniacs, ambulances, wrecks everywhere, the haze was back... We got to about Quantico on I-95 and dead stop. Tuesday afternoon, 2ish, dead stop. For miles and miles and miles. Nothing but congestion, honking, middle fingers everywhere, crazy people all over the road, wrecks left and right. We had to travel through PG county, Montgomery, Annapolis area, all over.

Hell on Earth.

There's too many damn people. The infrastructure can't handle it. Construction everywhere, it took us almost 45 minutes to travel 3 miles in Annapolis. Want to go get something to eat? Better get there at 4PM or 10PM. Costco? HA! Good luck finding a parking spot let alone getting in and out quickly. The weather is awful, the people are awful, just a bunch of transients who don't give two s**ts about anyone but themselves or old angry natives who grew up surrounded by cynism and bitterness. Every man for himself. I know, that was me and I didn't even realize it. Too proud and blind to accept there is a better world out there, and I implore you to seek it out.

Don't spend your lives wasting away up there. From the outside looking in, it's awful, you just can't see it yet.

I was wondering how your sick child is doing...did they get better?
I am orchestrating a move to NoVA and hope my warmth and friendliness don't put off people too much!