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Another point I would like to make about "expensive Nova" is that you cannot come to Neiman Marcus and expect Wal-Mart prices, right? You may want to drive Mersedes but again you cannot expect to pay Honda price. Are you frustrated with it? My friend just moved to SC and her brand new 3500 sq.f. house (mansion, in my opinion) costs about twice less than my townhouse in Nova. Should I get upset? Of course, not.
I do get it - Nova is not cheap. And we all want different things which we may never be able to afford, so it is life. But if you are so frustrated with Nova - its prices, traffic, people, etc, then move to a cheaper and quiter place, smaller town, with appropriate cost of living. No problem. Again, good luck!
The dream is to get a NoVA salary in a South Carolina town!
Honestly it just seems like you pay a lot to live in
the middle of nowhere. Actual towns are really few and far between here.
Manassas, leesburg, that's about it. Maybe its just hard to find a sense of
community when you can't even really name the town you live in?
I dont know.
I just never have gotten this way of thinking, and could be the fact that I'm from the area, but I've never understood why buildings make a community. So many people on here bemoan the fact that there isn't a Main Street area where quaint shops line the street and there's a parade every weekend. Community is what your surrounded by, and at the end of the day, its PEOPLE. I grew up in the MD suburbs where there was no "town" and absolutely thought my neighborhood was a community. If you look at the definition of community there is no mention of "quaint old buildings on a walkable street". I've lived all over NoVA and always felt a sense of community. It's a mindset, attitude and putting yourself out there, not a place.
I get that. This seems to be a common thread from people who come from areas where there were historically small (or larger) towns that centered around some sort of industry. Places like Pittsburgh, Asheville, etc. come to mind.
In NoVA, and the DC area in general, that not how it's going to be. DC and it's business and politics have driven the Maryland and VA areas so our "town" is really DC. Everything that was built was based on DC being the epicenter. So suburbs were built to house all the people going into DC. These suburbs didn't have their own "town" feel because they were strictly planned as places to house people. They aren't independent of the DC work center. Now, as time has marched on, we've had other work centers develop outside of DC, namely the Dulles Tech corridor, but it just doesn't seem to create "towns" that people are looking for that come from that sort of thing.
I am a DC native so I have never missed this town feeling that some are really longing for. The closest I ever get to it is being in a college town or the time I spent living on military bases and, yes, there are definitely some real community vibes going on there that we don't have here.
My daughter, who is also native to this area, has spent the last few years in places like Morgantown, Pittsburgh, some suburbs outside Philly, and she really likes those "town" aspects; however, she's never had to do it permanently so I'm not sure how she'd feel about it long term after spending most of her life here in such a large, diverse area.
Yep, agreed and I grew up in NoVa as well and you summed it up perfectly.
I wish there was a disclaimer before creating a thread here, "Anyone wondering -- there are no small, quiet, quaint towns in Northern Virginia. And don't allow Google to make you think Clifton or Occoquan are small towns, they are congested 'towns' that are used by commuters during rush hour to avoid other congested roads."
I've lived in NoVa for about a year and am completely frustrated with the area. Even the cheapest studio apartment is well out of reach for most working people. You work your 50 hour week and sit in traffic for two hours a each day and what the heck do you get for your effort?
- A rented room in another person's house
- no personal life because the culture here is work work work
- The tiny amount of money you're able to save despite NoVa's best efforts to take it from you
And if you really grind it out and try to make a life here you get what?
- A 450k townhouse
- Friendly Neighbors who will smile to your face.... and report you to the HOA if you paint your door the wrong color
END POINTLESS RANT
what am I missing here? I'm sure this area has fantastic things about it. I just probably have not seen them because of all the moping and complaining
I lived in Alexandria for six years or so. My biggest gripe was the traffic. I can't begin to tell you how many times I got in my car and started to go somewhere, only to turn around and go back home because of the traffic. I just wasn't about to sit in bumper to bumper gridlock. I finally got used to just hanging around in my neighborhood, which I guess wasn't all that bad. Every kind of restaurant you could imagine, all within a few blocks. My apartment was expensive, but I was making good money, so that wasn't a real problem. Just the traffic.
Location: Chapel Hill, NC, formerly NoVA and Phila
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Middlin
I just never have gotten this way of thinking, and could be the fact that I'm from the area, but I've never understood why buildings make a community. So many people on here bemoan the fact that there isn't a Main Street area where quaint shops line the street and there's a parade every weekend. Community is what your surrounded by, and at the end of the day, its PEOPLE. I grew up in the MD suburbs where there was no "town" and absolutely thought my neighborhood was a community. If you look at the definition of community there is no mention of "quaint old buildings on a walkable street". I've lived all over NoVA and always felt a sense of community. It's a mindset, attitude and putting yourself out there, not a place.
I think it's because you are from the area. Growing up in a town in Pennsylvania that wasn't particularly quaint and didn't have a main street like many other PA towns, we still had a strong feeling of being from "our town." The whole town went to 6 elementary schools which fed into 2 middle schools, which fed into 1 high school (unless you went the local Catholic school which was also in town). Every Friday night in the fall there was a football game. We played one of the many rival towns' teams. We had one library in town, one McDonald's that was "our" McDonald's, our own pizza places, a Memorial Day parade every year, the July 4th fireworks at the high school, the spring fair at the high school, The police were "our" police as were the firefighters.
There was a clear delineation between our town and the next town. They had their own high school and lower schools, their own Catholic church. They had their own McDonald's, their own parades and festivals, their own library and police/fire, etc. They played US in football and other sports. They were our rival town.
Add in the fact that it wasn't transient AT ALL where I lived, so people not only lived in their town for generations, but they had many relatives who also lived there. There was a huge sense of pride in being from that particular (or any) town.
I never felt any connection to the "county" that I lived in. Other than the courts (and probably some things I wasn't aware of), most everything was run at the township level, so my town of about 12K was my feeling of community and belonging.
When I first moved to the DC area, I could not stop saying how the area didn't have a community feeling. I didn't know if it was because I was new to the area, because it was a transient metro area, or because it wasn't set up at a township level like PA was. Now, looking back after 25 years, I can say that it was all three of those things that played into the feeling of lack of community. But even after I wasn't new to the area, the transience of the people who live there, the sprawl between one "town" and the next (so there's no delineation between "towns") and the fact that most everything was county-wide still made it feel like less of a community than where I grew up. And I say that as someone who would give my eye-teeth to move back to NoVA, so I'm not being negative about it, just objective.
When I go to visit my sister who has moved to a different town in PA (45 minutes from where I grew up, so I have no ties to it), it still feels like a much more local-type of place, where generations have lived and it has its own flavor and hometown pride. It has a much different feeling than NoVA which has a huge international presence, people moving in and out, and kids who drive across the county to go to their public school.
Note:
*The towns in Pennsylvania are suburban Philadelphia, so I'm not talking about middle-of-nowhere PA vs. big city DC
**I am only speaking of my experience of PA vs. DC. Can't comment on why others feel that way - coming from other parts of the country
***It just occurred to me as I wrote this that the Catholic Church might have a big part of that township-loyal feeling. Even though I'm not Catholic, traditionally, Catholics only went to church in their own parish, and being that Pennsylvania is so heavily Catholic, each town pretty much had its own Catholic Church, so I'm guessing there was less mixing of churchgoers between towns than in areas that are heavily Protestant where churchgoers are free to go to any church they want in neighboring towns.
Good post! I wanted to add to that a bit in that some of that could be part of childhood/adulthood perceptions. I stated upthread that I am a DC native so I don't get the "town" thing. But in reading your post, it was actually the same for me. I started out in DC and once I was school aged, my parents moved to the Maryland suburbs. I was raised in both Ft. Washington and Clinton, MD. These are not formal towns. Yet, in Clinton at that time:
There were 5-6 elementary schools that fed to three junior high schools, that fed to two high schools.
There was one Catholic school that was K-8.
Every Friday night or Saturday this was a football game and we usually had a big rivalry with two other high schools that were close by but not in our "town."
We always hung out at the Clinton McDonald's or hit up Margalina's pizza.
Our town had a Boy's and Girl's club.
A 4th of July parade and fireworks at the park or behind the library after that was built.
In reading your post, my community experience was VERY much like yours.
Now I live in Woodbridge and, in thinking about it, we actually have all those things but on a bigger scale. More schools mainly, but still the same rivalries, we have the parade, fireworks. I think it's just SO MUCH BIGGER.
Maybe that's the key is that the population growth plus the already large amount of people to begin with?
Michgc. Your description seems very similar to the Detroit suburbs I grew up. The DC area is indeed very different with the emphasis on County governments. It took me a while to get used to the way it works here.
Hey ChristineVA - I grew in up in Camp Springs and went to Crossland HS and pretty much had the same experience you did. We had one ES, one MS & one HS. I think I'm probably older than you are, but do you remember Oscar's or Regina's pizzeria? I remember going to Clinton Inn with Dad a couple of times and going to the drive in.
Hey ChristineVA - I grew in up in Camp Springs and went to Crossland HS and pretty much had the same experience you did. We had one ES, one MS & one HS. I think I'm probably older than you are, but do you remember Oscar's or Regina's pizzeria? I remember going to Clinton Inn with Dad a couple of times and going to the drive in.
I sure do! Well, I don't overly remember Oscar's but my friend in junior high--her parents owned Regina's! GREAT place. Yes, you were our rivals (Surrattsville). Also Friendly HS was a rival. I went to Stephen Decatur Junior High though which fed some of Clinton and mostly Camp Springs.
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