Is Fairfax County VA on the decline? (Arlington, Washington: 2013, job market)

[slaminjamin87]

Years of budget cuts to schools, parks, higher property taxes, and high cost of living is putting Fairfax County in a tough spot economically. Where costs to renovate parks and funding to schools are going up as well as taxes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...dca_story.html

[gomason]

You just love a death spiral.

[spencgr]

Originally Posted by slaminjamin87

Years of budget cuts to schools, parks, higher property taxes, and high cost of living is putting Fairfax County in a near death spiral situation.

death spiral situation??? Really? Exaggerate much?

Read up on Detroit and let me know if you think Fairfax County still nearing a death spiral.

[slaminjamin87]

Originally Posted by spencgr

death spiral situation??? Really? Exaggerate much?

Read up on Detroit and let me know if you think Fairfax County still nearing a death spiral.

Just corrected my wording. I didn't mean to alienate anyone.

[NOVA_guy]

Washington Post can be incredibly dramatic. Nothing about Fairfax is declining, it's changing as everything does. But Fairfax will always be Fairfax.

I do think it'll be interesting in the next decade to see if Loudoun will become the 'new' Fairfax of Virginia though.

[airjay75]

Similar stories could probably be written about many suburban areas in the country that were previously a place of fast growth and lots of development. Eventually, the county gets effectively built out and stops growing so fast - the new growth and development moves further out. You can no longer depend on ever increasing tax revenue from all the newly developed property and you enter a different phase of operations. You become more of an "inner-ring" suburb than an "outer-ring" suburb or exurb. I don't view it as a county in decline so much as a county that needs to change some of its focus.

[Mnseca]

Fairfax County perpetuates a myth that everything here is "world-class," from schools to parks. In fact, it has very little to offer other than proximity to DC (questionable value) and a thriving job market (excellent value). If the job market disappeared one day, few people would have reason to come here. There just isn't any other real draw.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by slaminjamin87

Years of budget cuts to schools, parks, higher property taxes, and high cost of living is putting Fairfax County in a tough spot economically. Where costs to renovate parks and funding to schools are going up as well as taxes.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local...dca_story.html

The total school budget is actually increasing, not getting cut. It is just not increasing as much as some would like to see, or by as much as is needed to pay competitive salaries to our teachers as long as FCPS is going to offer a whole range of academic programs that no other local jurisdiction offers.

You can go to Arlington, and you won't find the Advanced Academic Programs offered in FCPS, or the variety of Academy programs with a vocational training emphasis, or the range of language immersion programs (FCPS has not only Spanish, as in Arlington, but also German, French, and Korean immersion programs). You can go to Loudoun, and you won't find any of that, either, nor will you find any high schools that offer the International Baccalaureate program that FCPS offers at nearly one-third of its high schools and which is more expensive than the Advanced Placement program.

I can see you like the threads about the next impending disaster - whether it's Tysons, Metro, or Fairfax - but it's going to be OK, really. If you think we have it bad, because we've demonstrated that we have a bigger appetite than willingness to open our wallets, you ought to check out some other areas.

[JD984]

Originally Posted by Mnseca

Fairfax County perpetuates a myth that everything here is "world-class," from schools to parks. In fact, it has very little to offer other than proximity to DC (questionable value) and a thriving job market (excellent value). If the job market disappeared one day, few people would have reason to come here. There just isn't any other real draw.

Not a fan of the word "world-class" because I'm never sure what it means and it reeks of slick boosterism - which all DC-area jurisdictions, including Fairfax, have engaged in from time to time.

However, we certainly do have some nice parks and recreation facilities, and some of the test data certainly suggests that FCPS students are well-prepared compared to their peers elsewhere in the United States and around the globe. The latest tabulated PISA results speak to the latter point:

http://www.fcps.edu/pla/ost/pisa/pis...14_index.shtml

If metropolitan regions had no job markets, few people would live there, period. Well, except maybe Portland, which is where young people supposedly go to retire.

[The Dissenter]

If I'm ever convinced Fairfax County is declining, I would just take a trip to Kingstowne with the new roads and Wegmans. Now if we are talking just Baileys Crossroads that is a different matter altogether.