Money Magazine names non-existent NOVA cities as Best Places to Live!

[EuroExpat]

Man I felt dumb reading that list. So there is no town called Sully. Hah.

[saganista]

There are no towns called anything other than Clifton, Herndon, or Vienna. Alexandria, Fairfax, and Falls Church are meanwhile cities. Everywhere else is nowhere, man...

[springfieldva]

I personally, find the towns of Lee Chapel and Silverbrook to be quite lovely.

[arabellava]

Whatever it's called- census or whatever designated- if you get a map- they designate Mclean, Vienna, Oakton etc.. If you refer to a printed map- same thing. If you look up mapquest/google maps/yahoo maps- you get the same thing. If you ask residents, they all refer to the same thing. So for one publication to come up with their version of "small cities"- then it's a joke. No matter how you justify money magazine's "rigid" methology..They simply are not recognized cities. Let's see someone who listed wolftrap, va or sully, va as their address- it's insulting a reader's intelligence.

[arabellava]

p.s I would in no way consider a county government's designation of responsibilities the standard of what a city or county is formally structured..

[jjp4]

Originally Posted by Novamom06

Hunter Mill and Sully are voting districts in Fairfax County. Several years ago Sugarland Run was named in the article as a best place to live too, in Loudoun county, and it consists of the entire Sterling area. Sugarland is a small neighborhood, but the larger area used for the survey was the voting district.

Per the fairfax county website:
Communities included in the Hunter Mill District include parts of Tysons Corner and Vienna, north Vienna, Reston, Oak Hill, and some areas around Herndon.

The Sully District comprises the areas of Centreville, Clifton, Chantilly, and Oakton.

Based on having both of these large districts named, plus Burke, I think it is safe to say that much of Northern Fairfax County is a great place to live, at least according to Money's benchmarks.

Originally Posted by Saganista

Exactly. It's most of the places that people have actually heard of -- McLean, Great Falls, Centreville, Chantilly, and even Burke -- that don't actually exist. These are merely "Census-designated places". They have no other form or function at all. So if you were going try to subdivide Fairfax County on any effective basis, using the supervisory districts (the only consistently defined level below the level of the County itself) would be the most sensible way. Here's a map of those districts...

Fairfax County Supervisory Districts

About 1.1 million people live in Fairfax County, making it larger than seven states and almost twice as populous as the District. As the County has the highest median household income of any county in the country (there are 3,000+ of them, all in all), Fairfax has some of the nicest areas to live in to be found anywhere. It would be tossing all of those out simply because they aren't formally incorporated areas that would be just plain silly. So says at least one proud Hunter Miller....

I get both the points you are trying to make. However, that goes against the criteria of the article. Plus, if you actually look at the list on the link I posted and the top, Reston and Burke are both listed as best places to live too. So, how could they be on the list if they are already part of a bigger "city" (and I use that word very loosely) in Hunter Mill? And why would the article about Hunter Mill list that it is nearby to Vienna if it is already part of the "city"??!?!?

[reiliz]

Is the problem that they mirepresented or that the area they address really is not that nice a place to live? I need to know I am planning onm moving there sometime next year.

[arabellava]

The problem is that if you try to find a house in "sully, va" or "hunter mill, va" you won';t find it- they are general areas- not cities. Based on the article, I;d say their lame writers drew the data and concluded Hunter Mill was good- based on their description- it would be Vienna, VA near Wolftrap. I agree that area is nice but in general their methodology and "thoroughness" makes me queezy that I would take their "best cities" with a grain of salt. welcome to nova!

[DominionANG]

They are just giving a name to an area which technically does not have a name. For example, if anyone knows Manassas, everyone, even those who live there consider Manassas to be everything from the Battlefield Park to what is known as Old Towne Manassas. But what is known as Old Towne is the actual Manassas, as in the City of; it starts right around the hospital. Everything along 234 from Godwin Drive to the Battlefield is technically the middle of no-where. But some may refer to it as Sudley.

Another example, is Tyson's Corner. Yes, lots of people and business list Tyson's Corner, or just Tyson's, VA as their address. But there is no such thing. Yes, no such thing, even though there are two named Tyson's malls. Technically, if in the middle of Tyson's, around where route 123 and 495 cross route 7, one could be in four places at once. For those that know the area, moving clockwise along route 7, the 495 side is technically Falls Church. The 123 side towards Vienna is, you guessed it, Vienna. The route 7 side extending west towards the toll road is Reston. And the northern side of 123 is McLean.

Apply the same logic to Hunter Mill as applied to Tyson's Corner. It's a big area, but it doesn't have the 4 corners like Tyson's. (And fyi, I don't literally mean 4 corners like UT, NM, CO, and AZ. Just trying to give a mental picture of how close the 4 towns borders are) In any case, parts of Hunter Mill are in Reston, down South Lakes Drive pass South Lakes High; Herndon, Baron Cameron Road; another part of Reston, down Weihle Drive. All moving in the direction as other's have stated towards Wolf Trap. If you take Weihle, however it's supposed to be spelled, towards Tyson's and Wolf Trap, you will come upon a small shopping center, Safeway, cleaners, bank, etc. and everything is named Hunter Mill.

[ArizonaBear]

Originally Posted by kevbros

Virginia doesn't fit into the model developed by Money. As an old plantation state, Virginia's government is based on counties, not cities. in NoVa there are a few "cities" like Falls Church and Alexandria with their own schools and police departments, but only a handful. This really skews Money's model, so they must just make up a "city" based on zip codes. Such methodology definitely calls into question the validity of the whole project.

No joke there: Arlington is a de facto city-----despite being designated as a 'county'. I would know being that I lived there from 1969-78. We had both a police department and a sheriff's department as well-----yet the former handled actual day to day law enforcement duties.

Another oddity is San Francisco: the city and county of SF are contiguous with one another.