Money Magazine names non-existent NOVA cities as Best Places to Live! (Alexandria: fit in, neighborhood)

[jjp4]

Best places to live 2008 - States: Virginia - from MONEY Magazine

That's the link. Not quite sure where the large cities of Hunter Mill (124,100people) and Sully (158,500 people) are located. They say that Hunter Mill is near Vienna and Reston. Even on the map, they show a pic of Reston. Makes you wonder what research actually went into this article.

[VRE332]

their news can be iffy too

[asil]

They must be takling about Sully Station, a development turned city.

[newgatedenizen]

Although the online article is a little unclear, Sully probably refers to the western-most Supervisor District of Fairfax County - the Sully District includes parts of such communities as Centreville, Chantilly, Oak Hill, Navy/Vale and Oakton.

[arabellava]

Last year they named "Wolftrap, VA" as a top city- this publication is completely a joke.. these are "cities" we know aren't cities since live here in VA- I imagine they have even more made-up cities in other states..

[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.

[Azmordean]

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.

Why? Okay, so the "City" is basically a made up name for an area... but presumably their data is still accurate for the "area" that the made up city name refers to. Yeah, Virginia is based on counties, but saying "Fairfax County is a great place to live" would be false and wouldn't be saying much. Fairfax county is huge, and there are both great areas to live there and not-so-great areas. So, US News takes the data for the areas of the county they like, and for easy presentation creates a "City Name" as a label for that area.

Sully, VA, for example, is much less a mouthful for outsiders than the "Sully Station area of Fairfax County, Virginia."

[jjp4]

Originally Posted by jahutch

Why? Okay, so the "City" is basically a made up name for an area... but presumably their data is still accurate for the "area" that the made up city name refers to. Yeah, Virginia is based on counties, but saying "Fairfax County is a great place to live" would be false and wouldn't be saying much. Fairfax county is huge, and there are both great areas to live there and not-so-great areas. So, US News takes the data for the areas of the county they like, and for easy presentation creates a "City Name" as a label for that area.

Sully, VA, for example, is much less a mouthful for outsiders than the "Sully Station area of Fairfax County, Virginia."

However the problem with this is that Money magazine considers Sully or Hunter Mill to be actual cities with large amounts of people. Can you tell me where Hunter Mill, VA is? The article even lists that it is near Vienna and Reston, and Burke is already on their list as well. Even if you plug in Hunter Mill, VA on Google Map or Mapquest, it isn't coming up.

If NOVA doesn't have cities that have populations of 50,000 to 300,000, then Money shouldn't just group places to make sure that they are included on the list.

[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.

[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...