Should NOVA have its own "city forum"? (Richmond: move, beach) - Northern Virginia - Virginia - City-Data Forum

yankee.peddler · 04-01-2007, 04:13 PM

As a former resident of Alexandria, I think Northern Virginia is large enough and distinct enough within Virginia to merit its own "city forum" or "sub-forum". Does anyone concur? Has this been discussed in the past? (I'm relatively new to City-Data.com)

It just doesn't make sense to me to have threads on Alexandria and Reston lumped next to threads on Roanoke. Perhaps we could set NOVA to include (in this forum) Arlington, Alexandria, Fairfax, Loudon, and Prince William?

Just food for thought...

The Dissenter · 04-01-2007, 05:09 PM

i think so. if you give greenville SC a sub-forum how u not gonna give NoVA a subforum?

Gypsy-Moth · 04-01-2007, 05:23 PM

I agree, too, but even though we think so doesn't mean it will necessarily happen.

The Texas people have been asking for a Gulf Coast forum, and there are plenty of posts to support the need for it, but nothing happened.

saganista · 04-01-2007, 08:48 PM

NoVa is certainly distinct from the rest of the state in many ways. In fact I sometimes think we should secede...particularly when the legislature starts talking about running that 28-cents-on-the-dollar thing on us. But the forum is mostly for those who don't know too much about VA at all. I think it might make it harder on those looking for information if they had to know more about the state than pretty close to nothing in order to get their questions answered. And somebody would have to figure out if Fredericksburg counted as part of NoVa or not. If you tried, you might come up with a dozen distinct regions in VA, but I don't know whose interests would be served by having a dozen different sub-forums. If anything, I'd say the one for VaBeach should itself be dumped, rather than added to...

dullnboring · 04-01-2007, 09:24 PM

Personally, I'm indifferent. If a forum is created, great. If not, since the Virginia forum is not all that busy, it's not that difficult for me to sift through the threads to find the ones that I would like to post in in regards to Northern Virginia.

Michelle Boyle · 04-02-2007, 07:44 AM

ABSOLUTELY! I'm new to Citi-Data and I couldn't believe there wasn't a separate forum for Northern VA. It' true we are "different" than the rest of the state, but I don't think that necessarily matters in this case. I do agree that there really aren't alot of posts to sort through the ones that pertain to you, but it would make it a little easier, and maybe more people would jump in. About Fredericksburg, Usually they aren't considered part of the North. The cut off has generally been Woodbridge, but it seems the "DC sprawl" keeps going farther and farther South every year. It won't be long before there is just one big mega-city that spans from Baltimore to Richmond.

vasinger · 04-04-2007, 01:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Michelle Boyle

ABSOLUTELY! I'm new to Citi-Data and I couldn't believe there wasn't a separate forum for Northern VA. It' true we are "different" than the rest of the state, but I don't think that necessarily matters in this case. I do agree that there really aren't alot of posts to sort through the ones that pertain to you, but it would make it a little easier, and maybe more people would jump in. About Fredericksburg, Usually they aren't considered part of the North. The cut off has generally been Woodbridge, but it seems the "DC sprawl" keeps going farther and farther South every year. It won't be long before there is just one big mega-city that spans from Baltimore to Richmond.

I agree northern virginia is a tad different, but honestly its less and less so. Now central and southern Virginia are catching up. I dont see why Northern Virginians want to seperate themselves. They never did before.

ssdei38 · 04-04-2007, 11:19 PM

NoVa needs it's own forum. The entire population of Fairfax County alone is what....over a million or two? Correct me but I know it is huge....

Nova is the definition of a transient area. So many people move in because of white collar work, for the last 20 years NoVa has been different.

ashbrn4 · 04-05-2007, 04:21 AM

So, where do you draw the line?

saganista · 04-05-2007, 05:07 AM

Fairfax County, with just about 1.1 million residents, is larger by population than seven states, each of which does have its own forum, But the point is more toward how those wishing information about an area approach their search for it, and the existence of states and the names thereof are things that are quite familiar to all. One could arrange the boards by SMSA, which would quite sensibly in this case subsume NoVa, DC and the suburban MD counties into a single board, but there are a lot more than fifty SMSA's and people aren't in general familiar with very many of them. It seems to me that the current setup does get people where they need to go in most cases, and if it ain't broke...