Fredericksburg Photo Tour (Richmond, Alexandria, Reston: cul-de-sac, 2009, apartments)

[ScranBarre]

Hello forum!

I decided to stay home from work today for a "mental health day" of sorts (i.e. sleep deprivation + stressful week + continued depression = need for a day of "down time") so I determined this might be as good of a time as any to finally post the photos I snapped of Fredericksburg this past Sunday. Fredericksburg sits just north of the midway point between Washington, DC and Richmond and is a very historic community (as you'll see below). The town embodies much of what I crave in NoVA but sadly can never find---a walkable downtown environment with plenty of independent businesses as well as surrounding leafy residential neighborhoods. There is also a Virginia Railway Express (VRE) commuter station here, but I'd hazard a guess to say the commute to Washington, DC must not be a pleasant one.

This is my third photo tour thus far of the area. I have already done a http://www.city-data.com/forum/west-...rry+Photo+Tour as well as an http://www.city-data.com/forum/north...ria+Photo+Tour and will most certainly have more to come. I hope to do some beautiful tours of Loudoun County next month when the Fall colors are nearing their peak. I also will most likely head to Reston Town Center at some point soon to do a photo tour---both daytime and nighttime. If there are any other suggestions please feel free to send them my way. I'm generally unhappy living in NoVA, but my hope is that seeing that there are nice places to live here---such as the ones I'm photographing, that in time as my income level rises I'll be able to move to one of these near-Utopian locales and feel much happier than I currently do in the sea of cul-de-sacs.

Without further adieu I present to you FREDERICKSBURG!














































Wow! I could really use one of those sometimes!








Sigh....seeing my car parked in front of this beautiful home makes me even more depressed to know I'll never be a homeowner myself someday down here.


Well, that's it for the tour. Let me know what to shoot next!

[snuffy2009]

talk to your boss and ask to telecommute and buy in Fredburg...ohh yeah.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by snuffy2009

talk to your boss and ask to telecommute and buy in Fredburg...ohh yeah.

I wish I could do that! To be honest I really wouldn't mind an hour commute each way, so maybe in a few years I will just finally decide to plant myself firmly exactly where I'd like to live instead of just "settling" for where I live now.

[juniperbleu]

Aww, F'burg......memories...

Btw, the second picture is where I pretended to be one of the drunk cooks that are rumored to have started the big fire in 1807 (I think) for a ghost tour.

By the way, rent's cheaper down there. If you really like it and wouldn't mind the commute (or could telecommute for some of the time), it's worth looking into.

[snuffy2009]

I mentioned moving to Fburg to my wife....I work in Old Town Alex. I could take the VRE...only problem, often work overtime but it does look very very nice.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by snuffy2009

I mentioned moving to Fburg to my wife....I work in Old Town Alex. I could take the VRE...only problem, often work overtime but it does look very very nice.

This is truly the way NoVA should be---not chain restaurants, HOAs, cul-de-sacs, soccer moms, etc., etc. Obviously not every area is going to be a historic mecca, but when you have a place like Fairfax County with 1,200,000 or so residents you'd expect to have more options for a similar atmosphere---a traditional downtown with mom-and-pops as a core with sidewalk-adorned and tree-lined residential neighborhoods---other than just Falls Church. In order for me to ultimately "survive" down here without going insane I WILL have to move to a place like Fredericksburg, Falls Church, Leesburg (proper), Old Town Alexandria, Winchester, Culpeper, Warrenton, etc. Right now I just feel like I live in a place with no identity, charm, or soul. I don't walk the streets here and get a true sense of history or nostalgia, and that's really what I crave. I wish we had that option in more of NoVA.

[juniperbleu]

Originally Posted by ScranBarre

This is truly the way NoVA should be---not chain restaurants, HOAs, cul-de-sacs, soccer moms, etc., etc.

I'd venture to say that's largely because of its distance from DC. When I went to college it was sort of the northern border of the "real" Virginia, with plenty of Confederate flags around and "damn Yankee" t-shirts in the mall kiosks. Much of it is also a historical site, so any new development has to jump through a lot of hoops or at the very least deal with some resistance. Once you get out of the "city" you'll run into all the HOAs, cul-de-sacs, soccer moms, strip malls, etc. You have to also be careful in comparing a place that was a town in its own right before DC ever existed (and was a far ride once it did) to a place like Reston that started out as a planned community. Living in a "town center" (to me) is almost equivalent to living in a shopping mall. It's great for some people, but not for everyone.

[athousandlogins]

Interesting to see soccer moms lumped in with chain restaurants as a blight. You think you're a human being with value and purpose, then you find out you're just the flesh-and-blood equivalent of Applebees.

I enjoyed the photos, seriously. I had no idea it was so cute down there.

[ScranBarre]

Originally Posted by juniperbleu

Living in a "town center" (to me) is almost equivalent to living in a shopping mall. It's great for some people, but not for everyone.

That's the problem I see with Reston Town Center. It doesn't feel like a traditional "downtown" for Reston. It feels like a shopping mall. I live literally 1/4-mile walk from there and don't feel any sort of personal identity or attachment to it or its "ever-so-humble" array of merchants like Williams-Sonoma, Pottery Barn, Apple, etc. Instead of blending into the surrounding landscape gradually with dense high-rises at the core trailing off to mid-rise condos to townhomes to single-family homes like most cities you have big-box stores right next-door along with surface parking lots and low-rise apartments. I feel ashamed of myself to be in the minority I guess that misses the type of "in-town" environment that you CAN find in places like Fredericksburg, Falls Church, Leesburg (proper), Winchester, etc. Not every part of NoVA near to DC had to eschew this sort of environment. I suppose that's been my biggest "hurdle" to overcome with the adjustment down here---getting used to the idea of not having a downtown. Cities like Philadelphia have suburbs like West Chester, Media, Quakertown, New Hope, etc., etc. with typical "in-town" environments. I can say the same for many other cities. What in NoVA honestly compares? I'm not trying to say "NoVA sucks," but seriously where can I go in NoVA to get the Fredericksburg "vibe?"

[michgc]

Nice pictures, Scran. I, too, think downtown Fredericksburg is very cute. I love walkable downtowns, especially quaint-looking ones.