Winchester: What's the "Catch?" (Arlington, Fairfax: homes, unemployment rate, buy)

[The Dissenter]

Originally Posted by South Jersey Styx

Agree with the previous three posts: Location does make a difference. Simple proof (currently) can be found over on the "General Moving Issues" Forum where there are lots of folks all over the country lamenting about where they currently live (whether it is urban, rural, suburb or whatever) and how much they feel out of whack and just want to leave. Many of them have similar feelings as RR; he isn't alone out there on this topic.

BTW, how's that saying go: "Home is Where You Hang Your Hat." Wherever that may be.

Yep, I've been noticeably more generous and less irritable since I've left NoVA. This while conducting a frustrating job search.

Like I've said; location isn't the whole cure but it can be a critical part.

[South Jersey Styx]

Originally Posted by Alanboy395

Yep, I've been noticeably more generous and less irritable since I've left NoVA. This while conducting a frustrating job search.

Good luck with your job search! I hope you find something soon.

[Ashburnite]

I would imagine that the further you get from the big cities the slower the pace and the more relaxing the lifestyle. I moved to NoVa from a small/medium sized college town in Texas and there is a difference in the pace of life here. So whether one goes to Winchester, Warrenton, Fredericksburg, or wherever, my guess is the atmosphere may be a little more relaxing there.

[itslowell]

As a college student who has lived in Winchester (Boyce) my entire life, I can tell you that it may not be all that you imagine it to be.

I now live in Burlington, Vermont, and my first visit back home in November was quite an eye opener. People tend to brag about a sort of "new liberalism" taking hold of Virginia, in Fairfax and Loudoun counties in particular. I can tell you that the physical barrier of the Blue Ridge between Loudoun and Clarke County serve as an imposing political barrier as well.

After a semester at UVM, Winchester seems to me to be a city in limbo. The growth in Winchester was mainly being filled by NoVA money - people like yourself who were looking for an exurb of DC, with a bit different pace of life. That lasted until the burst of the housing bubble. Now just take a drive on Senseny Road, between Jim Barnett Park and Opequon Creek, and you'll see just where the recession hit Winchester.

This seems to be the only growth direction in which Winchester is/was progressing. Some of the other newer neighborhoods lie along Merrimans Lane, off of Routes 7 and 50, and in Meadow Branch.

Things that I can remember not being in Winchester within my lifetime:
-Target
-Starbucks
-Home Depot
-A second Wal-Mart
-Best Buy
-Outback Steakhouse
-Any Indian or Thai food

On the other end of the spectrum, examine places like National Avenue. Lots of low-income homes, and these aren't the houses people are moving in to with great number. So what eventually happens is that the salt-and-Earth is eventually priced out of town. The incandescent light bulbs GE once made in this town are now obsolete, and the plant is shutting its doors.

in my opinion, Virginia is a rotting log of a state. This country grew out of it, but what was once there lost life back in the 1960s, where much of this state still stands politically. Nowadays, the only thing growing is the perpetual fungus of suburbia.

[stpickrell]

itslowell: What would have happening instead of the growing of the "perpetual fungus of suburbia?"

I've lived in the urban village -- for my wife and me, it SUCKED. Drunken neighbors fighting, bumming/harassing us for money, [some people] hasssling us whenever we parked near their house ... heck, the drug dealer and the 20-to-a-house Hispanics at least left us alone. They were among our better neighbors.

I live in Vienna now. Is that a "fungus"?

How would you like things to be? Ageing factories making the same technology? Do you think we should outlaw CFL and LED bulbs so we can keep making incandescent light bulbs?

[JD984]

It's not unusual for college students to believe that the scales have fallen away from their eyes for the first time when they go off to college - particularly if they attend school in an attractive, "progressive" town like Burlington. Hence the inspired "rotting log" and "perpetual fungus" rhetoric typical of a freshman essay.

Winchester may not be perfect, but it has its considerable charms. You may view it through a different prism in 5-10 years.

[arielmina]

Originally Posted by JEB77

It's not unusual for college students to believe that the scales have fallen away from their eyes for the first time when they go off to college - particularly if they attend school in an attractive, "progressive" town like Burlington. Hence the inspired "rotting log" and "perpetual fungus" rhetoric typical of a freshman essay.

Winchester may not be perfect, but it has its considerable charms. You may view it through a different prism in 5-10 years.

THIS

Burlington is a GREAT city and UVM is a great and fun school...however if this poster goes anywhere else in Vermont, they will also see very clearly that Vermont is a dying state, much more so than VA. At least you can find jobs here in VA. Not so, up there.

[Caladium]

Originally Posted by JEB77

It's not unusual for college students to believe that the scales have fallen away from their eyes for the first time when they go off to college - particularly if they attend school in an attractive, "progressive" town like Burlington. Hence the inspired "rotting log" and "perpetual fungus" rhetoric typical of a freshman essay.

Winchester may not be perfect, but it has its considerable charms. You may view it through a different prism in 5-10 years.

Beautifully said, and so true.

Suburbia and small towns appeal more to people as they get older. There are lots of exceptions, of course, but in general I recommend that anyone under the age of 25 live only in cities or artsy, hip towns. Soon enough urban streets and artsy towns will lose a lot of their appeal, and suburbs will seem more attractive. But that doesn't seem to happen until your late 20s or even into your 30s.

[robbobobbo]

Originally Posted by Caladium

Beautifully said, and so true.

Suburbia and small towns appeal more to people as they get older. There are lots of exceptions, of course, but in general I recommend that anyone under the age of 25 live only in cities or artsy, hip towns. Soon enough urban streets and artsy towns will lose a lot of their appeal, and suburbs will seem more attractive. But that doesn't seem to happen until your late 20s or even into your 30s.

48 here, still waiting for that to happen!

[JD984]

Originally Posted by robbobobbo

48 here, still waiting for that to happen!

Got it. Sometimes, there can be a tendency for we suburbanites to speak of urban living in terms almost reminiscent of 1 Corinthians 13:11 ("yes, some day, you will put away your childish [urban] things and learn to dwell among the adult pod people of the Beltway").

Some of us like the suburbs, some of us like the cities, and some of us like both. It's still a time-honored rite of passage for many young folks to reject - for at least some period of time - the environment where they grew up. It could just as easily be someone who grew up in New York City rejecting the Upper East Side for a commune in Vermont or a kibbutz in Israel as someone who grew up in Winchester turning his or her back on that town once they've lived in Burlington.