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In your post you mentioned about the presence of high gang violence in Lincolnia area, I believe zip code 22312.
Not violence, but presence, and not high, but higher than most other areas. In other words, instead of maybe 0.5% of high school aged kids involved in gangs, in Lincolnia, it's maybe 2%. I'm just pulling these figures out of thin air, but the gist of it is that while there is more of a criminal element (both gang-related and not) in Lincolnia largely for socioeconomic reasons, it's still not an area overrun by gangs even if you're more likely to see gang graffiti and "questionable" looking people.
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We are looking for a townhouse in that area this weekend. The exact location is exit 2A off 395 to Edsall Rd and first light right on bloomfield dr. Its a new community by Ryan Homes called Sullivan Place. Do you have any information about that community or that area in general?
I would like to know the trends in that area whether its getting better or its going down. Is buying a house will provide a good quality of life (safety, good schools, shopping, commute) and also ability to build equity in the house.
I haven't been in that specific community so I can't speak for much of it. In general though, Lincolnia is an older suburb. The shopping centers are a bit older with more stores catering to lower-income levels (laundromats, dollar stores, Salvation Army, etc.) and many of the apartment complexes could use a good dose of new paint and some improved landscaping. For Northern Virginia, the area is sort of rough. By nationwide standards though, it's not really that bad. Think more blue collar and working class as opposed to urban ghetto. It's just that the contrast between largely white collar and upper middle class Fairfax County makes it appear worse than it is. There is a higher crime rate here than most of Fairfax County, but the crime is largely petty crime such as thefts, vandalism and car break-ins, but more violent crimes like assaults and armed robberies do occur with more frequency than most other suburbs so of course, you have to be mindful of your surroundings. The schools in the area are bad for Northern Virginia (most pronounced at the elementary level), but on a national scale, probably just average or a bit below average. I believe most of Lincolnia eventually funnels into Annandale High School. There was a post inquiring about Annandale HS awhile back so you can perform a search to see what people had to say about it. Basically though, it's a decent school with many of the same opportunities for academically inclinded students that other high schools have, but it has a bit of a rougher reputation.
As a whole, is the Lincolnia area on a slump or an upswing? Well, I'd say the area is actually fairly static. There's some areas that have fallen into disrepair and others where new townhouse developments are springing up. It's not becoming a yuppie hotspot overnight a la Arlington or parts of Alexandria, but it's not going the way of the Route 1 Corridor (although that's improving greatly as well) either. It's somewhere in between. I think when you visit, you'll get a good gauge on the direction things are headed.
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Please throw some light on what MS-13 gang means? Is it something attached to school or in general on street violence?
MS-13 is the shortened name of Mara Salvatrucha, a street gang started by Salvadoran immigrants in California that soon spread to the DC area. They are generally regarded as one of the fastest-growing gangs in the U.S. They are largely composed of immigrants or native-born Latinos, mostly of Salvadoran descent, but "welcome" others as well. Like most gangs, they generally mark themselves with tattoos, many have shaved heads, and they involve themselves in drug and arms trafficking, prostitution and things of that nature.
I've raised three children in Northern Virginia. The youngest will graduate from Fairfax High School next year. Most things in life are relative. We have a tendency to fret over things like gangs because we have few other things that are real threats to our lifestyle. My second ex-husband (I'm not good at the marriage thing) is Australian. He joined the Australian Royal Navy at 16 as a boy seaman and that was back in the early 60's. He served in the Vietnam War and saw a lot of the world. Whenever my children (from the first marriage) complained about how hard their life was, he would point out that they had more advantages than three quarters of the world's children on any given day. I don't think it impressed my elementary school aged children, but it made an impression on me.
Recently I read a story of children abducted and put into slavery in China to make bricks. They weave rugs in India, or sell themselves on the streets of Rio. Many children in Africa are born with AIDS. We sit in here in this country and fret over imagined threats to our children when they will not really go hungry, or die of disease, or be killed by the ravages of civil war. They are more likely to be diagnosed with depression, threaten suicide, threaten homocide, or end up on some sort of maintenance medication to alter their brain chemistry. This is the joy of living in the greatest nation on earth rather than in a developing third world country. There are still threats to our children, but I've seen the enemy - and it is us.
In your post you mentioned about the presence of high gang violence in Lincolnia area, I believe zip code 22312. We are looking for a townhouse in that area this weekend. The exact location is exit 2A off 395 to Edsall Rd and first light right on bloomfield dr. Its a new community by Ryan Homes called Sullivan Place. Do you have any information about that community or that area in general?
I would like to know the trends in that area whether its getting better or its going down. Is buying a house will provide a good quality of life (safety, good schools, shopping, commute) and also ability to build equity in the house.
Please throw some light on what MS-13 gang means? Is it something attached to school or in general on street violence? What do you think about the crimes like burglary, property theft etc. in that area?
Awaiting your comments,
Thanks,
Met
Met,
I've seen ads for that townhome development and the prices they are asking aren't very comparable for the area. I believe they originally priced at the height of the boom and haven't brought down prices in line with other places. Take a look at listings for the area to see how far your money goes; you'll see what I mean. As far as gang activity in that area, I believe what little there is occurs further down Edsall rd near Yoakum and Van Dorn. That area where you are looking is actually pretty underdeveloped for an inside the beltway location and I don't believe there are any major plans to improve it.
The prime reason that we don't see a lot of gang violence is that the Fairfax County police and recent state Attorneys General have taken the matter very seriously and have kept it from escalating out of control. I'm very grateful for this.
The Virginia police and DA's don't play around with this stuff. I would be very surprised to hear of any serious gang violence/illegal activity in Ashburn specifically. I'd be mildly surprised to hear of anything other than high school "wannabe" gang activities anywhere in Loudoun County -- at least anything that was a menace to the general public.
I think Maryland and regions of downtown D.C., have more cause for concern than NoVA.
On the one hand, Virginians have to put up with almost over the top traffic law enforcement; on the other hand, it pays for a strong police presence that keeps the place under control for law abiding people.
P.S. don't even think about drinking and driving in VA (or anywhere else, but in VA, if you get caught, you may as well sell your car and use that money for cab fare).
I have some knowledge about gang activity in the northern va area. the only activity that can be considered ganglike is mostly between the american gangs and ms-13. By american gangs i dont really mean organized gangs but just neighborhood posses who kind of imitate dc gangs for example they have hand shakes and sets, sell narcotics(weed), and might burglarize rarely, but they dont sell crack and commit homicides and frequent armed robberies. out of the five years i lived in that area there was only one incident when shots were fired that i know of. i lived in the woodbridge area. while there are gangs the gang effect on the community is almost nonexistent. these people in these groups are likely to drug traffic basically to themselves and few others, steal bikes, steal radio systems, etc. petty crime type of stuff. I knew of some robberies. I went to gar-field which is considered the worst school in woodbridge by some, many parents send their kids to neighboring highschools, but the average kid is not influenced at all from the gang activity even in garfield. I really didnt believe there was many gang members at all in this area until i was sent to alternative school in fairfax where there was plenty of ms-13 members present. meaning like 20 or so out of 300 students. you can identify them by there dress, blue shoe laces blue shirts mainly all blue clothing. you would only have to worry about the younger ones as the older ones just work and act as normal citizens. still that is almost 0-1% of the community. I would not worry at all moving to this area. I just would lock my vehicle at night and do regular courtesies. there are many spots in northern va where the crime rate is zero and nonexistent at all.
The issues in Nova are Bailey's Crossroads mainly and Sterling like people have said. The area of Sterling is right next to Ashburn but you will feel very suburbia-like in Ashburn, it is a a nice area. When you are looking for houses, make sure that the high school is not Park View, that is the bad area.
Good luck, you will like the area.
Thanks, Dullnboring..
I am glad you wrote the above mentioned. My husband and I are moving to Nova from South Florida and we were blown away by the "gang violence". However, my sisters, who currently live in Nova, explained to me that the media does exxagerate the gang violence.
Would you say that Woodbridge has a lot of gang violence?
Woodbridge/Dumfries doesn't have that much gang violence. When it does happen it's usually "gang on gang" type stuff. Just like Dullnboring said though, Woodbridge has some bad parts and crime does happen. Having said that they have been building very nice upscale communities off of Rt.1 lately and the "wegmen" type businesses are following (they are putting one up at Dale Blvd./Rt.1). The only problem with this is burglaries and crimes of opportunity go up on the "rich" type people. I personally woulnd't move my family to Woodbridge or Dumfries, but that's just me (i'm jaded from being a cop there i guess).
I have some knowledge about gang activity in the northern va area. the only activity that can be considered ganglike is mostly between the american gangs and ms-13. By american gangs i dont really mean organized gangs but just neighborhood posses who kind of imitate dc gangs for example they have hand shakes and sets, sell narcotics(weed), and might burglarize rarely, but they dont sell crack and commit homicides and frequent armed robberies. out of the five years i lived in that area there was only one incident when shots were fired that i know of. i lived in the woodbridge area. while there are gangs the gang effect on the community is almost nonexistent. these people in these groups are likely to drug traffic basically to themselves and few others, steal bikes, steal radio systems, etc. petty crime type of stuff. I knew of some robberies. I went to gar-field which is considered the worst school in woodbridge by some, many parents send their kids to neighboring highschools, but the average kid is not influenced at all from the gang activity even in garfield. I really didnt believe there was many gang members at all in this area until i was sent to alternative school in fairfax where there was plenty of ms-13 members present. meaning like 20 or so out of 300 students. you can identify them by there dress, blue shoe laces blue shirts mainly all blue clothing. you would only have to worry about the younger ones as the older ones just work and act as normal citizens. still that is almost 0-1% of the community. I would not worry at all moving to this area. I just would lock my vehicle at night and do regular courtesies. there are many spots in northern va where the crime rate is zero and nonexistent at all.
Where in Woodbridge do you live??? I patrolled there for 7 years and bought drugs there in an undercover capacity on an almost nightly basis. Woodbridge has had a crime problem since i lived there 20 years ago. It's only gotten worse. I broke up many gang fights off of Rt.1 and responded to "shots fired" many times in that area. We had a shooting last week at the Denny's near Bayview. There has been numerous shootings and stabbings in that area as well. MS13 usually doesn't fight "American gangs" either. They usually target SUR13 or SSL (other hispanic gangs in the Woodbridge area). The crime rate isn't zero in any spots in northern Va. much less "many" spots. I'm not saying that NOVA is South Central LA, but let's not make people believe Woodbridge is some low crime area, it isn't.
The Virginia police and DA's don't play around with this stuff. I would be very surprised to hear of any serious gang violence/illegal activity in Ashburn specifically. I'd be mildly surprised to hear of anything other than high school "wannabe" gang activities anywhere in Loudoun County -- at least anything that was a menace to the general public.
I think Maryland and regions of downtown D.C., have more cause for concern than NoVA.
On the one hand, Virginians have to put up with almost over the top traffic law enforcement; on the other hand, it pays for a strong police presence that keeps the place under control for law abiding people.
P.S. don't even think about drinking and driving in VA (or anywhere else, but in VA, if you get caught, you may as well sell your car and use that money for cab fare).
Very true. I went to Gar Field High School in Prince William during the early 90's. We had kids walking around with actual gang t shirts on and their nicknames on the back!! The county would say "we don't have a gang prolbem" yet i saw gang fights all the time. They finally came to their senses and formed a gang task force a couple years back. It really has helped and brought the problem under control. I can't see Ashburn or Loudon have any serious gang problems, their officials seem pretty proactive.
It's all about politics and money. Every so often, one of our elected officials gets money to fund the "Gang Task Force". Sounds more impressive than it is.
That is not true at all. The have made a HUGE impact on many localities in Prince William and Manassas. Just last month they worked their butts off to help catch the MS13 kid who was in on killing the colllege kid execution style in New York. Before they were formed the MS13 kids would proudly wear their colors and tattoos, now they hide them and run when the police come. BIG DIFFERENCE, believe me. I have worked with their task force and can personally account for their good work. It's got nothing to do with politics. Just the opposite actually. As stated before, we had a large gang problem in Gar Field in the early 90's and our elected officials ignored it because it grew on their "shift" and they didn't want to get booted out.
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