Thank you Nova!! Great Place to Grow Up (Hampton, Alexandria: college, to live in)

[dlumpen]

Originally Posted by Ebck120

I grew up in Nova, and went to Robinson for highschool. After having lived in NYC, Chicago, Florida, and now Atlanta I realize what a great place Nova was to grow up.

Nova offered the suburban lifestyle of a house with a backyard but at the same time the diversity and sophistication of a great city in that backyard!!

I really enjoyed growing up being able to learn about so many different cultures whether it be northern, southern, indian, korean, vietnamese, ethiopian, etc. The school system was some of the best I've seen in the nation as well with the public services!!

I've come across many people and places that do not have half the advantages I did just by growing up there!

just wanted to give Nova a shoutout!!

I'd say you'd have to live in a cave to not be exposed to diversity, though, wherever you live. I was in a job interview about a month ago, and the interviewers asked me if I had experience with diversity. I almost laughed. I was the only white person in the room.

[dlumpen]

I'd like to add one more, specifically for the exburbs. When I lived closer to DC, I never saw turtles, fireflies, the moon, or the stars. I even wondered of fireflies had gone extinct in metro area (which they apparently have in some parts of town). Now I see all of these and recognize constellations that I haven't seen since I was a child at home.

[Ebck120]

Originally Posted by dlumpen

I'd say you'd have to live in a cave to not be exposed to diversity, though, wherever you live. I was in a job interview about a month ago, and the interviewers asked me if I had experience with diversity. I almost laughed. I was the only white person in the room.

you do realize that alot of america is actually not diverse.

[Ebck120]

Originally Posted by dlumpen

To hear people who grew up here talk, it's hard to believe they're talking about the same place. The best reasons for having your children grow up here are for the networking/job opportunites. Second for the exposure to culture (if you bundle arts, museums, and history into that term).

hmmm what about access to great universities, free public education that ranks in the top 100 in the USA, low crime rates, etc

[dlumpen]

Originally Posted by Ebck120

you do realize that alot of america is actually not diverse.

Where, like Florida, NYC, and Chicago that the OP mentioned?

[claremarie]

"I'd say you'd have to live in a cave to not be exposed to diversity, though, wherever you live."

Or you could live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, where I grew up, where everyone is white and most were born and raised there.
Or in the midwest, where I live now, where almost everyone is white and from the midwest. Even the guys who cut the grass are white. (And the dry cleaners, and the bus drivers, and the people who work at McDonald's, and the people who work at Home Depot, and the people who run the Quickie Marts...)

[normie]

Originally Posted by claremarie

Or you could live in the suburbs of Pittsburgh, where I grew up, where everyone is white and most were born and raised there.

LOL, sounds somewhat like the midwestern city I was born in. The population was either black or white, very few other ethnic groups. We had one token Thai family with kids in our school. They owned a Thai restaurant. It was very popular, but nobody seemed to know the difference between Thai food and other Asian foods. They'd talk about going there to eat "Chinese."

They weren't saying this because of bigotry, they just lived in a town that wasn't very diverse and that made them clueless

[normie]

Originally Posted by Ebck120

I grew up in Nova, and went to Robinson for highschool. After having lived in NYC, Chicago, Florida, and now Atlanta I realize what a great place Nova was to grow up.

Nova offered the suburban lifestyle of a house with a backyard but at the same time the diversity and sophistication of a great city in that backyard!!

I really enjoyed growing up being able to learn about so many different cultures whether it be northern, southern, indian, korean, vietnamese, ethiopian, etc. The school system was some of the best I've seen in the nation as well with the public services!!

I've come across many people and places that do not have half the advantages I did just by growing up there!

just wanted to give Nova a shoutout!!

Thanks, this post made my day.

I know a few people who've moved away from Nova. Sometimes you don't realize how good we have it here until you live somewhere else. We really do have a lot of advantages. I especially love the easy access to the outdoors. You don't really think of Nova as a place with great parks until you leave and realize how spoiled we are. I spend more time hiking and kayaking here than I did in the places I lived before I moved here.

[Nemesis16]

Originally Posted by dlumpen

Where, like Florida, NYC, and Chicago that the OP mentioned?

He/she is the OP.

[dlumpen]

Originally Posted by normie

LOL, sounds somewhat like the midwestern city I was born in. The population was either black or white, very few other ethnic groups. We had one token Thai family with kids in our school. They owned a Thai restaurant. It was very popular, but nobody seemed to know the difference between Thai food and other Asian foods. They'd talk about going there to eat "Chinese."

They weren't saying this because of bigotry, they just lived in a town that wasn't very diverse and that made them clueless

When I was growing up, Italian (prounounced Eye-tal-ian) food like pizza and spaghetti were funny food to my dad. They were almost exotic dishes to him. Times are so different. Farifax County was 80+ precent white in 1990, and is now down to 65 percent. Under 40 yrs old, whites are less that 50 percent.

Agree about not appreciating what you have here. This area has so much to offer that other places have a hard time matching up to it.