Opinion of Northern Virginia

[Kitteh]

What is your opinion? Personally as a resident I say horrible area, altough freedom area in comparison to the rest of Virginia.

[Franzl]

Boring

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Rich bastards.

[Хahar 🤔]

I've never had a pleasant experience in Northern Virginia.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Hell

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

I've managed to avoid it mostly. 

[All Along The Watchtower]

The heart of the military-industrial-congressional-political complex.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

lol

[memphis]

The old parts along the Potomac are very cute if you can tolerate the tourists. The rest is some of the worst suburban sprawl in the country.

[politicus]

Worst suburban sprawl in the US (well, in the parts Ive been to at least..)

[evan83]

Awesome area.   I'm from Fairfax, lived in Arlington just 3 blocks from a Metro stop, and enjoyed the proximity to DC.   When I return to the States, I don't have a desire to live anywhere else.

[Kitteh]

Awesome area.   I'm from Fairfax, lived in Arlington just 3 blocks from a Metro stop, and enjoyed the proximity to DC.   When I return to the States, I don't have a desire to live anywhere else.

Welcome to Atlas Forum, btw. While I can't say I share your opinion of this godforsaken hellhole area, I appreciate your bravery in going against the prevailing opinion in this thread.

[Kaine for Senate '18]

My favorite place in the world.  All you haters can go [inks] yourselves.

[evan83]

Still no love for NOVA, even though we are responsible for delivering VA's 13 to Obama?   

[Franzl]

Still no love for NOVA, even though we are responsible for delivering VA's 13 to Obama?   

I appreciate your efforts....but wouldn't want to have to live there

[Kitteh]

Still no love for NOVA, even though we are responsible for delivering VA's 13 to Obama?   

I appreciate your efforts....but wouldn't want to have to live there

Unfortunately I actually do have to live here ;p.

[useful idiot]

Hell

This, essentially.

I wrote a rather long post a couple years ago about how horribly NoVa screws over the rest of the state, and it has little to nothing to do with party affiliation. I've spent the last ten years watching the rest of Virginia absolutely fall apart while NoVa gets everything it wants. This is a rich vs. poor issue, involving collusion between both parties whose donor bases reside almost exclusively in the D.C. suburbs. And while Virginia might be one of the most extreme examples, the crumbling of rural and small town America is a problem that affects most states, and something for which this country should be ashamed.

[Kitteh]

Hell

This, essentially.

I wrote a rather long post a couple years ago about how horribly NoVa screws over the rest of the state, and it has little to nothing to do with party affiliation. I've spent the last ten years watching the rest of Virginia absolutely fall apart while NoVa gets everything it wants. This is a rich vs. poor issue, involving collusion between both parties whose donor bases reside almost exclusively in the D.C. suburbs. And while Virginia might be one of the most extreme examples, the crumbling of rural and small town America is a problem that affects most states, and something for which this country should be ashamed.

I don't really take any side in this, but I would point out that the suggestion that NoVA gets everything it wants would make most people up here laugh hysterically. Not that I think that NoVA is as unfairly treated as many people here seem to believe. Personally I feel that both Northern and Southern Virginians have a persecution complex.

Also, to suggest that the rest of Virginia is "crumbling" is a joke. Despite the media, which likes to reduce Virginia's growth to NoVA, the suburbs of Richmond and Hampton Roads are growing faster than many parts of NoVA and well above the national average. Now, rural Virginia is doing overall doing mediocre-to-poorly (or getting replaced by ungodly amounts of exurban sprawl), but that hardly has to do with anything related to NoVA or Virginia in general. Rural Virginia isn't faring any worse than your average rural community in America. And calling it a "rich vs poor" issue is ridiculous; Southern Virginia (with the exception of the majority black areas) is only "poor" in the sense that it is less obscenely rich than NoVA (of course that's one of the reasons I hate NoVA, but still).

[useful idiot]

Hell

This, essentially.

I wrote a rather long post a couple years ago about how horribly NoVa screws over the rest of the state, and it has little to nothing to do with party affiliation. I've spent the last ten years watching the rest of Virginia absolutely fall apart while NoVa gets everything it wants. This is a rich vs. poor issue, involving collusion between both parties whose donor bases reside almost exclusively in the D.C. suburbs. And while Virginia might be one of the most extreme examples, the crumbling of rural and small town America is a problem that affects most states, and something for which this country should be ashamed.

I don't really take any side in this, but I would point out that the suggestion that NoVA gets everything it wants would make most people up here laugh hysterically. Not that I think that NoVA is as unfairly treated as many people here seem to believe. Personally I feel that both Northern and Southern Virginians have a persecution complex.

Also, to suggest that the rest of Virginia is "crumbling" is a joke. Despite the media, which likes to reduce Virginia's growth to NoVA, the suburbs of Richmond and Hampton Roads are growing faster than many parts of NoVA and well above the national average. Now, rural Virginia is doing overall doing mediocre-to-poorly (or getting replaced by ungodly amounts of exurban sprawl), but that hardly has to do with anything related to NoVA or Virginia in general. Rural Virginia isn't faring any worse than your average rural community in America. And calling it a "rich vs poor" issue is ridiculous; Southern Virginia (with the exception of the majority black areas) is only "poor" in the sense that it is less obscenely rich than NoVA (of course that's one of the reasons I hate NoVA, but still).

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Have you seen the infrastructure in Roanoke, Lynchburg, Richmond (outside Chesterfield and downtown), Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport News, etc? It's disastrous. That's not even talking about the west and southside. Try driving through Martinsville, Campbell County, Nelson County, etc. These are not isolated places. The funding gap has never been bigger, and McDonnell's budget cuts, which NoVa Dems in the House of Delegates largely supported (Chap Peterson, Scott York, etc), affected the rest of Virginia almost exclusively. Schools for instance, were cut dramatically in other parts of the state, while there was a 29 million dollar increase in funding for NoVa schools. Community programs, including dental care, teen pregnancy and AIDS prevention, funding for homeless shelters, school lunch assistance, etc etc were decimated or eliminated altogether. There are parts of the state that have a 20% unemployment rate, while NoVa's has been hovering around 5%. There has been almost no economic investment since Warner left, and there hasn't been any attempt to fix the infrastructure problems outside of NoVa and select parts of Richmond/Hampton Roads since Jerry f-ucking Baliles was governor.

To say this isn't rich vs. poor is ludicrous. Both parties know where their money comes from, and they jump accordingly.

[Oldiesfreak1854]

Neutral.  Better than Southern Virginia for sure, but it loses points for being uber-liberal.

[Kitteh]

Hell

This, essentially.

I wrote a rather long post a couple years ago about how horribly NoVa screws over the rest of the state, and it has little to nothing to do with party affiliation. I've spent the last ten years watching the rest of Virginia absolutely fall apart while NoVa gets everything it wants. This is a rich vs. poor issue, involving collusion between both parties whose donor bases reside almost exclusively in the D.C. suburbs. And while Virginia might be one of the most extreme examples, the crumbling of rural and small town America is a problem that affects most states, and something for which this country should be ashamed.

I don't really take any side in this, but I would point out that the suggestion that NoVA gets everything it wants would make most people up here laugh hysterically. Not that I think that NoVA is as unfairly treated as many people here seem to believe. Personally I feel that both Northern and Southern Virginians have a persecution complex.

Also, to suggest that the rest of Virginia is "crumbling" is a joke. Despite the media, which likes to reduce Virginia's growth to NoVA, the suburbs of Richmond and Hampton Roads are growing faster than many parts of NoVA and well above the national average. Now, rural Virginia is doing overall doing mediocre-to-poorly (or getting replaced by ungodly amounts of exurban sprawl), but that hardly has to do with anything related to NoVA or Virginia in general. Rural Virginia isn't faring any worse than your average rural community in America. And calling it a "rich vs poor" issue is ridiculous; Southern Virginia (with the exception of the majority black areas) is only "poor" in the sense that it is less obscenely rich than NoVA (of course that's one of the reasons I hate NoVA, but still).

You obviously have no idea what you're talking about. Have you seen the infrastructure in Roanoke, Lynchburg, Richmond (outside Chesterfield and downtown), Portsmouth, Hampton, Newport News, etc? It's disastrous. That's not even talking about the west and southside. Try driving through Martinsville, Campbell County, Nelson County, etc. These are not isolated places. The funding gap has never been bigger, and McDonnell's budget cuts, which NoVa Dems in the House of Delegates largely supported (Chap Peterson, Scott York, etc), affected the rest of Virginia almost exclusively. Schools for instance, were cut dramatically in other parts of the state, while there was a 29 million dollar increase in funding for NoVa schools. Community programs, including dental care, teen pregnancy and AIDS prevention, funding for homeless shelters, school lunch assistance, etc etc were decimated or eliminated altogether. There are parts of the state that have a 20% unemployment rate, while NoVa's has been hovering around 5%. There has been almost no economic investment since Warner left, and there hasn't been any attempt to fix the infrastructure problems outside of NoVa and select parts of Richmond/Hampton Roads since Jerry f-ucking Baliles was governor.

To say this isn't rich vs. poor is ludicrous. Both parties know where their money comes from, and they jump accordingly.

Your facts are completely wrong. There is no area with a 20% unemployment rate in Virginia. The highest is Martinsville, where the unemployment rate is 14.9%, and there are only 8 localities with a higher than 10% unemployment rate in the entire state. Those eight are all in Southern Virginia, but do you know what else they share? 6 out of 8 are majority-minority. Whereas rural Virginia overall is overwhelmingly white. There is significant poverty in southern Virginia. Among African-Americans. That's reflective of a divide between white and black America that has nothing to do with anything specific to Virginia. The mostly white areas of Roanoke, Lynchburg, Harrisonburg, Waynesboro, Richmond, Hampton Roads, etc, almost all have an average income at or above the national average. The only exception is coal country, which has been poor for quite some time, once again for reasons that have nothing to do with anything specific to Virginia. NoVA's economic success also has nothing to do with the Virginia state government (much more the federal government).

Also, that $29 mil increase for NoVA schools you are talking about is an illusion. The recent Virginia budget (which was supported by both Northern and Southern VA Republicans and overwhelmingly opposed by both Northern and Southern VA Democrats) theoretically increased funding for schools in all parts of the states (with a net redistribution of tax money from NoVA to the South, since NoVA has a higher income and pays a higher percentage of tax money, which I strongly support btw), however it shifted billions of dollars in pension liabilities to local governments which forced local governments to cut funding for education much more than the small increase from the state government. Shifting obligations from the state to localities does have a negative effect on Southern Virginia overall more than Northern Virginia because it reduces the redistributive effect of state funding, but as I said above that was an idea that Virginia Democrats of all regions criticized and that was passed by Governor McDonnell so he could continue to repeat the talking point that he had a budget surplus without raising taxes to help him on the national stage and promote his career after he leaves the Governor's mansion. Nothing to do with Northern vs. Southern Virginia. The cuts that you talk about also affected both Northern and Southern Virginia. Although they did have more effect on Southern Virginia since Southern VA depends on them more, I would be willing to bet that the gap in how much they affected white Southern VA and black Southern VA is orders of magnitude larger than the gap between how they affected white NoVA and white Southern VA. And if you oppose cuts to teen pregnancy and AIDS prevention, the answer is extremely obvious; don't vote Republican.

And in terms of knowing where their money comes from, NoVA makes up a minority of contributions in statewide campaigns. The funding of both parties does come overwhelmingly from the wealthy areas of both NoVA and Southern VA, and those areas do get much more from the government in exchange than the poor areas of both regions. But that has nothing to do with anything specific to Virginia, its just the state of politics in modern America where money rules everything. And the solution to it has nothing to do with Virginia, it has to do with getting the money out of politics across the nation, which is something I strongly, strongly, strongly support.

[© tweed]

My favorite place in the world.  All you haters can go [inks] yourselves.

you've gotta see a littleeeeeeeee more of the World my boy

[Lief 🗽]

I like that it's made Virginia a blue state, but spending any actual time there is a miserable experience.