Liberal Unfriendly Place: Fairfax County, VA

This should tell you what it's like to be in Fairfax for a short period of time. Merely cross the Potomac River into Arlington and you are choking on the exhaust of the reckless drivers, amidst the ugly corporate complexes of Houston-on-the-Potomac, complete with the Jefferson Davis Freeway and the Robert E. Lee memorial. But never fear, minorities are welcome in Arlington - in the suburbs that have been depopulated by whites amidst the Defense Department superstructures and the Pentagon City Mall - the city's premiere Christmas shopping destination is named for the headquarters of the armed forces opposite the Shirley freeway.

Minorities, or at least Asians, are welcome in Fairfax, too, and the county's "progressive" yuppies have fought for ten years to guarantee this - as long as you are of a certain high income, everybody is welcome in Fairfax. The high income demand has made developers ruthless and the county is entirely, uniformly developed with pod-like housing tracts of mansionettes.

Other reasons to avoid Fairfax - worst transportation in the DC area - it single handedly competes with LA in terms of traffic and poor transit - home of the world's first Edge City, Tysons Corner, which competes with nearby Crystal City for ugliest town center in the US - House rep. Tom Davis is responsible both for keeping DC down in Congress and acting as chairman of the Republican Congressional Caucus - Last but not least, its Internet technology corridor was briefly, in competition with D.C. "Chocolate City's" marketing execs, christened "Silicon Plantation".

In nearby Loudoun and Prince William county, the real plantation set preside over a redneck suburb that insists on holding school tests on Yom Kippur, where residents accused an Islamic school of terrorism, and is home of the world's largest outlet mall, the number one tourist destination of Virginians visiting DC. All in all, liberalism ends at the Arlington county line.

...and another comment...

Fairfax County has it's problems certainly, but it's widely regarded as politically centrist by both sides. True, the traffic is bad, but the same can be said of the liberal's paradise known as Maryland (I drive there every day). You'll find pretty much the same thing over there as well. Nothing unique to Fairfax. The folks in Alexandria could help the traffic situation out by not suing the Federal Government over whether the Woodrow Wilson Bridge replacement has ten lanes or twelve.

Fairfax has good services generally, although you can find someone to piss and moan about something, I'm sure. The schools are good by any standard, and the area is ethnically diverse. I live in one of those "mansionettes" and I work hard for it. I guess I could trade it in for a dingy old townhouse in Arlington, but I don't particularly find the liberal mindset there very enticing.

DC's problems were caused by four decades of Federal neglect capped off by two decades of thoroughly corrupt home-rule management, although there are signs that things are turning around. So long as the mayor doesn't fall back on the race card and start blaming whitey for everything, there is hope for DC yet. Congress really had no choice but to institute the DC Control Board, and this move was blessed by Clinton himself. Tom Davis is generally regarded as fair by those he deals with, and his goal is to help the city not hurt it. Most people here realize that a thriving DC is good for the whole region. A Native Washingtonian