Can somebody please exain why South Arlington is considered inferior to North Arlington?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm sorry, what is "racist" about buying a house in a safe neighborhood that has good schools that will appropriately challenged your children?

In your fake world do you just lottery out houses, commutes, quality of schools, crime rates, etc.?

What's "racist" is the assumption that a high percentage of Latinos or other brown people is inevitably associated with [small] houses, [long] commutes, [low] quality of schools, and [high] crime rates.

Many houses in South Arlington (such as mine) are newer, larger, and nicer than many homes in North Arlington.

My commute is shorter than most, because I live very close to a Yellow/Blue metro stop and near I-395 (the Roosevelt and Key Bridges are not the only way into DC).

My kids' school is fine--sure, students on average don't do as well on standardized tests than in a typical North Arlington school, but it hasn't stopped my kid from scoring in the 99th percentile on those tests. Moreover, when he participates in county-wide activities with the other little geniuses from the North side, he seems to keep up just fine.

As for crime rates, it's true that South Arlington in general has higher crime rates than the North side, but I can tell you that in the 8 years I've lived on the south side, I've not experienced any crime at all. During the five years I lived on the north side of Route 50, I had my car broken into, a peeper at my window, and otherwise ran into many more objectionable drunks than I've ever seen down here.

But if it makes you feel better to pay twice as much as I did to live in the same kind of house, just because "greatschools.com" says it's worth it, go right on ahead.

The people living in 22207 aren't living the same lifestyle as you, although you'd really, really like to think so. "Greatschools.com" doesn't quite begin to cover it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The people living in 22207 aren't living the same lifestyle as you, although you'd really, really like to think so. "Greatschools.com" doesn't quite begin to cover it.

That's probably true. No metro there. No sidewalks either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
The kids who are not fluent in English learn the language fast and become bilingual. One study in Britain found bilingual kids to be smarter than their monolingual peers.
And poor households are not single parent households, that seems to be an urban legend.
I would say densely populated area = more kids in school, lower property value = less money for schools

Student body is not the determining factor, it matters, but not enough to explain the difference. Just say the inequality of American school system. To label kids as dumb and parents as wayward single moms is offensive

I have never heard that to be true and in fact if you visit a local elementary school South Arlington you will find the opposite. I would bet the study you are referring to looked at kids who parents were also bilingual and had a high level of education. If the parents do not speak English in the home, the child is going to become fluent in English at a slower rate.

Student body is one of the biggest determining factors. Plenty of studies on this. Once you get a large low income population in a school, there chances that scores will be high or even good, go down significantly.

[Anonymous]

Seems dumb. If you cared about your children at all, you would send them to a top quality private school instead of those weak Arlington County Public Schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems dumb. If you cared about your children at all, you would send them to a top quality private school instead of those weak Arlington County Public Schools.

Which would be...?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretty simple - S. Arlington is a good place. Everyone in my neighborhood likes it, and chose it for any number of reasons - location probably is #1. We don't sit around wishing we lived elsewhere.

Good is your opinion

And where might you live, pussums?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems dumb. If you cared about your children at all, you would send them to a top quality private school instead of those weak Arlington County Public Schools.

You send them to private school when the public schools are bad like in south Arlington. In N Arlington you don't need to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I'm sorry, what is "racist" about buying a house in a safe neighborhood that has good schools that will appropriately challenged your children?

In your fake world do you just lottery out houses, commutes, quality of schools, crime rates, etc.?

What's "racist" is the assumption that a high percentage of Latinos or other brown people is inevitably associated with [small] houses, [long] commutes, [low] quality of schools, and [high] crime rates.

Many houses in South Arlington (such as mine) are newer, larger, and nicer than many homes in North Arlington.

My commute is shorter than most, because I live very close to a Yellow/Blue metro stop and near I-395 (the Roosevelt and Key Bridges are not the only way into DC).

My kids' school is fine--sure, students on average don't do as well on standardized tests than in a typical North Arlington school, but it hasn't stopped my kid from scoring in the 99th percentile on those tests. Moreover, when he participates in county-wide activities with the other little geniuses from the North side, he seems to keep up just fine.

As for crime rates, it's true that South Arlington in general has higher crime rates than the North side, but I can tell you that in the 8 years I've lived on the south side, I've not experienced any crime at all. During the five years I lived on the north side of Route 50, I had my car broken into, a peeper at my window, and otherwise ran into many more objectionable drunks than I've ever seen down here.

But if it makes you feel better to pay twice as much as I did to live in the same kind of house, just because "greatschools.com" says it's worth it, go right on ahead.

In this area, a high percentage (read: density) of Latinos is demonstrably correlated with poverty and poverty is clearly associated with small houses, low school quality and high crime rates.

I didn't base my purchase decision on "greatschools.net" -- I think that's a terrible Web site. Rather, I toured the schools of my targeted neighborhoods and saw for myself the relative inferiority of the ones in South Arlington.

I also didn't pay twice as much for the same amount of house. Maybe a bit more, but hardly twice as much.

I've also never had a car breakin, peeper, or objectionable drunks. I live in CC Hills though, so that may explain why.

[Anonymous]

I am white and live in S. Arlington. My husband is latino though so I guess that brings my white status down.

Anyway, i have lived here for 4 years. Never had an issue with crime. I could not love this area more. I love the fact that I can walk to a ton of restaurants, a splash park, regular parks, a movie theater, and a grocery store.

I like that there are always a ton of people out and walking around. I love that I have mad from great mom friends from just meeting random people at parks, the grocery store, or restaurants.

As far as transportation goes, DH can take a bus from our front door to the front door of his work in DC in under 45 minutes. I drive to work in 10 (work in VA).

The schools in S. Arlington have the same high quality teachers and curriculum as the schools in N. Arlington. When DS is old enough to go to ES I would be happy to send him to a S. Arlington school. But then again, he is half latino so I guess he belongs there anyway according to most of you.

As far as the Columbia Pike redevelopment, I think its going great. And to the PP that mentioned it won't work if you keep the ethnic stores, well I don't think you have to worry since they will eventually be out of there. I am not sure what new or remodeled ethnic stores you are talking about. The new places (in the last 2 years) we have are

1. Restaurants and frozen yogurt places - All decent sit down restaurants, most of which have other locations.

2. A grocery store (Giant not an ethnic one)

3. A dry cleaner

The "ethnic" places are the crazy shop with all the statues, a bread shop that mainly serves restaursnts, and a thai grocery store, which is always very busy. None of those are new and none of those have been remodeled so I really have no clue waht you are talking about. For the majority of those places they are merely waiting for their lease to run out so they can kick them out (and likely tear the building down to put in a new one).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
The kids who are not fluent in English learn the language fast and become bilingual. One study in Britain found bilingual kids to be smarter than their monolingual peers.
And poor households are not single parent households, that seems to be an urban legend.
I would say densely populated area = more kids in school, lower property value = less money for schools

Student body is not the determining factor, it matters, but not enough to explain the difference. Just say the inequality of American school system. To label kids as dumb and parents as wayward single moms is offensive

I have never heard that to be true and in fact if you visit a local elementary school South Arlington you will find the opposite. I would bet the study you are referring to looked at kids who parents were also bilingual and had a high level of education. If the parents do not speak English in the home, the child is going to become fluent in English at a slower rate.

Student body is one of the biggest determining factors. Plenty of studies on this. Once you get a large low income population in a school, there chances that scores will be high or even good, go down significantly.

google:
bilingual kids intelligence

I have not heard of what you are implying. Maybe you could research more what you base your prejudice on instead of state it as a fact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people living in 22207 aren't living the same lifestyle as you, although you'd really, really like to think so. "Greatschools.com" doesn't quite begin to cover it.

That's probably true. No metro there. No sidewalks either.

Yes, and no poor people or ghetto-looking strip malls/ storage facilities.

[Anonymous]

Uh, PP, have you seen the strip malls along Lee Higway?

The most decent center in No. Arlington is the Lee-Harrison Center. Great if you like mid-Century modern with no parking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Uh, PP, have you seen the strip malls along Lee Higway?

The most decent center in No. Arlington is the Lee-Harrison Center. Great if you like mid-Century modern with no parking.

Welcome to VA!

OMG - I hate parking at L-H center. Such a nightmare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Uh, PP, have you seen the strip malls along Lee Higway?

The most decent center in No. Arlington is the Lee-Harrison Center. Great if you like mid-Century modern with no parking.

Have you seen Lee-Harrison? There's nothing mid-century modern about it, but it was beautifully renovated.

The Lyon Village Shopping Center (Italian Store, etc.) is also really, really nice now since the renovation. Also, the Lee Heights Shops (Cassat's, Pastries by Randolph) has long been an upscale strip mall. So, with the Lee-Harrison Center, Lee Highway has three very attractive, wildly popular strip malls that are all walkable and have plenty of parking. You can't beat that. And the new Cherrydale developments are also really attractive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The people living in 22207 aren't living the same lifestyle as you, although you'd really, really like to think so. "Greatschools.com" doesn't quite begin to cover it.

That's probably true. No metro there. No sidewalks either.

Are you for real? There are sidewalks all over 22207. Sidewalks are what distinguish Arlington from the neighborhoods over the Fairfax County line. And a large area of 22207 is walkable to the Ballston Metro or ART bus routes to the Metro. You can also walk to the strip malls on Lee Highway from 22207.