Why is McLean so prestigious?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Potomac and Great Falls >> Bethesda and McLean

LOL. Nope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not sure if the OP is new here, but in the DMV, there are four or five prestigious places to live. Kalorama will always be the top, but McLean on the VA side and Bethesda on the MD side will always be 2(a) and 2(b). Potomac, Georgetown, Great Falls and Cap Hill rounding it out closely thereafter. This has been the DMV for at least the last 10-15 years, if not longer. Whether it should be this way can be debated, but these locations will always draw the higher income and more prestigious of our community, with obvious exceptions.

No. Maybe in the last 10-15 years, people in McLean think it is prestigious but it has not been among the prestigious places in the area.
The prestigious areas have been Kalorama, Georgetown, Chevy Chase MD, Potomac, Bethesda and possible Great Falls (more wealthy than prestigious).
Now McLean is wealthy but not quite as prestigious as the others (except maybe for Great Falls) and Georgetown is not prestigious anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure if the OP is new here, but in the DMV, there are four or five prestigious places to live. Kalorama will always be the top, but McLean on the VA side and Bethesda on the MD side will always be 2(a) and 2(b). Potomac, Georgetown, Great Falls and Cap Hill rounding it out closely thereafter. This has been the DMV for at least the last 10-15 years, if not longer. Whether it should be this way can be debated, but these locations will always draw the higher income and more prestigious of our community, with obvious exceptions.

No. Maybe in the last 10-15 years, people in McLean think it is prestigious but it has not been among the prestigious places in the area.
The prestigious areas have been Kalorama, Georgetown, Chevy Chase MD, Potomac, Bethesda and possible Great Falls (more wealthy than prestigious).
Now McLean is wealthy but not quite as prestigious as the others (except maybe for Great Falls) and Georgetown is not prestigious anymore.

You’re all a bunch of losers

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There seem to be a never-ending series of threads started about McLean as a pretext to bash it. I don't really get it, since I don't see people in McLean pushing it on posters with the same frequency as posters from Arlington, Falls Church City, or Vienna.

There's no mystery about why people move to McLean: (1) it's centrally located between DC and Tysons; (2) houses there are among the largest and nicest of any DC-area suburb; (3) the public schools are top-rated and it's also easier to get to DC/MD privates than it is from other parts of NoVa given the proximity to Chain Bridge and 495; and (4) it's safe and quiet.

There's also no mystery about why other people avoid McLean: (1) the population trends older than in many other areas; (2) there's no nightlife and the retail area is underwhelming; (3) it's mostly White and Asian, so some URMs may feel unwelcome; and (4) Republicans live there as well as Democrats.

But is it "old money"? Overall, no (nor is there really a lot of "old money" anywhere in this region). It's higher-income people, many professionals and/or first or second-generation Americans, with work ties to DC or Tysons.

Are most of its residents retired and old? No, again (McLean HS, for example, has been among the fastest-growing high schools in FCPS in recent years).

Is it mostly Republican? No, yet again (it has been mostly Democratic for years, but Republicans aren't as outnumbered as they are in Arlington or Bethesda).

I meant old people. Not old money. Old people who bought expensive houses in the 90s.

Didn't you just confirm what was said? More likely to be a white, old, Republicans than other areas nearby. Not that it's everybody or even most people.

Depends on the metric. It's less White than Vienna or Falls Church City, less Republican than Great Falls or Oakton, and not as old as Chevy Chase (MD).

Not true. mclean is as white as falls church is just that falls church has more hispanic than asain residents while mclean has more asain than hispanic residents. And everyone in mclean is wealthy while only 1/4 of the families in fcc make over 200k per year. compare that with at least 60-70 percent of mclean families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure if the OP is new here, but in the DMV, there are four or five prestigious places to live. Kalorama will always be the top, but McLean on the VA side and Bethesda on the MD side will always be 2(a) and 2(b). Potomac, Georgetown, Great Falls and Cap Hill rounding it out closely thereafter. This has been the DMV for at least the last 10-15 years, if not longer. Whether it should be this way can be debated, but these locations will always draw the higher income and more prestigious of our community, with obvious exceptions.

No. Maybe in the last 10-15 years, people in McLean think it is prestigious but it has not been among the prestigious places in the area.
The prestigious areas have been Kalorama, Georgetown, Chevy Chase MD, Potomac, Bethesda and possible Great Falls (more wealthy than prestigious).
Now McLean is wealthy but not quite as prestigious as the others (except maybe for Great Falls) and Georgetown is not prestigious anymore.

You’re all a bunch of losers

+a million. Discussing neighborhood “prestige” on an online Internet forum is about as lonely and pathetic as it gets. I live in an expensive part of one of the places you mentioned, know many of my neighbors, and literally no one talks about stupid nonsense like this. We live here because the houses are nice and that’s about it. Please get a life, I mean this sincerely and not in a “go **** yourself” kind of way because I think people that obsess about prestige and status are some of the saddest human beings on the planet.

[Anonymous]

It was founded by the man who invented low Calorie McDonalds food.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure if the OP is new here, but in the DMV, there are four or five prestigious places to live. Kalorama will always be the top, but McLean on the VA side and Bethesda on the MD side will always be 2(a) and 2(b). Potomac, Georgetown, Great Falls and Cap Hill rounding it out closely thereafter. This has been the DMV for at least the last 10-15 years, if not longer. Whether it should be this way can be debated, but these locations will always draw the higher income and more prestigious of our community, with obvious exceptions.

No. Maybe in the last 10-15 years, people in McLean think it is prestigious but it has not been among the prestigious places in the area.
The prestigious areas have been Kalorama, Georgetown, Chevy Chase MD, Potomac, Bethesda and possible Great Falls (more wealthy than prestigious).
Now McLean is wealthy but not quite as prestigious as the others (except maybe for Great Falls) and Georgetown is not prestigious anymore.

This is not quite right. First the places in the city do not count. Can't compare at all. McLean has been both wealthy and prestigious since the late 1980s. But it depends on what you mean by prestigious. To me it means lots of rich people want to live there. Nothing more nothing less.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not sure if the OP is new here, but in the DMV, there are four or five prestigious places to live. Kalorama will always be the top, but McLean on the VA side and Bethesda on the MD side will always be 2(a) and 2(b). Potomac, Georgetown, Great Falls and Cap Hill rounding it out closely thereafter. This has been the DMV for at least the last 10-15 years, if not longer. Whether it should be this way can be debated, but these locations will always draw the higher income and more prestigious of our community, with obvious exceptions.

No. Maybe in the last 10-15 years, people in McLean think it is prestigious but it has not been among the prestigious places in the area.
The prestigious areas have been Kalorama, Georgetown, Chevy Chase MD, Potomac, Bethesda and possible Great Falls (more wealthy than prestigious).
Now McLean is wealthy but not quite as prestigious as the others (except maybe for Great Falls) and Georgetown is not prestigious anymore.

This is not quite right. First the places in the city do not count. Can't compare at all. McLean has been both wealthy and prestigious since the late 1980s. But it depends on what you mean by prestigious. To me it means lots of rich people want to live there. Nothing more nothing less.

Even today, Mclean is still not prestigious. It's wealthy, yes but lacks the prestige of the other places the PP mentioned.

[Anonymous]

McLean is a wannabe prestigious.
They try too hard

[Anonymous]

The only true prestigious area is Burke, VA. The rest are wannabees.