Montgomery County - What Happened?

[Anonymous]

To me, NoVA is a hellscape of highways and overdevelopment -- nothing about it feels human scaled. I like the feel of MoCo much better; it just seems more livable to me.

This idea that something "happened" to MoCo seems a bit silly to me. I've lived in the county for 30 years, and it's improved in so many ways. I really just don't care if it's ranked 20th in median income vs 10th. I'm happy with how things are, and if I weren't, I have more than enough means to move.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To me, NoVA is a hellscape of highways and overdevelopment -- nothing about it feels human scaled. I like the feel of MoCo much better; it just seems more livable to me.

This idea that something "happened" to MoCo seems a bit silly to me. I've lived in the county for 30 years, and it's improved in so many ways. I really just don't care if it's ranked 20th in median income vs 10th. I'm happy with how things are, and if I weren't, I have more than enough means to move.

This is how I feel too. I don't like going there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Moco is on the Baltimore city game plan. Just look to balt city if you want to see the future of moco.

No

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To me, NoVA is a hellscape of highways and overdevelopment -- nothing about it feels human scaled. I like the feel of MoCo much better; it just seems more livable to me.

This idea that something "happened" to MoCo seems a bit silly to me. I've lived in the county for 30 years, and it's improved in so many ways. I really just don't care if it's ranked 20th in median income vs 10th. I'm happy with how things are, and if I weren't, I have more than enough means to move.

+1

[Anonymous]

What happened? Illegal immigrants and low income housing happened. Crime rates went up and education tanked. I see no sign of turning around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This thread is missing the point comparing moco to nova and talking about the county becoming “poor”. The issue is the local government is obsessed with spending large amounts of tax money on performative virtue signaling catered parties than figuring out a strategy to lower taxes and increase business formation in the county. This will lead to lower growth, higher and higher property tax increases, a decline or stagnation in overall population, and a decline in high net worth families remaining in the county due to burdensome tax obligations. I.e basically exactly what has happened to Baltimore city. This has nothing to do with race or whatever other partisan crap people want to throw around - it’s about inept leadership. If my neighbors in moco are fine with that - great - but the area will suffer and decline over time unless changes are made

2008 happened. The county lost tens of thousands of good, white collar jobs that never came back. Instead, poorly educated, low income immigrants came. And here we are

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Moco is on the Baltimore city game plan. Just look to balt city if you want to see the future of moco.

Racism is sad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moco is on the Baltimore city game plan. Just look to balt city if you want to see the future of moco.

Racism is sad

Different poster here, but someone who has been around local politics for decades. Montgomery County has been poorly run for almost a decade. It doesn't matter your politics. Those in charge are more about saying the right things rather than ensuring that anyone is doing the right things. Processes matter. High performance matters. Accuracy matters. Accountability matters. Nobody is examining those processes except the OIG and she's finding a bunch of messes.

That's what erodes local government. Baltimore City is a good example. Although there are some process improvements there. Prince George's County was another example, but they've been doing much better internally over the past 15 years or so. It's not about race. It's about an internal culture of excellence. It was much better under Leggett, here. Not perfect. But better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do we need to be #1? I especially don’t want it if it means living among giant data centers everywhere.

Progressive democrats love to be victims and losers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moco is on the Baltimore city game plan. Just look to balt city if you want to see the future of moco.

Racism is sad

Different poster here, but someone who has been around local politics for decades. Montgomery County has been poorly run for almost a decade. It doesn't matter your politics. Those in charge are more about saying the right things rather than ensuring that anyone is doing the right things. Processes matter. High performance matters. Accuracy matters. Accountability matters. Nobody is examining those processes except the OIG and she's finding a bunch of messes.

That's what erodes local government. Baltimore City is a good example. Although there are some process improvements there. Prince George's County was another example, but they've been doing much better internally over the past 15 years or so. It's not about race. It's about an internal culture of excellence. It was much better under Leggett, here. Not perfect. But better.

Agree completely, though I would apply what you wrote about the county as a whole to MCPS, and multiply it by 10. MCPS is a case study in extreme mismanagement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moco is on the Baltimore city game plan. Just look to balt city if you want to see the future of moco.

Racists like YOU hate it? Yes please! Yes you’re racist. Your mother lied to you, you’re a bad person.

A lot of cope and deflection but no answers. Why did it slip from the richest county in the country to poorer than Calvert County and Stafford County?

Current Rankings:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_highest-income_counties_in_the_United_States

I’ve noticed a trend on this board from people that are in north Virginia. They seem to have an inferiority complex about MoCo. People in MoCo rarely think about NoVa or post about it but people from there seem to be obsessed with Montgomery county. It’s truly a mental illness.

Why did it slip from 1st to 20th though? Do you have any insight?

I’m a different poster. The answer is: immigration. There has been a tremendous increase in immigration to Montgomery County, especially refugees and migrants from low-income countries in Central America and Africa.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Moco is on the Baltimore city game plan. Just look to balt city if you want to see the future of moco.

Racism is sad

Different poster here, but someone who has been around local politics for decades. Montgomery County has been poorly run for almost a decade. It doesn't matter your politics. Those in charge are more about saying the right things rather than ensuring that anyone is doing the right things. Processes matter. High performance matters. Accuracy matters. Accountability matters. Nobody is examining those processes except the OIG and she's finding a bunch of messes.

That's what erodes local government. Baltimore City is a good example. Although there are some process improvements there. Prince George's County was another example, but they've been doing much better internally over the past 15 years or so. It's not about race. It's about an internal culture of excellence. It was much better under Leggett, here. Not perfect. But better.

Leggett was even worse than Elrich. Remember Leggett’s permitting office? They took twice as long the permitting office does now to do inspections and the head of permitting accidentally gave away part of the capital crescent trail to Ourisman.

[Anonymous]

You are all comparing apples with oranges. MoCo in the 80’s was at the peak of building out their many successful developments while NoVa was a bunch of rednecks and farm land. Obviously there will be more economic activity during a building boom than after stabilization. Virginia is just a few decades behind Maryland and so they are going through their 80’s right now. They are in different phases of growth. How can everyone miss that obvious reality? It’s the same reason why Florida and the south is growing faster (empty land) than the northeast where even the development of the suburbs date back hundreds of years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You are all comparing apples with oranges. MoCo in the 80’s was at the peak of building out their many successful developments while NoVa was a bunch of rednecks and farm land. Obviously there will be more economic activity during a building boom than after stabilization. Virginia is just a few decades behind Maryland and so they are going through their 80’s right now. They are in different phases of growth. How can everyone miss that obvious reality? It’s the same reason why Florida and the south is growing faster (empty land) than the northeast where even the development of the suburbs date back hundreds of years.

You can still have lots of economic activity after you’ve built out by tearing down old stuff and upgrading it with better stuff and building up. MoCo’s anti business climate over the last 30 years is to blame, not lack of land. There are whole tracks of housing in the county that are way past their tear down date but no one is upgrading it because there’s no economic development. Downtown Silver Spring should be attracting business not apartments. White flint is a disaster and on and on. It’s not phase of growth.

[Anonymous]

Ronald Reagan campaigned as a fiscal conservative, but once in office, he funneled a lot of money into defense contracts, some of them worthwhile, but many less so ("Star Wars") that were conducted by contractors in Va. We called them "Beltway Bandits" but they were almost all on the VA side. See the DCUM thread on "FFRDCs." Bush the younger doubled down with more money, and huge deficits, to contractors like Booz-Allen and CACI (waterboarding anyone?). The DoD financed a networking scheme that led to the Internet --- designed at a building on Wilson Blvd. in Rosslyn, where there is a plaque. SAIC bought the rights from Network Solutions in what may have been a very shady deal to allow them to charge a fee for registering a dot.com address. A license to print money. Bottom line: Defense money, paid for by taxpayers, made NOVA.