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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don’t know why this is complicated. MoCo simply has faltered in terms of large and mid size corporate growth over the past decade or so — this is a fairly simple concept but people on here like to “debate” this offer and over.

This is due to a few factors, but two of which are key:

1) geography / preexisting conditions— MoCo was far more developed going back decades as compared to NoVa, which still had plenty of farm land and close as Dulles well into the 90’s and early 2000’s. What this allowed was the accommodations (land) necessary for the emergence of the data center industry, which was complementary to the existing presence of the pentagon and defense contracting industries. This spurred follow on tech / IT growth and the resulting job growth that has led to a massive wealth boom in NoVa.

2) pro growth politics, and I’ll caveat this by saying that this isn’t a democrat republican thing as both are blue counties in blue states, though I will say that Maryland is decidedly more progressive, which can be a negative thing when this takes an anti-corporate posture. Virginia has seemingly done a far better job in attracting corporations. Coupled with a lower overall tax burden, it’s no surprise  that corporates prefer Virginia

3) pro immigrant politics — again, Maryland is decidedly more progressive, which has led to a relatively greater influx of undocumented immigrants driving down median metrics. In addition, immigrants absorb existing housing stock, and we have seen areas like Wheaton and parts of Silver Spring shift more towards predominantly Latino working class enclaves, while the former middle class population has moved either up county or to other states.

Why this is controversial is beyond me — it is just a fact of life. Areas change. [/quote]

On No. 1, MoCo had and continues to have a vast amount of farmland. It chose to make it off limits, just like it chose to believe that roads were evil because of “induced demand.” YIMBYs oddly are some of the biggest complainers about “induced demand” which is odd because roads induce demand for housing and offices, which developers are happy to build when there’s demand. [/quote]

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