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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I guess people on this board don't care about health care and life sciences jobs?

https://governor.maryland.gov/news/press/pages/Governor-Moore-and-AstraZeneca-Announce-$2-Billion-Investment-to-Expand-Manufacturing-in-Maryland,-Supporting-2,600-Jobs.aspx

Meanwhile, Amazon is laying off people constantly and hasn't followed through on its promises to Arlington.[/quote]

LOL! I read the press release and this $2 billion investment is just creating 300 permanent jobs. The rest of the work will be done by robots probably. Pathetic.

You can’t lay off jobs that were never created.[/quote]

In contrast, Amazon will probably exit Arlington entirely in 10 years, after it decides it no longer needs to have any workers here. [/quote]

[b]Arlington was a lot nicer than Montgomery County before Amazon. [/b]It had, and still has, the largest percentage of residents with graduate degrees in the entire country. It had so much tax revenue coming in pre Amazon it was building million dollar bus stops on Columbia Pike and renovated its high schools to look like college campuses. Montgomery County is getting sued because there’s black mold in their schools.

You don’t want to get in a tit for tat battle between Arlington and Montgomery County. Stick to pretending that places like Montgomery Village, Germantown, and Gaithersburg don’t exist and attacking Fairfax’s suburban sprawl and data centers as if it’s any more unsightly than driving up Georgia Avenue or Rockville Pike. [/quote]
Which Arlington? Arlington is ugly as hell. The whole NoVa is fugly.

[/quote]

Posts like this are in bad faith, and so tiring.

Look, I’m a DC guy living in Logan Circle, so I don’t really have skin in the game here in terms of MoCo vs NoVa. The legacy areas of MoCo that are beautiful are exactly that — very beautiful. I’m talking Chevy Chase, Kenwood, Bethesda, the ritzy parts of Potomac, Kensington, and a few others. Many of these are nicer aesthetically  than the nicest that NoVa has to offer. But the key word is “legacy” — these areas are what they are as a product of a different time when MoCo was the king of the area. When I grew up in the 80’s and 90’s, MoCo was the place, and NoVa was its podunk cousin, with a few nice areas to be sure, but MoCo was king.

That being said, this topic isn’t about that. [b]It’s about now, and the structural truth is that NoVa has surged way past MoCo as a whole in terms of jobs, wealth, and development over the past 20 year[/b]s. And no amount of snide posting that NoVa is “ugly” will change that fact. [/quote]
NoVa may have surpassed MoCo in terms of jobs, but it's still ugly. 
Having a bunch of development, structures  and concrete, doesn't make an area aesthetically pleasing, au contraire. [/quote]

I would argue that as a whole, there’s really no difference in beauty between MoCo and NoVa. Are you really going to argue with a straight face that Gaithersburg, Rockville, much of Silver Spring aren’t ugly and essentially just strip mall after strip mall? Sure, Takoma Park, Bethesda and Chevy Chase and Potomac are pretty. But so are Old Town, Belle Haven, Mount Vernon by the water, McLean, Del Ray, Falls Church, etc.

As a whole the two areas are on equal footing aesthetically and any other claim here is made in bad faith.[/quote]

You keep insisting that those who disagree with you are acting in "bad faith." This is an extremely poor debating technique because it signals that you don't want to have a real debate on the merits and instead want to just focus on motives.

Lots of people choose MoCo because they believe it is prettier (including me), and if you don't see that, it's fine -- you just have a different opinion. And if you think Gaithersburg, Rockville, and SS only have strip malls, then that just reveals that you haven't visited those areas -- including downtown Silver Spring, Rockville Town Square, Pike & Rose, Kentlands, Downtown Crown, and the Rio. We get it, you prefer Nova. But if you want to opine about MoCo, please make sure it's factual.[/quote]Trying to change the subject is acting in bad faith.

Reminder of the topic: Montgomery County had the highest median family income out of any county in America ...
Now it’s ranked 20th... What has changed since the 1980s and can it change course?[/quote]

Well, one huge factor is the growth of military contractors in Virginia. Take out that one —huge, significant— piece and everything changes.  As far as comparisons go, MoCo doesn’t have anything like Old Town , but Montgomery County also peaked earlier with factors that matter to me — like racially integrated neighborhoods and schools. I’ve been living here long enough to appreciate that.   I also don’t see it as a competition. There are similarities and there are differences. Pick the best fit. [/quote]I'm also from moco and also don't see it as a competition. We all gain more from cooperation. For example we need an outerloop, or at least a connection across the Potomac further north. I think they should do a tunnel that connect rt 28 in MD to rt 28 in VA. We need a train out to BWI. And we need tax incentives for sci/tech. I don't think moco works as a bedroom community due to the geography of the Potomac river.[/quote]

Huh?  MARC and Amtrak both have BWI stops. Are you thinking Metro? A Virginia commuter train? Something else? [/quote]

How would you suggest using MARC or Amtrak to get to BWI from MoCo?[/quote]

NP. Red line to Union station, then Amtrak or Marc. [/quote]

So not a real option for people in Montgomery County at all. [/quote]

Huh? The red line is accessible for most of the county. It is very easy to take the metro frrm Bethesda, Rockville, etc to Union then a qucik amtrak right to the airport?[/quote]

That takes too long. Your route is competing with the silver line or the Dulles toll road from Rosslyn, Tysons, and Reston. You seem to think people’s time is free. That might be true at a nonprofit or the government but it’s not true at businesses. [/quote]

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