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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Sweet, another excuse to bash McLean thread... aren't you people tired of this?   :roll:

OP.  You'd probably get more thoughtful replies had you said Falls Church City or Vienna or Arlington...

If the NoVa area was the world. McLean would be America.  Loved by many, but despised by far more.[/quote]

OP here. I was not trying to start a controversy. I just had a wonderful childhood with beautiful memories in McLean and the area near Great Falls park. Every weekend my family would go hiking there together. Tysons Corner mall was a small neighborhood only mall safe enough to drop your teens off when you're off running errands. Going to the McDonalds near the McLean Central Park after HS to eat sundaes with your friends. Taking my little sister and her best friend to the Clemijontri park.

We lived in a small modest SFH and were surrounded by lawyers and other feds. It wasn't fancy but it was home.

I can't seem to let go that I will never "go home" again. McLean is my home in this area. Everywhere else feels too far and in the middle of "nowhere."

My Langley classmates who graduated in 2006 are now either in Arlington, Bethesda or Spring Valley. Others are dispersed around the country. DH and I are not in very well paid fields although together we bring in like 280k+. DH runs his own at home consulancy so in a good year we can have a HHI of 400k+. He grew up in Fairfax Station and has a negative impression of McLean along with thinking its too big a mortgage to take on when we can buy a bigger house somewhere in Burke or Herndon for 500k-600k.

I'm just so torn about it.[/quote]

Great Falls is still here, as are the McDonalds near the park and Clemyjontri.

Tysons was always a regional mall, not a small neighborhood mall, but people can and do still safely drop off their kids there.

A household income of $280-400K is above average for most McLean neighborhoods.

When we moved out of DC, I wouldn't consider McLean at first because I thought it was too old and stodgy, so we bought in Fairfax further out.  Over time, I realized the commute was draining and that it would be nice to be closer to DC, and had heard more about the advantages of the McLean schools, which are on the smaller side for FCPS but still have amazing extra-curricular activities.  So we moved to McLean, and wish we'd done so sooner.

But it may not be as idyllic as you're recalling for the reasons other posters have mentioned.  The people who live in McLean now often are very busy two-income families and it may not be as "neighborly" as you remember it.   And Burke has its own appeal - it's more low-key than McLean, less congested than a place like Vienna, and has its own parks and amenities like Burke Lake. [/quote]

This is OP. Yes, people seem to have an inaccurate perception of McLean, at least from when I used to live there through my childhood until going off to college. No one I knew was "snooty" or a gazillionare although yes they were well-to-do professionals. Everyone we knew was down to earth and focused on their children and families. I will say, we did not live in one of those multimillion dollar properties so may be that is why.

According to the math I do, it seems we could reasonably afford a mortgage of 1 million dollar home. DH, however is very adamant that we live some place cheap and especially not with snobby people, which personally, I think is ridiculous. There are rich people all over NOVA and are not tied to one zip code. He says he does not want to live in Great Falls, McLean or Vienna.

:roll: 
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