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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]

[b]ACPS is an urban school district.[/b] At Mason, you have kids from Arlandria/Chirilagua section of Alexandria who are new arrivals from Central America and language learners. Their parents primarily work in construction and the service industry. Then you have kids in $1-2M homes here.

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I’ve seen this come up a couple of times in recent discussions on ACPS. To be clear, ACPS is not an urban school district. Alexandria has similar demographics to Arlington, Montgomery County, etc. But it has created such a poor school system that a disproportionate number of people with resources have fled to private schools, leaving the publics looking different than the “city” as a whole.[/quote]

You are incorrect here. While demographics in those other districts may be similar, an urban school district is characterized by the fact that it's a densely populated metropolitan area.  Those other districts are suburban, however Alexandria City is 4 miles outside of DC, has a city government, a centralized school management system, a mayor, a city council, a city manager, and a robust public transportation system.  It has a high population density, a diverse student population from a wide range of ethnic and socioeconomic background that's 60% FARM, and a large ELL population. Students use DASH and WMATA to navigate the city, the neighborhoods are walkable with a mix of SFH, townhomes, and high rise apartment complexes, and the city houses a tourist destination and downtown   It is an urban school system.

.[/quote]

No, this is what a suburb looks like for a large city. All of the things you described are no different than Arlington, Bethesda, etc. That’s just what large city suburbs look like. This fiction that Alexandrians like to peddle about their “city,” (yes, in quotes, it’s legally incorporated as a city but it’s not a real city for all intents and purposes), when it is a suburb of an actual city is exactly why we end up with nonsense like ACPS apologism, the arena debacle, and others.[/quote]

Toxic gaslighting at its finest. This is why this site is so messed up. "It's legally a city, but not really a city."  SMH. [/quote]

If you’ve ever lived in a real city then you would never describe Alexandria as a city. A town, maybe. But every time I hear someone talk about some thing that Alexandria needs to do or be because it’s a city, I assume that person is from the podunk sticks.[/quote]

You don't even know who I am, so not only do you gaslight but youre someone who makes assumptions too, got it. I grew up in the world's largest and most populous city. If you've visited Alexandria in the last 5 years, then you will see, it is a city.  Not sure why people outside like to disprove Alexandrians so much. It's odd.[/quote]

Because I live here (have for actually 5 years, like you said!) and, no, it’s not. It’s a suburb like any close-in big city suburb. Doesn’t matter which big city you go to, they all have an Alexandria or multiple Alexandrias. But most of them don’t have weird apologists who try to use “city” or “urban” to excuse poor schools. Most of them actually have good schools.

I always find this funny, too, because it’s clear most of these people have never set foot west of King or south of Duke. Their Alexandria is only half of the area, if that.[/quote]

If you live here, then a) why would you be so rude in your online comments to a neighbor and say they are from "podunk shticks" I'm so surprised that Alexandrians preach kindness and neighborhood and then come to an anon site and are rude.  b) the west end development is the definition of urban. High rise dense apartment buildings housing a mix of new Afghani refugees and upper income young urban professionals. No one refers to Alexandria City as large, It is a small city - the same size as other Tier 3 cities such as Salt Lake City, and has the same challenges and civic discussions as cities do, not towns. When we refer to Alexandria as a city in reference to the schools, we do so in order to identify strategies that work for an urban city school system. If you take a city school system and try to fix it the way you would a small town school system, you would fail. [/quote]

Interesting that you accuse me of rudeness after claiming I was engaging in “toxic gaslighting” for merely pointing out that, while incorporated as a city, Alexandria is not a real city for all intents and purposes. Pretty sure the conversation was fine up until that point.

You mention SLC but SLC is the 117th largest city in the US and still about a third larger than Alexandria.

This is what we’re talking about. So long as Alexandrians insist that Alexandria is anything other than a suburb, they will excuse away all of the problems. If Alexandria is “different” than Arlington, Moco, etc., or any other large city close-in suburb with good schools, then there’s nothing to see here, because we’re “different.” But we’re not other than our tolerance for the indefensible.[/quote]

Where we disagree is your definition of what real is. That's what gaslighting is. It is a city, as you mentioned, legally, though a small one. However its problems and advantages are rooted in civic issues tied to cities not suburbs. Like Hoboken for example. I disagree that saying it's a city means we excuse the poor schools, in fact, saying it's a city helps approach the schools in a way that's effective in city school management. [/quote]

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