All these discussions are downstream of geography. A big chunk of NoVa (Arlington, Falls Church, Alexandria) is very close to Downtown DC. Bethesda, which is equivalent to McLean in terms of income and housing stock, while neighboring DC, is not close to any jobs or commerce since DC West of Rock Creek Park is suburban residential. Add to the mix the development along the 267 corridor and it’s no surprise that NoVa has appreciated more. If the I-270 corridor had developed like the 267 corridor did, things would be more balanced. I’m not even including PG County into the conversation because it never had any serious prospects of developing like the western counties did, for various reasons

MoCo remains a mostly bedroom suburban area, and at least mid county and down county, attracts DC job holders in the traditional way it always did back in the 70s-90s: a haven from the hubbub and a more human-scaled way of raising kids
NoVa morphed into its own economic powerhouse with its own set of industries, namely tech and defense. It appreciated more, but is a bigger mess of highways and is less human-scaled

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We thought about living in VA when we moved to this area but then we drove and walked around the supposedly nice areas, and we found them to be poorly designed and frankly pretty ugly. Decided on MoCo and couldn’t be happier. We have wonderful neighbors, it’s very pleasant to exercise around the neighborhood, and the schools have been great also. Our house has gone up so much in value but frankly we don’t really think about it because we have no plans to sell or move.

Half of the so called nice areas of MoCo need to be torn down if they haven't already

My neighborhood is beautiful and I found a ton of beautiful neighborhoods when I decided to live in MoCo. There’s nothing that needs to be torn down. Your experience in NoVa must be different.

Anonymous wrote:We thought about living in VA when we moved to this area but then we drove and walked around the supposedly nice areas, and we found them to be poorly designed and frankly pretty ugly. Decided on MoCo and couldn’t be happier. We have wonderful neighbors, it’s very pleasant to exercise around the neighborhood, and the schools have been great also. Our house has gone up so much in value but frankly we don’t really think about it because we have no plans to sell or move.

Half of the so called nice areas of MoCo need to be torn down if they haven't already

We thought about living in VA when we moved to this area but then we drove and walked around the supposedly nice areas, and we found them to be poorly designed and frankly pretty ugly. Decided on MoCo and couldn’t be happier. We have wonderful neighbors, it’s very pleasant to exercise around the neighborhood, and the schools have been great also. Our house has gone up so much in value but frankly we don’t really think about it because we have no plans to sell or move.