09-17-2016, 05:31 AM
D_Eclipse9916 Wrote:NOVA is hit or miss, you really hate it or you love it and I think a lot of this has to do with who you are, and where you decide to "experience NOVA".
Mike Wrote:it's a trap.
These are pretty accurate descriptions of the place. There's alot of negatives to the area - the traffic, congestion, the costs - but if you make some conscious choices about how you live your life here there's also a lot of upsides - the job market is always good (federal gov't insulates the whole area with a blanked of money), the housing market never really tanked and is moving up (my house is up 20% since I bought it 5 years ago), there's great diversity of culture/restaurants compared to a lot of places in the country, tons of outdoors shit to do, close to the mountains. I've made some choices to alleviate the problems - I live in Reston and refuse to have a commute any further than about 5 miles. It took me 4 months to switch jobs last year, so that's the tradeoff. I'd still like to move elsewhere at some point (shut up, Mikey) but at the moment things are pretty good here. Like anything, its what you make of it, and dont discount having friends/family nearby.