Suburbanizing History: Northern Virginia’s Identity Crisis

American Conservative ^ | March 21, 2018 | Casey Chalk

[C19fan]

Strangers I meet are always surprised when they discover they’ve met a third-generation Northern Virginian. “Wow, a native!” they exclaim, “you don’t meet many of those!” This surprise is often accompanied by a strong opinion about NoVA, as it’s often called—they suggest that the area just across the Potomac River from Washington, D.C. has little regional identity or unique culture, or little worthy of praise. It’s quite a bracing commentary to hear about one’s home. Yet I contend that whatever deficit in cultural identity NoVA may have has been accrued by the technocratic elite that has come to dominate the DC metropolitan area.

It was not that long ago that Northern Virginia was solidly Southern in character and mood. The roads and schools make that clear: the former have names like Jefferson Davis Memorial Highway, Lee-Jackson Memorial Highway; of the latter there are high schools named after native Virginians Robert E. Lee and Thomas Jefferson. There was even a JEB Stuart High School, until last year when it was renamed “Justice High School” by the Fairfax County School Board. It’s easy to forget that the great 2000 football flick Remember the Titans is about T.C. Williams High School in Alexandria, which was racially integrated in 1971. My mother’s alma mater, West Springfield, sported one of the teams the Titans demolished in that epic season.

[ckilmer]

Yeah, I did a search to confirm your numbers. they are correct.

It sure doesn’t look that way in the public places around here.

[Albion Wilde]

Ping!

[nicollo]

Arlington: The Rap
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T1RMuoQnKo

[pepsionice]

I would draw a line from Leesburg to Dumfries, and everything north and east of that....going to DC....is just another entire state by itself and radically different from the rest of the state. Part of the problem is that you’ve had so many move up into that one region, and they adapt themselves into being DC-ites rather than Virginians.

For one of the summers (of the 3 years I lived in the state), I took several weekend trips around the state...particularly to the area around Meadows of Dan and Fancy Gap. You get out of the car and you feel like you are in a totally different state....different attitude, crime is no issue, and everyone has a true Virginia accent.