Washington, D.C

5 Northern Virginia Suburbs of Washington DC You Should Consider Moving

Published

1 year ago

December 9, 2024

5 Northern Virginia Suburbs of Washington DC You Should Consider Moving

It’s so hard to move to this area with such a variety of choices and cost of real estate. You have probably checked sites like Niche.com and wondered if their rankings were accurate. Newsflash, they are not. I have a video on Niche’s top Arlington neighborhoods and some of the neighborhoods weren’t even real. Beware of AI Garbage people. Don’t trust AI Garbage when making major life decisions.

This is my list, my, “If I were house hunting again, here are the places I would consider in Northern Virginia for my family” list. At the end, I’ll tell you where I would never want to live.

The 5 Northern Virginia Suburbs You Should Consider

Vienna

I admit it, I’m a Vienna booster. Vienna wins “Best All Around” in the Yearbook Superlatives for me. It’s filled with family-friendly neighborhoods, crawling with great schools and has a strong community feel. It’s easy to meet people and it is close to employment centers. Vienna, Virginia is about 15 miles west of downtown Washington DC.

There is a variety of real estate in Vienna, but it is on the pricier side of real estate for the area. The $800,000’s will get you a rambler or split-level home. Most of the buyers looking at Vienna would consider that a “teardown.” They will buy the home for the precious land on which it sits, and the location and amenities Vienna has to offer. They will tear it down and build a bigger house in its place. Maple Avenue, which runs right through Vienna, is filled with restaurants that have stood the test of time, and offer a diverse array of food types.

The town of Vienna has 12 Parks and the Vienna Recreation Center offers recreational and educational programs as well as festivals & concerts year-round. Chillin on Church is a monthly block party that runs from June to September. There are Fourth of July fireworks at Yeonas Park, Oktoberfest, a Halloween Parade, Holiday Stroll, a Kids on the Green summer series of events, Memorial Day Celebration and a Farmer’s Market. ViVa Vienna is a music and craft festival. The W&OD Trail also runs right through Vienna and many walkers, runners and bikers use this trail daily.

Lyon Park – Arlington

Lyon Park is about as good as it gets for people who love the urban vibe but still like green space. This neighborhood has always attracted families for its proximity to DC for short commute times and amenities. Lyon Park has a friendly feeling with many people walking dogs, biking and hanging out at the park. The streets are narrow, discouraging speedy drivers and easy for kids to get to friend’s houses. The park & playground in the middle of the neighborhood serve as an anchor for everyone to head outside.

Clarendon metro is just a couple blocks away, as well as the shops and restaurants along Wilson and Clarendon Boulevards. Arlington schools are well rated, and you will see a lot of people who live here before kids, then stay in the neighborhood once the kids arrive on the scene. Homes are expensive though, they start in the $800,000’s if you’re lucky to find something at that price and go well into the $2M’s.

Del Ray – Alexandria

If living in a neighborhood with only local shops and delicious mom and pop restaurants, tons of walkability and a great sense of community sound like a dream, Del Ray is your spot. This neighborhood is super popular among both families and those without kids. Del Ray is very walkable, and it is stroller and kid-friendly.

You can find row homes, townhomes, and duplexes sprinkled throughout the neighborhood in the $500,000 – $1.5M range. If you want a single-family home, prices range from the $600,000s up to $2.5M. The popularity of Del Ray has driven the home prices quite high.

These prices vary so greatly because of age, condition, square footage, and location. Most homes in the lower ranges require a lot of renovation. Del Ray also can often have wet basements, so inspect your home thoroughly and be sure to bring in any additional inspectors that may not be typical in other neighborhoods, such as mold.

Falls Church City

The City of Falls Church stands on its own. Cities in Virginia are not within counties, and the city portion of Falls Church not only has its own government, but its own school system as well. Contained within 2.2 square miles, the population of Falls Church City is 14,000. It is the second smallest city in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Falls Church City is 6 miles east of Washington DC.

It’s not easy to buy a house in Falls Church City. There are many bidding wars here. Why do people endure this trauma? Schools are unbeatable.

A single-family home here will be in the $1M – $2M range.

About 30% of Falls Church City is comprised of one person households, so it isn’t all families here. The demographics the city provides each year outline the breakdown and 41% of households have 3 or more people.

The City of Falls Church has a little downtown area with a lot of cool mom & pop places. Route 7, which is called West Broad Street, runs right through the city and has a variety of ethnic restaurants – Greek, Italian, Irish, Bolivian, Thai, Salvadorean, Jamaican and Seafood. There’s a lot to choose from and it’s all rated pretty close to 5 stars. For coffee and pastries, Northside Social is very popular as well as Rare Bird and Bakeshop.

West Springfield

If you have kids and need great schools and amenities but you also want to live somewhere without the mansions and high prices like most of Northern Virginia, without a doubt you want West Springfield. The affordability of West Springfield cannot be overstated. You can easily get a home here in the $600,000 to $700,000’s. If you want to spend more you can, there are neighborhoods that are $1M+.

This is as great of a low-key family community as you can find here. The Fairfax County Schools that serve West Springfield are some of the best in the area. While more residential feeling than other areas on this list, you have a ton of amenities nearby that are so close that you won’t feel isolated. Parks, trails, playgrounds and pools, Hidden Pond Nature Center.

Northern Virginia Suburbs You Shouldn’t Consider

So where are those places where you shouldn’t live? We can’t steer people into or away from areas, but, these are places where I feel the cons outweigh the pros, or the cons are just too strong to consider the pros that exist.

Sterling

Before I get nailed here, I will say there are some awesome parts of Sterling. There are! The northern parts, closer to Potomac Falls are everything the burbs should be. Lots of big box stores make it super convenient, and a lot of pretty awesome restaurants. It feels clean and new and of course my own personal barometer of if I could live there – there’s a Sweetwater Tavern, northeast of Dulles Town Center. There’s a Wegmans and Costco. But note that I’m not a chain-restaurant or big-box snob, I love all that because I didn’t grow up with it around me. If you hate all that, then even the northern parts of Sterling probably aren’t for you.

So why is it on my list of places you shouldn’t move to? This is Ground Zero of where 1/3 of all Internet Data is housed, in many many data centers. You may not comprehend what this really means so let’s break it down.

Did you know that 1/3 of all internet data in the world is housed in Northern Virginia? These data centers use up a ton of power as I’m sure you can imagine. And that could seriously put the power grid in jeopardy. The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality suggested that the data centers use their generators more. But, the generators are diesel fueled, and this isn’t so great for air quality. If you live in an area where the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality suggests waiving air quality rules to appease the data centers, how do you think you stand as a citizen? Did I mention that whole humming thing too? You’ll never get a moment of peace and quiet, that humming will become the background noise of your life. I have tried to capture this on video, but it’s nearly impossible to hear it.

If that wasn’t enough for you, you’re also in the shadow of Dulles International Airport. If you don’t hear the data centers humming, you’ll hear the airplanes. Also, the one chain restaurant I have cut ties with happened for me in Sterling. The world’s most expensive Benihana BS Chain Restaurant in the world, so don’t go there. Seriously. They wanted like $40 for Hibachi Shrimp. That wasn’t even that good. Insanity!

Crystal City

The 1980’s called, and they want their obsolete office buildings and condos back.

Crystal City has been trying to rebrand into National Landing for six years now. A little company you have probably heard of decided to put their second headquarters here. Amazon. And BB – Before Bezos, Crystal City was a neighborhood everyone sped through on their way to somewhere else, like Old Town Alexandria. It was filled with offices and condos with high monthly fees – relics of everything half-assed about 1980’s construction.

Before Bezos, these were condos that sat on the market. After Bezos, people from all over the country started snatching them up, sight-unseen, banking on the Amazon effect. How did that work out for them? The Amazon machine hasn’t panned out the way it was advertised. Last year there was some job loss, and while Amazon has recently stated it wants all employees back in the office 5 days a week, their hiring targets aren’t where they were promised they would be. And they get a subsidy from the Commonwealth of Virginia for each new hire, so you know they must be hurting.

Development is crazy in Crystal City but there’s still much ugly. The Costco here wins the prize for being the world’s worst Costco, but it doesn’t stop me from going there and smashing my car through the parking lot. Speaking of the parking lot, someone was just carjacked in the garage there. They have a six-story garage and surface parking, I’m not sure who parks in the garage. I’m also not sure who would want to carjack someone in the garage because the line to get out of there is like the lines trying to leave a concert. You can’t really make a quick getaway.

Also did I mention you’re right next to the airport? Like, right next to it.

Manassas

People move to Manassas because it’s less expensive, but, I’m going to let the map do the talking. Do you see what I see? It’s nowhere near a highway that goes anywhere helpful. Sure you can take the Prince William County Parkway but that’s going to take you from one bedroom community to another. If you need to get to work, you’re likely going to head north to 66, and that could take forever. People commuting to Centreville report that it can take anywhere from 30 – 75 minutes.

People leave Manassas because of the commute. The commute from Manassas to pretty much anywhere else is awful. If you don’t believe me, you can ask Michael. He left the city to buy a house in Manassas and I made fun of him for a year. First he claimed it wasn’t that far and he could get there in the same time it took him to get across the city. Joke’s on him – He moved out and you will too.

Alexandria – Specifically, Huntington

When you leave the charm and loving embrace you feel in Old Town Alexandria and head south, you will wonder if you somehow went from Boston to Gary Indiana in a split second. After you pass some ugly high rise apartments, here come the sketchy motels. I’m going to let the video do the talking here.

There you have it, the unfiltered, non-sponsored list of what I believe to be the best and worst of Northern Virginia!

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Washington, D.C

Army Corps: Reservoir expansion ‘doesn’t fix, but improves’ DC’s drinking water supply for future Potomac River emergency – WTOP News

Published

5 hours ago

March 2, 2026

Press Room

Army Corps: Reservoir expansion ‘doesn’t fix, but improves’ DC’s drinking water supply for future Potomac River emergency – WTOP News

Developing a regional solution to enable all local water companies to share drinking water in the event of a future Potomac River emergency remains a long-term challenge facing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. But the Corps is leaning-in to near term solutions, for now, because current issues “are quite, quite dire.”

In an interview with WTOP, Trevor Cyran, Chief of the Civil Works project management office of the Baltimore District Corps of Engineers, elaborated on the Corps’ ongoing three-year feasibility study funded by Congress and the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.

Last week, during a House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee hearing, lawmakers pressed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to explain what’s being done to secure solid backup options for the D.C. region’s drinking water.

D.C. Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton challenged the Corps after learning that the study that Congress authorized to identify a secondary water source for the region was being narrowed to only expanding the current Dalecarlia Reservoir, adjacent to the Washington Aqueduct, which remains the only source of drinking water for D.C., Arlington, and parts of Fairfax County, Virginia.

“Expansion of the reservoir is not a secondary water source,” Norton said. “With only a one day of backup water supply, human-made or natural events that make the river unusable would put residents, the District government and the regional economy at risk.”

Cyran said the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers doesn’t disagree.

“We’re trying to find a quick win that addresses some of the near-term issues, because they are quite, quite dire,” Cyran said. “The Dalecarlia expansion would add approximately 12 hours of water storage into the system,” he said. “So, while we know that doesn’t fix the problem, it improves the situation.”

Recently, drinking water in D.C., Northern Virginia and Maryland has remained safe because the January collapse of a portion of the aging Potomac Interceptor regional sewer line happened downstream of the main Potomac River water intake serving the Washington Aqueduct.

“We’ve moved forward with the Dalecarlia expansion, as our most probable recommendation,” said Cyran. “The Corps is laser focused on delivering something right here, right now that can actually help with the issue, while still exploring some of those long term solutions.”

Cyran said the dangers to public health and the economy are substantial, with the Potomac as the sole drinking water source. “It’s not a great situation — we’ve seen a very real risk come to fruition recently, with the spill.”

While drinking water has been unaffected by the spill, the advisory for the public to avoid contact with the Potomac River remains in effect in the District and Montgomery County, where the Potomac Interceptor spill happened, along the Clara Barton Parkway.

The advisory is expected to be lifted Monday, by the D.C. Department of Health, as E. coli levels have recently returned to the typical range for D.C.’s rivers. The District’s Department of Energy and Environment is now doing daily testing of the Potomac and Anacostia Rivers.

How would increased storage at Dalecarlia Reservoir look?

According to the Army Corps, expanding the Reservoir over 54 available acres would provide approximately 70 million gallons per day, doubling the capacity at Dalecarlia. Since the land is already owned by the Washington Aqueduct, it would not require acquiring any land.

Cyran said it’s not yet certain whether the expansion would provide an extra 12 hours of storage of raw water from the Potomac, or finished water, after it had gone through the Washington Aqueduct’s water purification process.

Regardless, either option would result in the Aqueduct having more water on hand, if drawing water from the Potomac was suddenly unsafe.

Another near-term option that wouldn’t require land acquisition would be advanced treatment, Cyran said.

“We could implement something that allows us to treat for a wider array of contaminants, if you had a spill,” said Cyran, although noting the recent spill from the Potomac Interceptor, which poured approximately 240 millions of raw sewage into the Potomac, “might not be a good example” of how the technology would work.

The Army Corps list of possible solutions includes reusing water. In November 2025, DC Water outlined its own plans to recycle water from the utility’s Blue Plains Advanced Wastewater Treatment Plant, the largest of its kind in the world.

Quarry storage cannot happen quickly

During its ongoing study, the Army Corps has identified possible long term regional solutions, including the potential use of the Travilah Quarry in Montgomery County, Maryland, and two quarries in Loudoun County, Virginia, owned by Luck Stone.

10 years ago, in December 2016, WTOP first reported that the Travilah Quarry, located on Piney Meetinghouse Road in Rockville, was quietly being considered by DC Water, WSSC Water, and Fairfax Water, as an alternative source of water, if the Potomac River were unavailable.

“The three utilities, and the Interstate Commission on the Potomac River Basin, along with the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments have been working over the last several years to look at alternatives to get better interdependencies, to have more resilience in our system,” said Tom Jacobus in 2016, while he was general manager of the Aqueduct.

Now, a decade later, the logistical, real estate, and financial challenges of obtaining a quarry which could be interconnected between DC Water, WSSC Water, and Fairfax Water remain.

“We’re not saying they can never happen, we’re just saying they cannot, in any way, shape, or form, happen quickly,” said Cyran. “Travilah is still an active quarry, so that can’t even be considered for storage until they’re done mining, which might be 30 years from now.”

The Dalecarlia Reservoir expansion would not be regional solution, Cyran said.

“That would only benefit folks who are tied directly to the Aqueduct at this time,” he said. “However, while we’re going to be looking at other alternatives that we could potentially spin off and continue to look at, that would address some of those more regional issues.”

‘We can’t hand half-baked ideas to Congress’

While an interconnected, resilient system, that could provide additional water sources and storage to DC Water, WSSC Water, and Fairfax Water would be optimal, Cyran said the Corps is limited by a Congressional paradigm that limits its feasibility study to four years and five million dollars.

“We can’t hand half-baked ideas to Congress,” Cyran said.

With the Corps’ current focus of implementing near-term improvements, quickly, the agency will continue to use its expertise to envision a more resilient, long term solution.

“We are committed to looking at this issue and try to explore some regional solutions, within the paradigms of the legislation that we have to operate within,” said Cyran. “If Congress wants to consider something else to expand our authority, we could maybe look at a bigger solution, with more time and money.”

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Washington, D.C

New AAPI-led Jaemi Theatre Company launches in DC

Published

17 hours ago

March 1, 2026

Press Room

New AAPI-led Jaemi Theatre Company launches in DC

Jaemi Theatre Company, a new AAPI-led theater company based in Washington, DC, officially launches this spring with its inaugural project, BAAL, a staged reading at the 2026 Atlas INTERSECTIONS Festival on Friday, March 6, at 7:30 PM at the Atlas Performing Arts Center.

Jaemi Theatre Company co-founder and playwright Youri Kim

Founded by Artistic Director Youri Kim and Artistic Associate Juyoung Koh, Jaemi Theatre was born out of a recognition that DC, one of the largest theater markets in the United States, had no company dedicated to centering Asian stories or led by Asian artists. The name “Jaemi” comes from a Korean word meaning “fun,” and in its Sino-Korean form, 在美, means both “to live in America” and “to live in beauty.”

“I kept hearing from companies that it was hard to find Asian actors, and I heard it so often that I started to believe it myself,” said Youri Kim. “But through building community with other AAPI theater artists in the area, I realized the talent was always here. What was missing was the infrastructure to connect us. Jaemi is that infrastructure.”

BAAL, an original work written by Youri Kim (not to be confused with Bertolt Brecht’s 1918 play of the same name), is a body horror drama set in a dystopian city where the air is toxic and birth is outlawed. In the city of Baal, citizens are forced into an impossible choice: terminate or sacrifice a family member. The play uses the language of biological mutation and bodily control to examine how systems of power decide who gets to exist and on what terms, questions that resonate deeply within AAPI and immigrant communities navigating structures that seek to define, contain, and assimilate them. The staged reading features a cast of seven and an original sound design.

BAAL plays as a staged reading Friday, March 6, 2026, at 7:30 PM in Lab Theatre II at the Atlas Performing Arts Center (1333 H St NE, Washington, DC). Tickets ($29.75) are available online.

Looking ahead, Jaemi Theatre plans to host a founding party and fundraiser this fall, and will launch an Asian Writer Play Submission program in the second half of 2026. The program will pair playwrights from selected Asian countries with Asian playwrights based in DC for a workshop development process, building a pipeline that connects diasporic voices across borders.

For more information, visit yourikimdirector.com or follow @jaemitheatre on Instagram.

About Jaemi Theatre Company
Jaemi Theatre is a newly formed AAPI-led performance initiative based in Washington, DC, co-founded by Artistic Director Youri Kim and Artistic Associate Juyoung Koh. “Jaemi” is Korean for “fun” and, in its Sino-Korean form, means “to live in America” and “to live in beauty.” The company creates interdisciplinary performance rooted in diasporic imagination and radical storytelling. Jaemi is a home for the unfinished and the unassimilated, where performance holds contradiction without needing to resolve it.

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