2021 ordering of Urban Virginia, in the eyes of Virginians (Virginia Beach: college, subdivisions)

[murksiderock]

By whatever standards you guys choose, with the developments and trajectories of all three, how would you guys rank the Big 3 in order of overall significance to The Commonwealth?

Big 3 being, in order of population, Northern Virginia, Tidewater, Greater Richmond (Central Virginia)...

Interested in current thoughts on how these three continue to develop!

[Ebck120]

Nova


Richmond
Tidewater

Nova is the economic center of the state with most of the activity as well as the area having steered the direction of state politics for awhile now. Richmond is the capital but I dont think it has as much influence on the state outside of it's capital city duties. I know very little about the Va Beach area and I don't ever hear much about the place.

[murksiderock]

Originally Posted by Ebck120

Nova


Richmond
Tidewater

Nova is the economic center of the state with most of the activity as well as the area having steered the direction of state politics for awhile now. Richmond is the capital but I dont think it has as much influence on the state outside of it's capital city duties. I know very little about the Va Beach area and I don't ever hear much about the place.

Richmond has a much more significant impact in the organic communities of music and art than NoVa...

NoVa's impact politically in relation to Richmond has always been overstated...

I respect your opinion though, you're a native Marylander, correct? And i know you've lived in NoVa and Richmond or still do, so I can dig it...

NoVa

Richmond


Tidewater

If I'm drawing it; the gap between NoVa and Richmond is smaller than the one between Richmond and Tidewater...

[Charlesaf3]

Nova is the most important

Richmond is Nova turned into an urban experience, and much more interesting and pleasant place to live than Nova

Hampton roads is subdivisions next to targets and walmarts. Pretty dreary to me.

[Old Dominionite]

I’m not going to rank them. All three areas are significant to Virginia and make unique contributions to the Commonwealth’s economy.

All three areas are moving in the right direction, although the persistent lack of regional cooperation hinders the potential of greater Richmond and Hampton Roads from being fully realized.

It’s fine to focus on northern Virginia, Richmond, and Hampton Roads given their relative size. However, Virginia’s future also depends in part on some of the other smaller cities scattered across the Commonwealth (e.g., Roanoke/Salem/Blacksburg, Lynchburg, Charlottesville, and the Shenandoah Valley cities/towns). The Southside cities also have great untapped potential.

[Ebck120]

Originally Posted by murksiderock

Richmond has a much more significant impact in the organic communities of music and art than NoVa...

NoVa's impact politically in relation to Richmond has always been overstated...

I respect your opinion though, you're a native Marylander, correct? And i know you've lived in NoVa and Richmond or still do, so I can dig it...

NoVa

Richmond


Tidewater

If I'm drawing it; the gap between NoVa and Richmond is smaller than the one between Richmond and Tidewater...

Yeah, I grew up all around the DC suburbs in Nova and on the MD side and lived in Richmond.

I'm assuming you mean significant as in important to the state correct? If that's the case, I'm not sure how Richmond is closer to Nova vs. Va Beach area.

Just looking at a few metrics alone..

GDP MSA (2018)
Richmond - 85M
Virginia Beach - 100M
Nova - Arlington 32M + Loudoun 25M + Alexandria 14M + FFX County/FFX City/Falls Church 107M = 178M

Nova is way ahead with Richmond and VA beach being closer to one another and if I were to include Prince William County for Nova, it would put them very close to 200M.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...n_areas_by_GDP
https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/fi...agdp1220_2.pdf

Population MSA 2019
Richmond 1.3M
Virginia Beach - 1.8M
Nova - Arlington 237K + Loudoun 414k + Alexandria 159k + FFX County 1.15M + FFX City 24k + Falls Church 15k = 2M

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/t...age_1139876276
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/t...mage_242301767

And population wise, Richmond is even smaller then the VA Beach. And again, I didn't include Prince William which has 470k.

Not downplaying Richmond and Va Beaches significance to the state but I don't see how these two wouldn't be closer peers with Nova being the outlier. We also can't ignore the fact that Nova is part of a top 10 MSA in the country basically by any metric. Fairfax county alone has 12 fortune 500 companies and the area will be adding another one when Amazon fully settles in, while the other two have much less. When looking at logistics infrastructure Nova has a significant advantage over the other two with IAD, DCA and the metro system although VA Beach has one of the busiest ports in the country.

Originally Posted by murksiderock

Richmond has a much more significant impact in the organic communities of music and art than NoVa...

Perhaps..... Richmond probably impacts a larger chunk of VA wherareas Nova is more influenced by DC's scene.

[Jupiter1162]

The urban qualities of Richmond are vastly overstated. Only a small part of the downtown and the immediate parts that flank it can be considered urban. The majority of the Richmond metro population live out in the suburbs or country. It is not a big city by any stretch of the imagination. It's 3-4 times smaller than Washington D.C. and Baltimore as well. Some of you guys are delusional and want Richmond to be something different so badly. It is not anything like Boston or Chicago.

Richmond is best thought of along the lines of a bigger Petersburg or Fredericksburg. The "art scene" is just a bunch of pink-haired college students duct-tapping bananas to walls and boasting about their contributions to art. It is not a worldly art scene by any metric.

That said, Richmond is THE city for much of Southside Virginia. And also the Capital of Adventure in Virginia.

[spencer114]

lol

[NOVA_guy]

Originally Posted by Ebck120

Yeah, I grew up all around the DC suburbs in Nova and on the MD side and lived in Richmond.

I'm assuming you mean significant as in important to the state correct? If that's the case, I'm not sure how Richmond is closer to Nova vs. Va Beach area.

Just looking at a few metrics alone..

GDP MSA (2018)
Richmond - 85M
Virginia Beach - 100M
Nova - Arlington 32M + Loudoun 25M + Alexandria 14M + FFX County/FFX City/Falls Church 107M = 178M

Nova is way ahead with Richmond and VA beach being closer to one another and if I were to include Prince William County for Nova, it would put them very close to 200M.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...n_areas_by_GDP
https://www.bea.gov/sites/default/fi...agdp1220_2.pdf

Population MSA 2019
Richmond 1.3M
Virginia Beach - 1.8M
Nova - Arlington 237K + Loudoun 414k + Alexandria 159k + FFX County 1.15M + FFX City 24k + Falls Church 15k = 2M

https://www.census.gov/data/tables/t...age_1139876276
https://www.census.gov/data/tables/t...mage_242301767

And population wise, Richmond is even smaller then the VA Beach. And again, I didn't include Prince William which has 470k.

Not downplaying Richmond and Va Beaches significance to the state but I don't see how these two wouldn't be closer peers with Nova being the outlier. We also can't ignore the fact that Nova is part of a top 10 MSA in the country basically by any metric. Fairfax county alone has 12 fortune 500 companies and the area will be adding another one when Amazon fully settles in, while the other two have much less. When looking at logistics infrastructure Nova has a significant advantage over the other two with IAD, DCA and the metro system although VA Beach has one of the busiest ports in the country.



Perhaps..... Richmond probably impacts a larger chunk of VA wherareas Nova is more influenced by DC's scene.

You should've included Stafford as well in the GDP numbers. Although it's south and relatively small compared to the counties to the north of it, I'd say it has more ties to NoVa/DC than it does Richmond.

[NOVA_guy]

Originally Posted by Jupiter1162

The urban qualities of Richmond are vastly overstated. Only a small part of the downtown and the immediate parts that flank it can be considered urban. The majority of the Richmond metro population live out in the suburbs or country. It is not a big city by any stretch of the imagination. It's 3-4 times smaller than Washington D.C. and Baltimore as well. Some of you guys are delusional and want Richmond to be something different so badly. It is not anything like Boston or Chicago.

Richmond is best thought of along the lines of a bigger Petersburg or Fredericksburg. The "art scene" is just a bunch of pink-haired college students duct-tapping bananas to walls and boasting about their contributions to art. It is not a worldly art scene by any metric.

That said, Richmond is THE city for much of Southside Virginia. And also the Capital of Adventure in Virginia.

Yep. NGL, I do cringe at some of the stuff people on here say in regards to Richmond. It's a cool city and it has some nice suburbs (Midlothian, Short Pump) but some folks sound delusional when they're talking about it. Even when you dig into the data, it's not really analogous to the Bostons and Chicagos of the world.