News and notes from Reston (tm).

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Oh, the Humanity: Reston Again Snubbed in 'Best Places to Live' List; Apparently Just Not as Awesome as Herndon.... and Manassas Park?

Money-Magazine-August-2010.jpegOnce again, the listicle-generating fools at Money magazine have snubbed our beloved earth-toned community in its annual list of the best places to live. On the bright side, our Maryland doppelganger Columbia, which was ranked #2 last year, has fallen off the list completely. Maybe a Money factchecker discovered the truth about its satanic past.

However, our tolerant neighbor to the west made the list-- Herndon was ranked 34th. Here's what the Money chart monkeys had to say about the town:

This diverse little town was named for Commander William Lewis Herndon, an American naval explorer, in 1858. Today it provides a great base to explore the many jobs in the area. Herndon sits right near the so-called Dulles Technology Corridor, where companies such as AOL, Microsoft, and Verizon are big employers. Alternatively, residents can make the commute to Washington D.C., 22 miles away. The public schools here are a big draw for many: Newsweek consistently ranks Herndon High in the top 5% of the country. --D.B.
Can we point out that said naval explorer never set foot in the town named for him?

But we're willing to be the bigger persons and let that go. Especially since there's another, far more painful snub on the list. Last year, sprawly cloverleaf intersection Centreville was inexplicably placed on the list. This year, the real head-scratcher is Manassas Park. Not Manassas, Manassas Park, the red-headed stepchild of Manassas proper. Seriously?

In the interest of fairness, let's visit "the MP," as the kids like to say, courtesy of the Google Machine, and see if we're wrong about the place. Here's a lovely picture of the town sign:

MP1.jpg
Sure looks like a quaint, mom-and-pop sort of place. Now let's turn the Google Street View camera just a little bit to the right to check out the town's bustling business district:

Pawn.jpg
Yep, it's a pawn shop. One of several in the town proper. And in case you want to get a tattoo with the cash you scored by hocking the big-screen TV, you're in luck:

MP.jpg
Good times indeed!

And in case you're keeping score at home, "Great" Falls was at the top of the list of "top-earning towns," which, you know, shocker, especially when you consider it's essentially a magnet for government welfare recipients, also known as "contractors," the end.

4 comments:

  1. The lamest list ever in the entire history of making lame lists!

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  2. Most of Reston's zips show up as Herndon. I'd like to think our little hamlet of utopia is what lobbed Herndon all the way to 34 and that we were snubbed because we technically aren't a city.

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  3. Herndon deserves to be on the list above Reston because in Herndon, not only can you Live. Work. Play. but you can also Speak. Spanish and Die.

    And if you die in Reston, what happens then? Well, they cart your corpse over to Herndon for appropriate disposal.

    As for Manassas Park, besides tatoo parlors and pawn shops, they also have a Rent-A-Center. Where can you go in Reston to furnish your house? FISH? 'Nuff said.

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  4. Alternatively, residents can make the commute to Washington D.C., 22 miles away.

    Each leg of the trip costs a mere $20 via the gleaming Dulles Toll Road, and takes a brisk two hours on the average weekday rush hour!

    ReplyDelete

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