Tell you what, though, the things that would make a person feel unsafe raising a kid in VA aren't really in effect in Arlington, as far as I know (not being a member of a persecuted minority -- except for being a woman, that is [eta: and jewish enough for the haters] -- and not having kids I'm trying to raise). There are, yes, state laws that suck, which there also are in MD, incidentally, and in terms of living environment, an awful lot of the time it looks to me like NoVA and MD are practically the same (with a slight increase, in Maryland, of a pedestrian's likelihood of being hit by a car).