Talk:Arlington County, Virginia

new municipalities law
I deleted the reference to the City of Fairfax because it is misleading, and technically incorrect. It would be a lot more correct for the WP article on Arlington County to just say something like "Arlington County has no Incorporated towns and under the current state laws, no new incorporated towns can be formed in the densely populated county" and leave it at that.

I hope I didn't offend anyone by deleting that sentence in the Arlington article. No offense was intended by that action.

I researched the Code of Virginia to make sure about these clarifications, but make no claim to be a lawyer. I no longer lobby the General Assembly, but I did so for a few years on transportation issues.

Here are some clarifications (from a layman):

1. Virginia's independent cities are not "within a county" in terms of the state laws. I realize that on the surface that defies common sense, but while they may be entirely surrounded by a county, such as City of Fairfax and City of Falls Church, they are not within it in the legal sense.

Example: The state law is that the City of Roanoke is not within Roanoke County although physically it is completely surrounded by it. It gets better: The City of Richmond is the county seat of Henrico County, but is not within it legally.

2. Virginia's incorporated towns are always legally within a county. You cannot have a town outside of a county or within an independent city. Incorporated towns share certain constitutional officers with the host county (IE sheriff, courts). Some cities and counties have agreements to share some of these functions, but no town has a sheriff or a court system.

3. Cities have no threat of a new town being formed within them. However, counties in general do. Any section of a county attaining the required density can petition to become a municipality (read=town) if it meets a definition of more than 1000 per sq mile and over a certain total number.

4. Some heavily urbanized counties, like Arlington and Henrico, wanted to be sure no new towns were formed within them, possibly due to an actual threat, so they got that special legislation passed which was narrowly limited to them by the density definition. That type of wording is a veiled way to get special interest bills through the General Assembly without naming the special interest target. A very common political maneuver often missed by opponents and the news media. Since only Arlington and Henrico Counties seemed to have been was originally impacted by the law when it became effective, it is likely that the legislation was a method for one of those (or both) of these counties to gain the same protection as cities already enjoyed without converting its charter to legally become a city. I don't know Arlington politics, but there may have been some type of this threat somewhere there. In Henrico, the west end is almost built out, and the whole county is so narrow in the middle (less than 3 miles at one point) that creating a town could have been a method of moving towards a new city, thereby blocking future annexations when the current moratorium ends. I believe that the eastern end of the county which is still fairly rural would be the big loser on such a situation. They want to keep the county intact.

5. Without such legislation, new towns could be formed in portions of a county with the required density by petitions of the citizens. Not only does creation of a new municipality (read= town) within a county mean a sharing of taxing power in an existing county, but has historically been a stepping stone to independent city status, which really clobbers the county when it happens.

6. Arlington County must be comfortable that the City of Alexandria would not attempt an annexation, probably because the county is small enough that it could argue that nothing would be left, and also because it is built out, negating the legal basis for annexation, which is vacant and with room for a city to expand. the same basically protects Fairfax County from Alexandria and the independent cities physically landlocked within it. The adjacent areas are built out. Annexation has nothing to do with the will of the people, and everything to do with the need of a city to grow. It is one of Virginia's biggest obstacles to regional cooperation. However, without it, there is little way for cities to get a fair shake, as the state consistently underfunds their needs (which are greater per citizen) in comparison to most counties.

7. Virginiaa's independent cities are exempt from formation of new town or annexation suits. So the existing highly urbanized counties want(ed) the same protection the cities already have: no new towns in our borders. They would also like to see the annexation moratorium for big cities extended.

8. If you are a county, why not just convert to becoming a city? Presto, no risk of new towns or annexation by your neighbors. This was done in a big way in the Hampton Roads area between 1952 and 1976. When it was all over, 5 counties, 1 town, and 3 independent cities disappeared, replaced by 8 independent cities, no towns, and no counties in the same area. The total physical territory only expanded a few square miles, as Poquoson became an incorporated town, and then converted to a city and then exited York County. Now, even before the current moratorium, no one can annex anyone else. Their increased tax rates reflect the loss of state funding all that has cost them. However, the areas around annexation-oriented Norfolk and Portsmouth are safe from them, and both, especially Portsmouth are screaming about that burden and the inability to expand their tax base in the usual way (IE just annex more of a neighboring county).

9. The downside for Arlington (or Henrico) to convert itself to a city is that you get less state money and have to do more local services. Arlington as a county gets a nice appropriation for its streets and roads which would be lost, as does Henrico, under the old grandfathered law. If they became cities, the money for roads and streets would go by the current city formula, which is much much less.

10. Arlington and Henrico are the only counties with this big money difference in roads funding. All cities have to do their own, and get a much less general stipend from the state. No other counties or any towns have to do any, nor are they allowed to. Rtaher, under the 1932 law, VDOT does it all, and is careful to keep the numbers and its choice of how to spend the money as blurred and outside of the ability of the localities to directly control as possible. It isn't just money, it's also a control factor.

11. The only reason any of this should be mentioned in the Arlington article is to explain why Rosslyn, Ballston, etc are populated enough and dense enough to become incorporated towns except for the law mentioned.

If any of this interests you more, especially the Hampton Roads situation, you may want to read the article Lost Counties, Cities and Towns of Virginia. At the end, an excellent book on the merger politics is listed. All but 2 of the conversions were completed when it was written in 1972.

Vaoverland 11:43, Feb 27, 2005 (UTC)


 * This may be besides the point of the edit in question -- much less 16 years later, oops -- but my understanding is that Fairfax County, Virginia has a form of government, urban county executive form, that expressly prohibits incorporation within it.  Whereas Arlington does not.  So the remaining puzzler for me is why it didn't just do the same, but that may not be pertinent to the article.  109.255.211.6 (talk) 00:18, 9 March 2021 (UTC)


 * Please read through the last discussion on the previous talk page in the archives. I had a whole discussion with another member in which we were able to find the details of this. --Criticalthinker (talk) 03:33, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Alexandria County, Virginia alt-title?
There's a redirect from Alexandria County, Virginia to here, for reasons mentioned in the article. Should that be bolded as an alt-title? In the lede, or later? Or would that be undue prominence and potentially confusing? 109.255.211.6 (talk) 05:56, 7 March 2021 (UTC)


 * I agree that it could be in the lead to prevent perplexity, but at the bottom, as it's a digression from overview-level topics. "Until 1920, the county was known as Alexandria County." On the other hand, I can imagine a user wanting to look up Alexandria and typing "Alexandria County" under the impression that today's Alexandria, like Arlington, is a county. So we could kill two birds with one stone by adding a hatnote at the top. "Alexandria County redirects here. For the city of Alexandria, Virginia, see Alexandria, Virginia." Largoplazo (talk) 11:19, 7 March 2021 (UTC)
 * Makes a lot of sense to me. Either of those works, I think.  109.255.211.6 (talk) 20:30, 7 March 2021 (UTC)

This entry has the wrong link for CNA.
The correct CNA is https://www.cna.org/centers/ipr/

It used to be called the Center for Naval Analysis but now goes by CNA. It's a non-profit research and analysis organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.231.145.205 (talk) 23:00, 2 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks for catching it. I've linked it to CNA (nonprofit). Largoplazo (talk) 03:01, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

County seal
The county seal has changed. Could someone update the infographic with the new county seal? Thank you. Dmford13 (talk) 16:35, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The infobox shows both a logo (which is the new one) and a seal (which is an old one). It isn't clear to me that Arlington distinguishes seal from logoaren't they one and the same in Arlington? Source such as this one seem to use them interchangeably, if they do use both terms. If so, then we just need to remove the "seal" item from the infobox. Largoplazo (talk) 21:16, 4 February 2023 (UTC)
 * The seal highlighting alexandria is wrong. It should just be dark blue in the top left like in the flag. 2603:8001:D340:DD38:18A0:47D6:7EA7:B5F5 (talk) 07:19, 16 March 2024 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion: Participate in the deletion discussion at the. —Community Tech bot (talk) 11:53, 8 April 2023 (UTC)
 * Flag of Arlington County, Virginia (2022–present).svg


 * The seal is incorrect. The flag should replace the seal, or at least the seal should be fixed. 2603:8001:D340:DD38:18A0:47D6:7EA7:B5F5 (talk) 07:20, 16 March 2024 (UTC)