Working in Fairfax: Where to Live?

January 24 by Marina Brito

A few months ago, Bernard and Rachel moved to Fairfax County because Bernard got a new job and he would be working in Fairfax County.

Tysons Corner skyline

Bernard’s new office would be located in Tysons Corner (within Fairfax County), so they set out to look for a nice home, conveniently located so that he would have a reasonable commute.

In addition to the commute consideration, Rachel and Bernard wanted to made sure that their new home was also in the right school boundary for their kids.

Rachel also wanted to work in Fairfax

And while they were deciding which school boundaries met their needs, they also considered that Rachel would go back to work soon after they moved, but she still needed to find a job. When she started work again, she also wanted to have a reasonable commute.

Rachel and Bernard’s next question was:

“Where are the main centers of employment in Fairfax County?”

Here’s what they found:

The Federal Government, along with many other private and non-profit organizations, have their headquarters in Washington, D.C. But Rachel was hoping for a job that allowed her to come home relatively quickly in case her kids needed her.

So they looked to see what kinds of jobs were available in Fairfax County. They found that several large corporations have their headquarters here:

Ten Fairfax County companies on the 2013 Fortune 500 list*

Rank	Company	Location
31	Freddie Mac	Tysons Corner
98	General Dynamics	Falls Church
120	Northrop Grumman	Falls Church
127	Capital One Financial	Tysons Corner
176	CSC	Falls Church
240	SAIC	Tysons Corner
421	NII Holdings	Reston
436	Booz Allen Holding	Tysons Corner
453	Exelis	Tysons Corner
467	Gannett	Tysons Corner

From this table, they were able to visualize that the main employment areas within the County are:

Tysons Corner,
Falls Church, and
Reston

Here is a map of where these areas are located in Fairfax County:

Where do most people congregate to work in Fairfax County?

Major business hubs (where many people work) in Fairfax County

But wait, there’s more!

There are also many companies not on the Fortune 500 list which are headquartered in Fairfax County. Plus, there are lots of satellite offices of other Fortune 500 and international corporations here as well. Most of these offices are located within those three main areas.: Tysons Corner, Falls Church, and Reston/Herndon**.

Fairfax County isn’t only the home of private corporations

Fairfax County is also home to military installations such as Fort Belvoir, as well as many federal government agencies such as the CIA and the United States Geological Survey (USGS)

Armed with this knowledge, Rachel and Bernard felt like they could narrow their home search to a few high school boundaries which met all of their criteria:

The right schools for their needs,
reasonable commutes for their jobs, and
availability of nice homes

If you are finding yourself in a similar journey, would you like to learn more about what it would be like to live in a High School boundary (vs. another)?

What is it like to live in a particular High School boundary?

To see where each high school boundary is within Fairfax County, log in to see our Fairfax County map of High School Boundaries:

Click for the Fairfax County Map of High School Boundaries

: Click to access the Fairfax County Map (with UP-TO-DATE high school boundaries)

Access the Fairfax County Map of School Boundaries (a.k.a the Affordability Map) to see the location of each of the most UP-TO-DATE boundaries within Fairfax County and to choose your ideal boundary.

When you access the Fairfax County Map of School Boundaries, you will find: