Poll: Northern Virginia has D.C. area’s best shopping, survey finds. Do you agree?

RestonNow.com April 11, 2023 at 9:34am

The Wasabi overlook at Tysons Corner Center during winter holiday season (staff photo by Angela Woolsey) — Tysons Corner Center remains the biggest and one of the busiest malls in the D.C. area (staff photo by Angela Woolsey)

Northern Virginia is the place to be if you’re shopping in the D.C. area, a recent poll of local residents found.

A handy 61% of respondents favored Northern Virginia when asked what’s the best place to shop in the region by the Washington Post and George Mason University’s Schar School of Policy and Government, which conducted the wide-ranging poll from Feb. 17-27.

In comparison, just 18% of respondents chose suburban Maryland, and 13% chose D.C., with 7% saying they had no opinion, according to results released on Friday (April 7).

Northern Virginia’s dominance in this particular area can likely be traced to Tysons — at least based on a comment by James Hackley, identified by the Post as chief style officer for a clothing store in Takoma Park, Maryland.

In the DMV area, without a doubt, Northern Virginia has the best shopping. The reason? You have the old Tysons and Tysons II. So if you’re looking for the higher-end designer things, that’s where you go. That’s just a known quantity. No one else really competes with that. D.C., they tried to make major inroads with the CityCenter area, but it’s still a nascent being compared to Tysons and Tysons II. Those are big malls. That’s where people go to shop, because if you’re driving in your car, you’re getting an hour to go shopping someplace, you want it to be a destination. You’re not just going to one store. You want to hit a bunch of other stores as well.

Established in 1968 and 1988, respectively, Tysons Corner Center and Tysons Galleria transformed once-rural farmland into a regional retail destination, a reputation that has persisted even as malls decline nationwide and high-profile crime and gun violence incidents leave some skittish.

Touching on topics ranging from Metro to the Washington Commanders, the Post-Schar poll was administered by phone to a random sampling of 1,668 adults in the D.C. area.

While we don’t have the capacity to match that level of scientific rigor, FFXnow is curious how the results line up with your perception of the region. Is Tysons still a go-to place for shopping, or do you have another preference — perhaps even outside Northern Virginia?