The Falls Church Insider All About the City of Falls Church, Virginia, For & By The Folks Who Live & Work There

When I started this blog in 2008, I planned to blog about my experiences getting to know the way Falls Church operates.  Pretty soon, I invited my brother / business partner, Andy Rankin, to also blog here.  Like me, Andy lives and works in the City of Falls Church.  Like me, Andy volunteers on a board (I’m on the cable access board while Andy’s on the much-more-relevant EDA board.)  Here we’ve shared our thoughts on where the City is headed, when we’ve had time — which hasn’t been often, unfortunately.

There have always been other sources online for information about Falls Church, and a few things have happened since we launched:

1. The Falls Church News Press has expanded their online presence, which updates more often.  It’s a great resource with a deep history in the City, but since it covers the broader Falls Church area (not just the City) I’m less inclined to join the online discussions there.  While I appreciate the FCNP, it just hasn’t seem to gain much traction in terms of online discussions.
2. Blueweeds, the blog written by our mayor’s husband, has been posting far less frequently than it had been (like us!).  As a result, discussions on Blueweeds have fallen off considerably.  It’s too bad — I enjoy Mike’s posts (even when I don’t agree with his approach) as they often spark good debate among residents.
3. The Falls Church Times launched and has done an impressive job with their volunteer staff of both posting a high volume of quality content, but also inspiring a wide range of view points to be shared in the comments.  This is where Andy and I tend to share most of our thoughts these days (rather than on this blog).  The FCT also covers a lot of the “daily news” about FC that I had thought about covering here, but frankly time is hard to come by.
4. We configured the Falls Church Twitter account to tweet as these sources post content (so you can follow them all in one place) and we occasionally tweet extra info as well.

I’m glad that there are a number of places where online discussions are happening among residents of the City and surrounding areas.  An active and engaged citizenry is vital to our future, and it’s also a great way to get more out of the experience of living / working in a small City.

If you know of any other blogs / sites where discussions are happening, let me know.  Also. if you haven’t jumped into any of the discussions that are happening, please do!