Tiebout is True: Northern Virginia's Population Growth

According to population data from the University ofVirginia's Weldon Cooper Center for Public Service, northern Virginia counties and the city of Alexandria drove more than half of the population growth for the state. The amenities offered by the northern Virginia area attract more citizens than the amenities offered by other regions in Virginia. This holds true in my own experience of moving in Virginia. My family moved to Reston, Virginia, an area in northern Virginia, from Dahlgren, Virginia, a very small town more south. The better public schools, proximity to D.C., and number of restaurants and things to do attracted my family to relocate. This long-term drastic growth of northern Virginia proves Tiebout’s model of consumer voters voting with their feet to match his or her preferences to a local government’s expenditure plan. Instead of Virginians changing their locality’s expenditure plan to match their preferences, they move to the area that already has the amenities they desires. 

There are some assumptions to Tiebout’s model that do not necessarily hold in real life, such as perfect information and no costs associated with moving. However, I found in my situation that in the long-term these assumptions do not interfere with the model itself. For example, while in the short-term the cost of moving stopped my family from moving, in the long run this cost proved less than the benefits we received from relocating. I believe that in the long term the assumptions of the Tiebout model such as no moving costs can be held true.