Alexandria, VA Real Estate Property Homes and Condos from Realtors Jayson Whitten and Helen Grozbean

The city of Alexandria is located along the Western bank of the Potomac River, Alexandria is approximately 6 miles south of downtown Washington, D.C. and is home to nearly 130,000 residents.

Like the rest of northern Virginia, as well as central Maryland, modern Alexandria has been shaped by its proximity to the nation's capital. It is largely populated by professionals working in the federal civil service, the U.S. military, or for one of the many private companies which contract to provide services to the federal government. The latter are known locally as beltway bandits, after the Capital Beltway, an interstate highway that circles Washington, D.C. One of Alexandria's largest employers is the U.S. Department of Defense. Others include the Institute for Defense Analyses and the Center for Naval Analyses. In 2005, the United States Patent and Trademark Office moved 7,100 employees from 18 separate buildings in nearby Crystal City into a new headquarters complex in the city. Also in 2005, Alexandria became one of the first cities of its size to offer free wireless Internet access to some of its residents and visitors.

The historic center of Alexandria is known as Old Town. With its concentration of high-end boutiques, fine restaurants, antique shops and theaters, it is a major draw for tourists and those seeking nightlife. Like Old Town, many Alexandria neighborhoods are compact, walkable, high-income suburbs of Washington D.C.

The city is served by the Alexandria City Public Schools system and by the Alexandria campus of Northern Virginia Community College. Virginia Tech's Washington-Alexandria Architecture Center, also known as WAAC, is located on Prince Street in Old Town, offering graduate programs in Urban Affairs and Planning, Public and International Affairs, Architecture, and Landscape Architecture. Virginia Commonwealth University operates a Northern Virginia branch of its School of Social Work and George Washington University (Washington DC) also has a campus near the King Street metro. This campus mainly offers professional and vocational programs, such as an executive MBA program, urban planning and security studies.

Alexandria is home to several of the Washington D.C. area's top private schools, such as St. Stephen's and St. Agnes School, Bishop Ireton High School, and Episcopal High School. Also in the city are Alexandria Country Day School, Commonwealth Academy, St. Mary's Catholic School, St. Rita's Catholic School and Blessed Sacrament Learning Center.

Alexandria's public school system consists of thirteen elementary schools for grades 5-year-old Kindergarten through Grade 5. Middle Schools, George Washington and Francis C. Hammond, serve 6th through 8th graders. Minnie Howard Ninth Grade Center and T.C. Williams High School serve grades 9th and 10 through 12, respectively, for the entire city. T.C. Williams, and its legendary former head football coach, Herman Boone, former assistant coach Bill Yoast and the Virginia State Champion 1971 Titan football squad were featured in the 2000 Disney motion picture Remember the Titans starring Denzel Washington and Will Patton.

Alexandria has a distributed park system with approximately 950 acres spread across 70 major parks and 30 recreation centers, of which Chinquapin is one of the largest. Chinquapin offers facilities for swimming, tennis, racquetball, and other sports. The city also organizes several sports leagues throughout the year including volleyball, softball and basketball.

The city is unusual in that Cameron Run Regional Park includes a water park with a wave pool and water slides, as well as a miniature golf course and batting cages—facilities usually operated by private companies. A portion of the Mount Vernon Trail, a popular bike and jogging path, runs through Old Town near the Potomac River on its way from the Mount Vernon Estate to Roosevelt Island in Washington, DC. There is also a largely unbroken line of parks stretching along the Alexandria waterfront from end to end.

Landmarks within the city include the George Washington Masonic National Memorial (also known as the Masonic Temple) and Observation Deck, Christ Church, Gadsby's Tavern, John Carlyle House, Little Theatre of Alexandria, Lee-Fendall House, City Hall, Market Square, the Jones Point Light, the south cornerstone of the original District of Columbia, Robert E. Lee's boyhood home, the Torpedo Factory Art Center, and the Virginia Theological Seminary. Other sites of historical interest in the city include Alexandria Black History Resource Center, Fort Ward Park and Museum, and the Alexandria Canal lock re-creation at Canal Office Center. Interesting sites with Alexandria addresses but outside of the city limits include River Farm, Collingwood Library & Museum, Green Spring Gardens Park, Huntley Meadows Park, Pope-Leighey House (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright), Woodlawn Plantation, Washington's Grist Mill and Mount Vernon Estate.

Community information provided by Wikipedia.