I guess my concept of a thriving urban environment is more expansive than "ethnic food within 10 minutes [driving]." For starters, how about a museum? We can skip talking about anything resembling an artistic/creative neighborhood because of the real estate prices.

I think it is a stretch to say Bagels are "quasi ethnic" but more importantly the mealy doughnut shaped loaves of bread around here are not "bagels."

Well, urban doesn't necessarily mean "Manhattan". But I get your point. Bizarrely, I'd argue that D.C. has probably less diversity than the 'burbs in many ways. For example, there's not a single Korean restaurant in the entire city. Heck, AFAIK I've never even seen an old fashioned deli in D.C.

NoVA also suffers from the worst habits of mid-20th century civic planning, designed heavily around cars. All of the urban areas in NoVA are urban automobile areas. It wasn't until recently that dense, urban, mixed-use classic city-type areas were even being built outside of D.C. and Arlington.

>how about a museum? http://www.restonmuseum.org/

okay okay, it's about Reston's history, but Reston is smack in the middle of tons of historic sites, many of which have small museums. If you want the big museum experience there won't be one until you get to Baltimore because the entire museum "scene" (such as it is) is swallowed entirely up by the Smithsonian, the National Galleries and the smaller museums all along and near the mall. I'd probably challenge the notion that urban cores necessarily have lots of museums though. Even Manhattan doesn't have as many as D.C.

If you want art, you're more likely to get into the local gallery scene. NoVA has quite a few fine art galleries.