Ah the Mid-Atlantic East Coast... land of no courtesy, and pretentiousness without anything to back it up. I've lived in Southern VA and MD for several years each and have spent a lot of time in the DC / Baltimore Metro area, much more DC than Baltimore. The Mid-Atlantic desperately wants to be as relevant as the Northeast but has nothing to offer. It has crappy weather like the Northeast with none of the culture, and none of the hospitality of the South. It's the middle child of the East coast that resents it's older Northern brother for being more important, and looks down its nose at its younger Southern brother for being friendly
Northern VA has an incredibly high cost of living for no reason whatsoever. A house in the normal world will cost you triple the price in Northern VA for the same square footage. And as a bonus you get to deal with horrendous DC commuter traffic if you work anywhere beyond 15 minutes from your house.
Maryland is a communist state with the most ridiculous laws ranging from overreaching gun control to making it illegal for you to save rain-water without legal penalty. It's in general more affordable than Northern VA depending on where you live. There are counter-examples, like Annapolis which is again outrageously expensive but at least it has historical charm unlike Northern VA
Southern VA is more affordable than the north by far. VA beach is very generic America with all the standard chain everything, suburbs and shopping centers and the ever-present roar of F/A-18s from NAS Oceana. Southern VA to me anyway, just feels like it doesn't have any unique character.
Washington DC has a lot of cool things in it, but don't fall in love with a personally operated vehicle if you want to work in the city. It makes NYC look like it has the smoothest traffic flow on the planet. The DC metro is relatively clean and easy to navigate though.
I've never lived in PA, just visited Philly for Army Navy Games so only saw touristy stuff and ate cheese steaks.
NC is nice!
Western VA is beautiful!
OK, tongue now removed from cheek. Northern VA really is inexplicably expensive for no apparent reason compared to similar communities elsewhere. We are personally looking at moving to Western VA (Charlottesville is high on the list right now) or possibly going back southwards (NC or FL/AL). But we don't intend to stay in Southern VA, and if we have to go to Northern VA it would only be with a high enough paying job to maintain our current lifestyle, and we'd really like to avoid Maryland, because half of what I own will magically become illegal.