Even the walkable Metro corridors in Arlington aren't known for their charming historic architecture. The county was largely rural until the New Deal; there are "maybe a dozen" pre-1930 houses in the entire county, per their historic preservation staffer. Still, you'll pay as much per square foot for real estate there as you will in all but the choicest bits of the District.

Here's a study that compared the relative tax burdens of the three states for different theoretical households. DC comes out ahead, although the commenters correctly point out that it assumes that people drive rather nice cars (which even "ghetto"-dwellers do around here).