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I wish you would be more charitable in your posts about that. Our family would love to live in DC proper as he works there and I am more of an urban girl. But it is impossible for his business to pay him 4 times his current salary for the job he does (I guess you'll learn that in MBA school). Top that off with the limited places to live in DC that are safe and have good schools, you can see why we have spread out to Merrifield. Many times I feel your posts have been missing that element of reality.
Yeah seriously. While the kids and the schools thing may not come into play for me, to be perfectly blunt the only thing I can afford right now is suburban. And while suburbia isn't for me either at this point in my life, there are some people who have their needs met nicely by living in a suburb. I grew up with a huge backyard and feel bad for kids that don't have a big place to play (whether that's inner-city kids that don't have a safe space or kids in cookie-cutter houses w/ a backyard the size of my bathroom). So please open your mind up a little bit and don't be so hard on people that aren't privileged enough to live in an urban, walkable environment (or others who choose not to for various reasons).
At some point tonight or tomorrow I plan to fire off a corporate e-mail to Wegman's asking for them to consider building a ground-level retail store in an upcoming building at Reston Town Center (perhaps to replace the Harris Teeter that is going to be torn down in Spectrum Center to make way for more high-rises?) I plan to do the same for Ikea and Dave & Buster's. The more "neighborhood-like" I can help to make Reston Town Center, the more likely I'll be able to AFFORD IT as more developers are attracted by that improving atmosphere and commit to build more and more apartment buildings!
I'm a young middle-class yuppie, and I also share in this sentiment. I do not want to live in a dense, urban environment (and I have). I certainly understand that some may want this, and see the appeal of such a community, but it's not for everyone; and it should not be assumed that such a situation is *the* ideal to which we should all aspire.
Indeed, not all of us want to have neighbors right on the other side of the wall from us - stereos blasting 24/7, etc. I used to live in that environment, and glad I got out of there - it was not good for my sanity working 60+ hours and doing a master's degree at the same time.
It seems to be there is little room for compromise here - all I keep hearing is how every place in the NOVA area should be this dense urban environment. If there is no room for compromise, there is no room for debate, and this entire exercise is a complete waste of time - all this green talk aside. The entire NOVA area should not be transformed into some extension of Arlington, but that appears to be the goal here. Not everyone who lives here or who is moving here wants that, not by a long shot.
I just don't understand it. As gas prices approach yet another "spike," as air quality becomes more and more "questionable" in parts of Fairfax County each year, as traffic becomes more and more congested (the largest culprit behind aforementioned air quality questions), as more people try to practice "green living", etc., etc. shouldn't we be ENCOURAGED to live in dense environments where we can reduce our carbon footprints?
Putting high-rise apartments and offices everywhere will just add to the problem. If they're not within a quarter-mile of the rail station, their placement will add to the congestion and pollution since the tenants will continue to use their cars. The additional cars will also slow down the traffic flow for the commuters who use buses to get to the subway system.
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Why make such areas affordable only to the wealthy elite who think nothing of dropping $2,000/month on a 1-BR flat or to the very poor whose homes are subsidized by our tax dollars? Why can't the middle-class afford to live in dense, walkable, mixed-use areas in Northern Virginia?
New college graduates have always had to make trade-offs when they look for apartments that were affordable. They shared apartments or townhouses.
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At some point tonight or tomorrow I plan to fire off a corporate e-mail to Wegman's asking for them to consider building a ground-level retail store in an upcoming building at Reston Town Center (perhaps to replace the Harris Teeter that is going to be torn down in Spectrum Center to make way for more high-rises?) I plan to do the same for Ikea and Dave & Buster's. The more "neighborhood-like" I can help to make Reston Town Center, the more likely I'll be able to AFFORD IT as more developers are attracted by that improving atmosphere and commit to build more and more apartment buildings!
You'd be wasting your time. Harris Teeter's is the anchor for the rebuilt Spectrum complex. The Best Buy and the Barnes & Noble will be gone. I recall that the plans for reconstruction call for less space for retail and most of it will be reserved for services (eateries, banks, etc.).
In any event, putting a Wegman's in RTC would like placing a 2 or 3 supermarkets in a market that's already overstored in the supermarket category. I count 13 supermarkets in the immediate Reston/Herndon area that people can get to in five minutes. It would also not be good for those village centers if the anchor stores closed. All you have to do is look at Lake Anne Plaza or Tall Oaks to see the negative effect of losing a major supermarket chain. You would end up causing more people to have to drive out of their neighborhoods to do their shopping, banking, and eating out.
Developers won't build and banks won't lend to the developers until the market improves. None of the things you propose will change a thing. There are already plenty of proposed or planned projects for increasing the supply of apartments (ParcReston, Spectrum, Fairway, Lake Anne, Midtown, etc.).
Not only Reston but ALL of Northern Virginia needs to start building UP instead of primarily "out." Everyone seems to want their own 1/2-acre chunk of suburbia with the over-priced tract house and front-facing three-car garage, but when HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people all want that you'll eventually run out of developable land and end up destroying much precious open space. There are MANY of us who would LOVE to live in a denser neighborhood but can't afford to. The more dense mixed-use neighborhoods (a la Ballston/Reston Town Center) that become available, the cheaper the prices will eventually become as supply FINALLY meets demand). As of right now I know units in Reston sell like hot cakes (hence why there are no fewer than TWENTY very dense projects in the works here alone). In a few years when I'm earning $75,000 I hope to afford to rent a unit in the town center myself.
I enjoy going to Queens when I'm in the NY area, but I don't particularly want to live in the DC version. It would be great if there were sensible development in both the Reston and Tysons core areas (and I echo the comments of others who congratulate you on getting involved in Reston), but there's something to be said for the benefits of suburban living as well. It may be hard to appreciate as someone in your 20s (hey, I read Jane Jacobs once, too), but dense urban-style living can lose a bit of its appeal when you reach a certain age and you finally get tired of telling your next-door neighbor to clear his drains so your basement doesn't flood, or politely asking your partying neighbors to tone it down a notch so you, your hardworking spouse and/or your restless infant can get a bit of sleep.
Plus, it's just not the case that "everyone [here] seems to want their own 1/2-acre chunk of suburbia with the over-priced tract house and front-facing three-car garage." Many want their own 1 acrespread (estate?) with the over-priced custom house and three-car garage on the side, not to mention hardwood and/or ceramic tile floors!
I wholeheartedly understand the basic concept of everyone having different needs and/or preferences at different life stages and to respect their wishes in accordance with living in a "free" society where people are most certainly permitted to pack their bags and relocate wherever they please (budget-permitting, of course).
However, I have seen the population growth projections for Northern Virginia, and they're not a very promising sight for people like me who want to preserve the gorgeous natural beauty of Loudoun County (and as much of the dense tree canopy of here in Reston as possible for that matter) when I consider what percentage of those people are going to want to live in the next version of South Riding, Broadlands, or Loudoun Valley Estates, plowing over even more farmlands and verdant meadows in the process. At some point Northern Virginia DOES need to become pseudo-communist and draw up urban growth boundaries, similar to what are in place in Oregon and Lexington, Kentucky as two prime examples. Those boundaries ensure that developers can't destroy natural wonders to subdivide to prospective home builders and instead redirect people to living in existing developed areas. I want my own future adopted children to enjoy that nice relaxing country drive I was so BLESSED to have been able to experience this past Saturday between Leesburg and Harper's Ferry. I really did feel all of my week-long office stress just melt away as I cruised through the rolling wooded hills of NW Loudoun County, even seeing deer at one point. If some of you get your way all of that will look like generic suburbia by 2040!
With hundreds of thousands more people anticipated to be moving here with limited infrastructural improvements planned and with a population that is generally apathetic towards open space preservation I'm very worried about the long-term vitality of our region. Do we want NoVA to become the next Long Island, L.A., or Northern New Jersey? I most certainly do not. It is already evident how overcrowded some areas are becoming (i.e. the line stretching OUT THE DOOR at the Sterling DMV on a WEDNESDAY and getting caught up in a traffic jam on the Route 7 conga line on a SATURDAY).
My main beef here isn't to be a fascist dictator saying "suburbanites suck." My goal is to try to encourage some of you to think about future generations of Northern Virginians and if they are going to have a better or worse environment to raise their children someday. Some suburban areas here get my nod of approval. cdmurphy's Brambleton neighborhood is one of those because residents are within a walk or a very short drive of a grocery store, movie theater, open space, a small concert venue, restaurants, shopping, etc. I think of Brambleton as being a less tall and less pretentious Reston Town Center. That's most definitely "family-friendly suburban living," and yet it was done in a more environmentally-friendly way than some of the other "slap 'em up quick with little foresight to make a quick buck" subdivisions I've seen in that area of Loudoun County.
I can already see how CONTENTIOUS this process of drafting up Reston's new master plan will be because of all of these livid sub-factions assembling themselves on all aspects of every issue---for God's sake if people here are fighting profusely and slandering one another over a minor detail like an indoor recreation center (a.k.a. "Taj Mahal/Juice Bar") then just imagine how much fur is going to fly over the opportunity to have a say in the future of the ENTIRE AREA! I'm in the camp that would like to see as much infill here in Reston as possible that would include relocation of surface parking lots to underground garages, the preservation of as much of our gorgeous tree canopy as possible, and more options for those of us who crave the urban high-rise loft lifestyle besides paying inordinate sums of change to live in an existing Reston Town Center flat (who decided some of those rents should rival Manhattan's?!) From what I can tell there are many elderly people who moved to Reston in the 1970s and want to keep it in the 1970s, and then there are those who have moved here from the 1990s-Present and want to increase the community's density (including myself and many others I've spoken to).
To those scoffing at me for wanting to "Ballstonize" Reston, what is your alternative to accommodate the projected mass population influx? Pave over more of rural Loudoun County with low-density single-family housing? That's NOT something many of us want to see happen!
Why does your desire to enjoy the scenery override the rights of the people who actually own the land? I find that the most troubling aspect of your position.
I don't think that increasing the density of a particular location makes that place any better to live or to "raise kids" in. Living in stacked boxes, wth dramatically less privacy, while crawling over my neighbors, is NOT where I want to live (been there, done that - and after a year I fled back to the quiet suburbs of Falls Church!). The dubious decrease in my environmental impact, if any, by living in such a dense community would be more than offset by the stress I'd feel. How would the line at the DMV be alleviated by having denser communities? I guarantee that you'll find no longer lines than at DMVs located in dense urban areas, e.g. Arlington or Manhattan.
That's not to say I dislike dense core areas like Reston. I think there should be more communities like that; I love Reston Town Center. I'm just saying that it should not be the plan for all communities in the area, and certainly not the entire Northern Virginia region.
You're almost ten years too late. The extension of Metro out to the airport is already spurring massive redevelopment in Loudoun and Prince William. Try driving out west on Route 50 or on Route 7.
Anything Reston and Fairfax County does is not going to have a bearing on what planners, developers, and landowners in Loudoun County will do in the future. They'll act in their own interests whether you want them to or not. It's very disingenuous on your part to try to claim that you're doing this in the interest of preserving Loudoun County. They already have plans to extensively redevelop the eastern part of their county with planned communities and mixed-use urban developments. Plans for new towns and cities are cropping up all along Route 28, Route 7, Route 50, and around Leesburg.
Also I believe you told us several times that you are just here for a few years to get experience and make some money before moving somewhere more affordable.
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At some point Northern Virginia DOES need to become pseudo-communist and draw up urban growth boundaries, similar to what are in place in Oregon and Lexington, Kentucky as two prime examples. Those boundaries ensure that developers can't destroy natural wonders to subdivide to prospective home builders and instead redirect people to living in existing developed areas. I want my own future adopted children to enjoy that nice relaxing country drive I was so BLESSED to have been able to experience this past Saturday between Leesburg and Harper's Ferry. I really did feel all of my week-long office stress just melt away as I cruised through the rolling wooded hills of NW Loudoun County, even seeing deer at one point. If some of you get your way all of that will look like generic suburbia by 2040! 
It is already evident how overcrowded some areas are becoming (i.e. the line stretching OUT THE DOOR at the Sterling DMV on a WEDNESDAY and getting caught up in a traffic jam on the Route 7 conga line on a SATURDAY). 
From what I can tell there are many elderly people who moved to Reston in the 1970s and want to keep it in the 1970s, and then there are those who have moved here from the 1990s-Present and want to increase the community's density (including myself and many others I've spoken to). 
That's NOT something many of us want to see happen!
