European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - July 20, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse His wife Julia. The Rogers were the second family to Sollie a Reston taking up residence in a Home facing Lake Anne just before Christmas 1964. There were no grocery stores no shops no schools no trash pickups. The roads were Muddy. It was quiet recalls their son Richard. But idealistic new resident scarcely More than a few dozen at the Start banded together in a Lively All for one Community spirit that survives today. They held sailing regattas on Lake Anne. They toasted the Hookup of Reston s sewer main at a cocktail party held inside the huge underground pipe. Rogers remembers those Early years with a chuckle. Something was going on every week at the meeting hat at Lake Anne Plaza lectures Art shows a classical film series and in 1986 the Reston players presented an original musical comedy in the horse stable. Every human being in town was Busy building sets or performing or sitting in the audience. Everybody was into practically everything and you Felt Honor bound to show today 46,500 people live in clusters of Homes around Reston s five villages ranging from Low income Garden apartments to lakefront mansions from town houses to condominiums in styles ranging from Neo victorian to California Modem. Prices Range from $44,800 to $895,000. Reston boasts one of the nation s earliest subsidized cooperative apartment buildings and an innovative elementary school below ground and warmed by solar heat. There Are two apartment buildings and a Large new condominium for the elderly within walking distance of shops. Sharing this Community with the corporate likes of general electric Sperry american Telephone & Telegraph co. And Piedmont airlines is the Headquarters of prison Fellowship ministries an inmate rehabilitation program founded by former watergate figure Charles w. Colson. Some at the town 20-year-old architecture still seems surprisingly new. Lake Anne Plaza is a stylistic jewel inspired by the italian coastal Village of Portofino. It has won numerous design awards and attracts admiring architects and Urban planners from around the world. When the Rev. Embry Rucker arrived in Early 1969, he stood on the at Lake Anne and surveyed the place he had been summoned to serve As an episcopal priest. He saw Lakeside town houses with their tin roofs and pastel colors the High Rise apartments of 15-Story Heron House the curve of shops with Homes on the floors above the wooden Bridge framed by Dogwood and weeping Cherry Trees and the towering mid Lake Fountain that sprayed frolicking Young swimmers and quacking geese. I looked around and thought when does the operetta Start " Rucker recalls. Simon made Good on his Promise of providing from the very Start a wide variety of recreational facilities close to every Home. Sailing fishing and ice skating Are available on Reston s four Man made lakes. The Community s 7350 acres include 850 acres of natural open space 19 neighbourhood swimming pools and 40 Tennis courts 50 mites of pathways for jogging biking or strolling two Golf courses an 18-Stop exercise Trail and athletic Fields Lor Reston s football and baseball enthusiasts and its 2,000 registered soccer players. And then there Are the Trees. What Dazzles people when they come out Here Are the Trees Trees Trees says editor Grubisich. Where else can you walk out of your High Rise office building and find a deep Forest that won t Ever change in the Early Days according to Mccandless three fourths of All working estonians most of them government employees Rode buses or carpools to their jobs in Washington. Simon s goal was one Job in Reston for every three households. Today with the towns emergence As a major employment Center in Northern Virginia nearly 40 percent of Reston residents work where they live. That s about 1.5 jobs per household. The proportion of people who work near where they live is extraordinarily High in Reston says Joseph r. Stowers a 20-year resident. Reston is rather rare in this Stowers a private transportation consultant recently moved his office from downtown Washington to space above the Bank at Lake Anne Plaza. He s Happy that work is a three minute stroll from Home and that he can keep in shape by stepping out of his Home to swim the length of Lake Anne Early every morning. This is one of the most Active Jock communities in America says Stowers who also enjoys jogging Tennis and soccer. He won the 50-and-Over trophy in Reston annual triathlon Competition last year. Stowers also welcomes Reston s commitment from the beginning to be a Community open to All Reston was the first Community in sprawling Fairfax county to Welcome minority residents Rucker says. According to the 1980 census non Whites account for 14 percent of Reston s population compared with 11 percent in All of Fairfax county. Reston is not immune from the same racial tensions that persist in other communities however. A group of Black parents complained this Spring of discrimination at Reston s Only High school. County investigators found isolated incidents of racist slurs and Graffiti but no evidence of a widespread pattern. Voters recently rejected a slate of candidates for the Board of the Reston Home owners association that had campaigned under a protect your dream Banner that was widely interpreted As an Appeal to bar minority housing from the new North Point Village now under construction. Residents also Are struggling anew with the old Issue of self governance debating whether to seek status As an incorporated town and set their own civic priorities or to continue relying on Fairfax county for essential services. Grubisich the editor says the debate has wider implications about the future of Reston and its atmosphere. The Early estonians were very idealistic and zealous about their Community he says. Now they Are wondering about where the new generation is coming from Why they re coming Here what they believe in what they will signify for the Community that the pioneers built. It s still an open a from bal Conlea of 15-Etory Heron House apartment Overlook other Lake Anne developments at Retton a. Sunday july 20, 1986 towns that did t make it by Robert m. Andrews associated press building a new town in America is risky business. Only a comparative few planned communities overcome the obstacles some predictable some capricious that doom Many such ventures to failure. The casualty list includes victims of bad timing poor location economic recession Overly ambitious blueprints unexpected population shifts overwhelming land costs devastating lawsuits or inability to attract a healthy Industrial base. Of the 13 new towns which the department of housing and Urban development supported with loan guarantees in the late 1960s and Early 1970s, All but one defaulted within the first few years and were judged to be financial failures. The Lone exception was the Woodlands 30 Miles North of Houston which succeeded largely because of the Lon term financial endurance of its Developer who had extensive natural Gas holdings. The list of failures includes soul City n.c., the 1960s Experiment in Rural development for poor Blacks that was conceived by civil rights Leader Floyd b. Mckissick. Lacking any sustaining economic foundation. Soul City never really went anywhere. Compared with plans for an eventual population of 30,000, there were Only 180 soul City residents by the end of 1982. Other federally supported planned communities that never flourished include Cedar Riverside a new town in town situated on 100 acres of Urban renewal land near downtown Minneapolis. It was doomed by lengthy Legal challenges on environmental grounds. Flower Mound 22 Miles Northwest of Dallas is now being built piecemeal by assorted developers rather than completed As a distinctive new town. Vananda and Riverton two projected new towns outside Rochester n.y., were victims partly of a declining economic growth rate in the Region. Newfields Northwest of Dayton Ohio foundered in the collapse of the housing Market at the outset of the 1973 Oil crisis and half of its 4,000 acres was sold for creation of a state Park. Shenandoah e Remote location 37 Miles South of Atlanta and its difficulty in find Rig an adequate water Supply crippled its residential development although it has become a prosperous Industrial Center. Although other publicly supported new towns initially went broke Hud officials say they ave managed to hang on survive and even flourish usually in scaled Down versions of their original plans. These survivors include Harbison eight Miles Northeast of Columbia . Jonathan minn., 25 Miles Southwest of Minneapolis Maumelle 12 Miles Northwest of downtown Little Rock Ark. Park Forest South now called University Park about 30 Miles South of Chicago and St. Charles 25 Miles South of Washington d.c., in Southern Maryland which Hud officials say is very successful after a slow Start stemming from two successive recessions. For every private new town project like Reston va., that succeeds there seem to be several others that Flop or suffer arrested growth when the economic climate turns inhospitable. The collapse of the synthetic fuels Industry in Colorado for example forced Exxon corp. To scale Back its plans for an ambitious new town called battlement Mesa on the Colorado River 50 Miles East of grand Junction because of lower than expected housing demand. Spokesmen for Columbia md., denied widely circulated reports that the sprawling private new town Between Washington and Baltimore never proved profitable for its former owner and chief financial Backer Connecticut general an insurance company. Although Hud reported that Connecticut general had written off upwards of $50 million in losses before it sold out last september to the Rouse co., officials at Columbia say the Community of nearly 15,000 acres and 65,000 population is an outstanding financial and social the stars and stripes Page 17
