News and notes from Reston (tm).

Monday, December 14, 2009

Flashback Monday: Right Idea, Wrong Order

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This stunning 1960s-era panorama of Golf Course Island's townhouses, the golf course, and Isaac Newton Square shows how the "new town" embodied the "Live, Play, Work" motto from the get-go. Presumably Reston changed its motto to "Live, Work, Play" after discovering that busy executives would leave their mauve townhomes and try to squeeze in 18 holes of golf on their way to work, missing those important 9:30am meetings in the process.

3 comments:

  1. Interesting, I did not know all those homes were built in the 60's. Great idea but Reston overbuilt way to quickly.

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  2. Actually Reston's Dear Leader says it was never built to its full potential and should've been bigger. His original plan called for a population of 80,000, which is still 20K short of where Reston is now. Metro will change that though.

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  3. I think it was built too quickly - I think the infrastructure could not keep up with the pace of sales and as a result the design standards were lowered to attract a larger market. Also forced the management to transfer to several developers who watered down the original vision. Typical contemporary real estate development as opposed to town planning.

    m

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