Meanwhile, in the other anti-Reston(s): Foreclosure Hell or Loonie-Sized Hail, Pick Your Poison

As the entire D.C. housing market continues to go up in flames, one of the hotspots is likely to be our tolerant neighbor to the west, Herndon.

The Washington region now has one of the fastest-growing foreclosure rates in the nation, as 15,613 homes went into foreclosure during the one-year period ending in February.

Although communities have felt the effects of the housing crisis for months, the report reveals that foreclosures in the Washington region have been increasing at a surprisingly quick pace, outstripping those of most major metropolitan areas.

Although Prince William and Prince George's counties have experienced the most home foreclosures, the report identifies several communities as potential "hot spots" for future foreclosures, including Centreville, Falls Church, Herndon and Vienna in Fairfax County.

Let's just hope that Ed McMahon didn't buy property there.

Or, if foreclosed homes and the mosquitos that can kill you that breed therein aren't your cup of tea, you could try Reston's other doppelganger. No, not the evil Columbia, Maryland, but Reston, Canada, which we learned about when ping-pong sized hail rained down from the heavens, presumably damaging their mauve homes and maple trees and hockey goals and whatnot. But it could be even worse: a nearby community reported "Loonie-size hail."

Given the fact that the Canadian dollar's now worth as much as the U.S. greenback for the first time in a zillion years, we'll be outside with a bucket.

Some Politics Are Local: You Mean There Was a Primary Yesterday?

We thought that all that "hope" and "change" bidness was over. Actually, judging by the primaries held yesterday, it actually might be, as the incumbents serving Reston and Herndon won handily.

By even wider margins, Reps. James P. Moran Jr. (D) and Frank R. Wolf (R) withstood primary challenges yesterday. In the fall, Wolf will face Democrat Judy M. Feder, who beat back a primary challenge yesterday from Mike R. Turner. Wolf defeated Feder handily in 2006. Moran defeated lawyer Matthew T. Famiglietti in the 8th Congressional District primary and will face Republican Mark W. Ellmore, who beat Amit K. Singh yesterday in a close contest.

Gerald E. Connolly, chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors, also beat former representative Leslie L. Byrne to run for retiring Rep. Tom Davis' seat in the fall.

The Post points out that less than 6 percent of all voters showed up for yesterday's primaries -- a figure that would have been far lower if American Idol was still on the air.

Meet Your Neighbors: Big Dreams in the Big City (or at least Herndon)

So, when they're not busy attending informative conferences or worrying about finding a place to park at the 7-11, what do folks in Herndon do?

They eat strawberries. Lots and lots of strawberries.

Despite competitive eater Ian “The Invader” Hickman's great successes, he says he still feels he has some unfinished business when it comes to strawberries.

Having previously competed twice and finishing no better than third place at the annual National Strawberry Eating Championship in Delaplane, Hickman would love nothing more than to win this coveted title for his home state of Virginia and finally add strawberries to his long list of eating titles.

"This event is in Virginia, it's my house," Hickman, 25, declares."The sweetness of these delicious strawberries can only be fully realized when a Virginian brings the title home where it belongs.”

Last year's champion ate 9 pounds of strawberries in seven minutes.

Hickman, a Herndon resident who stands at 5 feet 11 inches tall and weighs only 165 pounds, has established several world records and captured several national eating titles since he started competing in 2005 at the age of 22. His accomplishments include downing 10 pounds of chili in only five minutes, capturing the National ¼ lb. Hot Dog Eating Championship, and grabbing the World Black & White Cookie Eating Championship.

A billing consultant with Booz Allen Hamilton, Hickman says he generally attends one or two contests a month and particularly likes to win those within driving distance from his Herndon home.

So how, you may ask, are dreams born? Basic cable.

Hickman said he first became interested in becoming a competitive eater after watching actor John Candy eat a huge steak in the movie "The Great Outdoors," and later consumed his own 64-ounce porterhouse in a Lexington, Ky., steakhouse that offered the meal free to anyone who could finish it in less than 45 minutes. Hickman ate the steak – along with a side and a salad – in only 19 minutes.

"That's when I knew I might have talent as a competitive eater," he said.

You, too, can dream big. Really big.

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: Residents vote to preserve the sanctity of Big Gulps

In our tolerant neighbor to the west, Herndon residents re-elected virtually everyone involved in shutting down the day labor center, rewarding the town council for protecting their most precious bodily fluids, the 72-oz. Dr. Pibb Super Big Gulps from the Elden St. 7-11, and solving the nation's immigration problems forever and giving Lou Dobbs valuable talking points for his anti-immigrant screeds, which a grateful nation enjoys nightly.

Herndon voters reaffirmed their support yesterday for a mayor and Town Council that garnered national attention for closing down a job center for day laborers, saying it had become a magnet for illegal immigrants.

Voters reelected Mayor Stephen J. DeBenedittis and most of the incumbents on the six-member council, who were elected in 2006 amid outrage over the taxpayer-subsidized center. Council member J. Harlon Reece, who had initially supported the center and stepped down to challenge DeBenedittis, was succeeded by Richard F. Downer.

"Two years ago, people said that it was a fluke that we got in the way that we did," Vice Mayor Dennis D. Husch said. "This year, we had the exact same results. . . . I'm pleased the previous election was validated."

And how!

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: Town Elections Show Shocking Diversity of Opinions (About Diversity)

Tuesday's Herndon Town Council elections aren't about such silly concepts as "hope" and "change." They're about preserving unfettered access to Super Big Gulps at the Elden Street 7-11.

Ky Truong looked out the window of the Herndon Shell station he manages at what he calls "a lot of problems": clusters of immigrant day laborers, who he says have been trampling his flower beds and bothering customers since September, when the town shuttered its controversial day-laborer hiring center. Truong wants it reopened.

But on the eve of Tuesday's municipal elections, the chance of that happening looks close to nil. Asked at a recent political forum if they would consider reopening the site if Fairfax County provided funding, 12 of 13 candidates for Town Council said no. The other said "absolutely not."

Yes, two years after the day labor center first started getting the attention of right-wing talk radio, ultimately prompting a vast uprising of irate 7-11 patrons that shuttered it, thereby solving the nation's immigration problems forever and giving some deep thinkers a place to hang their hats, people are still thinking about little else in our accepting neighbor to the west.

But day labor remains a divisive force that could influence the election. Council members who opposed the center boast of fulfilled promises and have raised doubts about challengers' pledges not to reopen it. Challengers talk of "reuniting" the town. Letters to local newspapers and online postings are consumed with the topic. If anything, some observers say, the issue has receded only because three years of debate has drawn deep, indelible battle lines.

All of the sudden, obsessing about indoor tennis courts doesn't seem so stupid after all.

Reston's Vibrant Economy, Part 18: Anyone want a 60-year ARM on a townhouse?

Reston's awesome housing stock of faux stucco, mildewing concrete and taupe-painted wood hasn't managed to escape the throes of the foreclosure crisis.

According to a Fairfax County-generated list, 156 residential properties in Reston entered foreclosure between January 2007 and February 2008. Southgate Square, Reston’s largest cluster with 178 townhomes, was among the hardest hit areas. Eleven properties in the cluster entered foreclosure during that time period, according to the county list.

Regular contestants of this site's high-low game know Southgate Square well. Other past high-low winners are represented on streets with multiple foreclosures, including Market Street (9 foreclosures), Stoneview Square (9 foreclosures), Coquina Drive (7 foreclosures), Castle Rock Square and White Cornus Lane (6 foreclosures).

FORECLOSURES HAVE hit areas of Reston that are long-established as well as some newer properties. Market Street in Reston Town Center was home to nine properties that entered foreclosure — five of them in the Savoy Condominium — between January 2007 and February 2008. The Savoy was built in 2004. Shadowood Condominium, established in 1974 as one of Virginia’s first condominiums, in South Reston was also hard hit in the same time period, with 15 foreclosures on the two streets that comprise the development — Stoneview Square, nine foreclosures, and Castle Rock Square, six foreclosures.

Meanwhile, neighboring Herndon has had nearly double the number of foreclosures.

According to a Fairfax County generated list, there have been 389 foreclosures in Herndon, both incorporated and unincorporated, between January 2007 and February 2008... n addition to nationwide economic trends, according to Town of Herndon Vice Mayor Dennis Husch, last year’s drought and decline in construction jobs along with questionable home loans from banks contributed to the foreclosures in Herndon. "It was just a perfect storm," said Husch. "When construction jobs tailed off and drought hit last summer, a lot of people couldn’t find jobs."

All of this means it's a great time to buy!

This Week in Crime: We know better than to make jokes about the dedicated public servants of the U.S. Postal Service

A suspicious package was left in front of the Herndon Post Office this morning. Police blocked off the main parking lot for about 30 minutes before sounding the all clear.

The hands that built Reston's Fake Downtown (tm)

Some undocumented workers got shafted while building one of the new shiny high-rises in Reston's Fake Downtown.

About a dozen immigrant drywallers — some illegal — were never paid for their work last summer at a Reston Town Center project by their employer, Salvador Blanco, an unlicensed labor broker, according to contractors on the job.

Among them was Flor and her husband, Juan Carlos, both illegal immigrants from El Salvador. The couple, who asked to be identified by their first names only because they feared deportation, said when they weren’t paid for a month’s work, their family back home had to sell what little property they had to cover the medical bills for their sickly 4-year-old daughter.

The workers eventually received compensation totaling about $35,000 from C.J. Coakley Co., the subcontractor that hired Blanco, and Hitt Construction, the general contractor, after carpenters union officials alerted the contractors and property owner, Boston Properties, of the problem.

Sounds like they were lucky. But according to the sensitive, thoughtful readers of the Fair-N-Balanced(tm) Washington Examiner, the unlucky ones are.. well, the rest of us.

llegal immigrants working with an illegal labor broker; using forged documents; not paying taxes and hiding to avoid deportation -- supposedly don't get paid. Well, BOO-HOO! Judging by their definite pattern of dishonesty, why should anyone believe them?
- - -
Ahh, isn't that to bad, they had to sell off property in their country. If they have property why are they here??? That is the chance you take when you are here illegally. Even your own people mess you over and try to exploit you, do yourselves a favor and go home, so these kinds of things won't happen to you. And you are always crying about some sick kid, the only kids we care about are the ones that may never see their parents again because they are fighting a WAR. GET REAL

If you think that's unsympathetic, imagine if they'd been caught loitering at the Elden Street 7-11.

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: The sessions were okay, but you should have seen the souvenir stands

Remember how Herndon's Crowne Plaza hotel was going to host that awesome, vaguely racist conference? About 50 protesters tried to enter the hotel to disrupt the American Renaissance Conference on Saturday, but police held them back. Too bad, because it sounds like they missed quite a show inside:

Among the seminars were "Understanding the African Mind" and "Mexico From the Inside: Who the Mexicans Are and Why They Do What They Do.'' For sale outside conference rooms were neckties decorated with Confederate emblems and books such as "Race Differences in Intelligence'' and "Zoological Subspecies of Man.''

The Post felt compelled to point out that of the 100 attendees, "most of them [were] white men." You think?

Meanwhile, Jared Taylor, the group's founder, pointed to national politics to say they're not so extreme after all:

Taylor said a theme of the conference was the intersection of immigration and race, which he said is reflected in the presidential campaign. "The country is catching up with us,'' he said.

So are some local politicians, at least in our enlightened neighbor to the west.

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: Crisp manners (and sheets) on display

Ah, Herndon... city of tolerance, now-uncrowded 7-11 parking lots and K-Mart. What awesome news do you have to share?

Remember that time a Herndon hotel was going to host a fun racist convention this weekend? Well, it's still on, and protesters are planning to demonstrate.

David Welliver, General Manager of the Crowne Plaza hotel in Herndon, told The Times that despite extreme pressure, he has no plans to cancel the event, which will take place Feb. 22-24.

The biannual New Century Foundation/American Renaissance convention is organized by Oakton resident Jared Taylor, who calls himself a "race realist" and publishes American Renaissance magazine, which he has done for nearly 20 years.

"Taylor is a Nazi pig," Jeff Adler, spokesman for the militant group Jewish Defense Organization, told The Times in November. Upon hearing about the convention, Adler began a campaign, called Operation Nazi-Kicker, to prompt the Crowne Plaza hotel to cancel what he called the "meeting of hate." He also said a physical protest was not out of the question.

Operation Nazi-Kicker? Well, that doesn't sound tolerant at all!

Anyway. We're sure the Herndon Crowne Plaza is an awesome hotel, with top-notch conference facilities and probably a couple of those ice machines with the complementary buckets and tongs and whatnot. But why did this group decide to meet there?

An unflattering report published by Taylor's New Century Foundation titled “Hispanics, a statistical portrait,” caught the attention of El Pueblo Unido, a Latino empowerment organization.

Oh.

Anyway, that group and others are planning a protest march on Saturday. Taylor says he's prepared.

“So what can we expect,” wrote Taylor on the Web site VDARE about expected protests. “Perhaps a dozen shaggy, braying throwbacks to the 1960s who will divert conference-goers and passing motorists alike with quaint slogans and eccentric attire. Nothing could be more edifying than the contrast between the detritus on the sidewalk and the crisp, good manners in the conference hall.”

Good manners. Crisp good manners. Hopefully as crisp as their freshly starched sheets.

This Week in Crime: From Sordid to Sad

Seven people have been arrested in connection with a series of six burglaries that took place in Reston from Dec. 23-Jan. 16.

Jerome Sheppard, 21, of Manassas was charged with three counts of burglary and two counts of grand larceny. Jesse Terry, 18, of Reston, was charged with two counts of burglary and two counts of grand larceny. Jivon Bryant, 22, of Herndon, was charged with one count of burglary. Michael Green, 22, Jose Veloso, 22, and Nechelle Wooten, 22, all of Reston, were each charged with one count of receiving stolen firearms. One juvenile was charged with two counts of burglary.

Personal property including electronics, computer equipment and guns were stolen from the homes. This was an apparent organized, coordinated effort on the part of all suspects involved.

Or maybe it just seems impressively organized because this time the perps didn't just waltz into a series of open, unlocked garages.

Another Reston man pleaded guilty to robbing a strip club in Baltimore.

Alexander Reiff, of Reston, was sentenced to 20 years in prison, with all but eight years suspended. He pleaded guilty to attempted armed robbery and using a handgun in the commission of a crime of violence.

Police said Reiff and Gregory Eaton Jr., 29, of Hyattsville, walked into Fantasies Nightclub in the 5500 block of Pennington Ave. shortly before the 2 a.m. closing on April 5.

They were armed with a Ruger 9 mm handgun and a 12-gauge shotgun, announced a robbery and ordered about 20 patrons and employees to the floor, prosecutors said. Eaton then discharged the shotgun into the ceiling, police said.

Two off-duty city police officers then shot Reiff and Eaton, police said. Eaton died at Maryland Shock Trauma Center; Reiff, who prosecutors said was wearing body armor, survived.

And finally, a former Herndon Middle School teacher pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquincy of a minor.

Richard Chad Forsythe, a former Herndon Middle School teacher, pleaded guilty to contributing to the delinquency of a minor on Monday, Jan. 28. Forsythe, 38 of Sterling, was sentenced to 12 months in jail during a hearing that lasted less than 10 minutes in Fairfax County Circuit Court.

After learning of Forsythe's relationship and "inappropriate contact" with a 16-year-old Reston girl, Fairfax County police arrested Forsythe for custodial indecent liberties in January 2007, according to police reports.

Forsythe, who remains free on bond, has been suspended without pay from the school system since his original arrest in January 2007.

We should hope so.

This Week in Crime: Internal Affairs

Fairfax County Police's resource officer at Herndon Middle School was arrested for embezzlement. Lest that sound like someone was taking a few extra tater tots while patrolling the cafeteria lunch line, Fairfax County wants you to know that Mark Ours was actually allegedly tweaking his timesheet.

A press release said the arrest came after an investigation into alleged false reporting of hours on attendance records. Ours, who has been assigned to the Reston District Station, was charged at police headquarters and transported to the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center.

Public Information Officer Eddy Azcarate said the charges mean a likely falsification of time cards that are submitted to the county for payment.

“This has been a fairly long investigation,” he said. “Any person at any business, any job or any place may take five minutes here and there, this obviously was more,” he said, though the department will not release the amount of embezzlement as it is an ongoing investigation.

The last time a Fairfax County police officer was arrested was in December 2006, for a DWI.

Awkward!

Reston Road Rules 2: Watch where you park!

Now that there won't be an awesome Metro station whisking Reston residents to the Bed-Bath-N-Beyond in Tysons Tegucigalpa, we should be thankful for the myriad park-and-ride lots and garages in the area, allowing us to live large on those awesome shiny orange-and-yellow buses. Just don't do anything stupid, like park your car in one.

Signs of trouble with the Herndon-Monroe park-and-ride garage surfaced long before the first commuter's car rolled into the $20 million facility off the Dulles Toll Road that Fairfax County opened in 1999.

Fresh cracks appeared last spring and chunks of concrete began falling away, creating safety concerns that prompted officials to fence off about 100 spaces.

A new study found "significant deterioration" in the garage roof because of the poor quality of the concrete. Drains were misplaced and inadequate for dealing with storm runoff. In some spots, water and salt had eaten through the concrete and exposed the reinforcing steel bars to corrosion. The engineering firm, Walker Parking Consultants, also questioned whether the garage had adequate supporting steel to withstand high winds or earthquakes.

The county says the building is safe but needs considerable work.

We think we'll just hitchhike.

Meanwhile, the proposed awesome improvements to Rt. 7, which include a new 29-lane elevated ramp and blinking directional signs ordering half-awake Sterling soccer moms to divert through Great Falls without stopping for coffee at the 7-11 on their way to their soul-numbing clerical jobs in McLean or wherever, have been funded. Well, actually, it's just a turn lane, but you wouldn't know that from what Great Falls residents are saying.

Some residents who live on or near Georgetown Pike appealed to the Northern Virginia Transportation Authority not to add funding to the project, arguing that adding a turn lane and lengthening the existing turn lane will channel more traffic onto the scenic two-lane road that cuts through the center of their community and is already slowed by existing bottlenecks.

"Georgetown Pike is truly an historic road, having under its surface in a number of places the oldest engineered roadbed in this country -- roadbed engineered by George Washington," Eleanor Anderson, a member of the Great Falls Citizens Association's transportation committee, wrote to the authority.

Maybe they should just put up a sign: George Washington Sat in Traffic Here.

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston....

Herndon continues to be a shining example for its less enlightened neighbor to the east.

First, they're doing gangbuster business in bringing in the convention trade, or at least the racist convention trade:

The biannual New Century Foundation convention is organized by Oakton resident Jared Taylor, who calls himself a "race realist" and publishes American Renaissance magazine, which he has done for nearly 20 years.

The 2008 convention will take place Feb. 22-24 in Herndon.

"Taylor is a Nazi pig," Jeff Adler, spokesman for the Jewish Defense Organization, a militant group not affiliated with the Jewish Defense League, said in a phone interview.

Now that doesn't sound very tolerant! Just because such luminaries as David Duke somehow show up to the group's meeting each year doesn't make them bad guys, right?

"Yes, David Duke has attended despite being asked to stay away, but it's like if you have a restaurant and David Duke eats there, does that make you a neo-Nazi?" Taylor said.

That sounds suspiciously like a Jeff Foxworthy joke, so let's move on. The folks at the Herndon Crowne Plaza hotel have heard all the ruckus, but see no reason to cancel the convention:

"I see no reason to breach our agreement with that client," Welliver said in response to the effort. "We do not discriminate or judge clients and that is not how we go about evaluating pieces of business. That's real life, I am not in the position to give an opinion. Business does not have an opinion. I am just trying to pay the rent. I am just a lowly hotel guy trying to get through the day."

Sounds like he's just following orders.

Meanwhile, Help Save Herndon, one of the groups that helped rid the city of the scourge of its day labor center and ensure that its residents would have free and unfettered access to the Elden Street 7-11 and the precious bodily fluids contained therein, is going statewide.

Just two years after its founding, Help Save Herndon has expanded into a regional organization dedicated to helping citizens oppose illegal immigration and has received national attention. Its growth has not been without controversy, but what began as a small group of concerned residents has become Help Save Virginia, an umbrella group of about 2,500 people that also includes chapters in Loudoun, Manassas, Hampton Roads and Fairfax, according to Jones. The Herndon group has about 150 active members, he said.

There is also Help Save Maryland with chapters in six counties and there are people interested in forming Help Save organizations in Alabama and Arizona, Jones said. He said the group is not anti-immigrant, racist or xenophobic. "We are pro-community and pro-family," he said.

"We think this small town will probably be remembered as the forefront for immigration reform," Jones said.

Or something like that. Meanwhile, the effects of the closing have definitely been felt.

Taplin announced in an Oct. 26, 2007, letter that the Minutemen have disbanded. He wrote that the immigration situation has improved and thanked the Minutemen volunteers and the Town Council for their efforts.

Judicial Watch withdrew its lawsuit once the labor site closed, according to organization president Tom Fitton. Fitton said the lawsuit led to the eventual closing of the day labor site and he is "pleased that the citizens of Herndon are no longer forced to subsidize illegal day labor."

Mukit Hossain, founder of Project Hope & Harmony, said day laborers are leaving Herndon, but it is because there is little work in Herndon, not because the site closed. He said day laborers have suffered the effects of the slow construction market and may have to move to places where there is more work and cheaper rent.

"They are leaving not because of some fictitious victory," Hossain said. Workers may be leaving because there is, "just not work in this area, not enough to support a large day worker community," he said.

In other news, there's no truth to the rumor that Elden Street will be renamed the Highway of Tolerance.

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston....

Herndon has joined something called the Coalition on Illegal Aliens, a group of Minuteman-intensive area localities. It's in fine company with such other enlightened locales as the town of Culpeper, Shenandoah County and Prince William, where the campaign theme of the fall elections was pretty much "let's hate on the immigrants."

Martin Bernal, a community leader in Culpeper, said it has seemed lately as though the whole Latino community has been under attack. "Things have really picked up since Prince William came out with that plan," he said. "They are blaming us for everything that's going wrong in this country and with the economy."

But Herndon's even more awesome! Because of its unprecedented success in shutting down its day laborer center and protecting free and unfettered access to its 7-11s and the precious bodily fluids offered therein (Mr. Pibb!), Herndon Mayor Stephen J. DeBenedittis will chair the group. Because, you know, now that the day laborer center is closed, there are no longer any illegal immigrants in Herndon and all of its problems have been solved forever. In fact, they've even started serving meatloaf and Freedom Fries at El Campero!

Not to alarm anyone...

... but one of the cases of the nasty staph infections that are giving local TV newscasts something to cover besides corn mazes and car crashes was reported at Herndon High School.

We now return you to your regularly scheduled panicking.

Redistricting: A Tale of Two High Schools

If it's fall, it's time to broach the ever-touchy subject of school redistricting once more. From our in-depth reporting (flipping through a nearly week-old copy of the Connection we found on the sidewalk), here's the crux of the situation:

South Lakes, which is continuing a never-ending renovation, is under capacity. Herndon High School, which is just under capacity, currently takes in the students from Reston's so-called "good schools" -- you know, the ones named after astronauts, in North Reston, and they'd rather take on more students than lose their Restonites. Here's how one Herndon High School parent describes the situation:

Areas served by Aldrin and Armstrong account for 750 seats in Advanced Placement (AP) and Honors classes at Herndon. Losing those students could have a tremendous impact on Herndon’s ability to offer AP and Honors classes to its students in the future.

And band, too! Meanwhile, South Lakes' PTSA is talking up their school's diversity and its excellent, if still unconventional, IB program.

""We are just happy to have an opportunity to tell our story of what a great school South Lakes is," said Vandenburg.

So, what to do? One solution posited by Herndon parents involves putting a voluntary magnet program at South Lakes, so people who want their kids to go there can. That's an approach that's worked before in both Reston (Hunters Woods Elementary's magnet program) and Herndon (Herndon Elementary's French-immersion program).

Of course, what no one's bothering to point out is that the IB/AP programs already unwittingly serve that same purpose -- kids who live within South Lakes' boundaries who want to take AP classes can apply to go to Herndon, and Herndon kids who want IB classes can do the same.

Confused? Well, let's bring the Westfield kids into the mix:

Aside from not wanting to move their children from their respective schools to South Lakes, some parents in the affected communities have also brought up South Lakes' reputation as a reason to not move their children to the Reston high school.

Here we go again. Christine Arakelian, who's running for the Hunter Mill seat on the Fairfax County School Board, was criticized at a forum at South Lakes High School for perpetuating that reputation as part of her campaigning. Her response?

"If I thought things in Reston were bad I would not live here," she said.

Wow. As sound bites go, that ranks up there with some other Churchillian political statements.

Meet Your Neighbors: The Unbearable Lightness of Lake Anne

Meet Greg, a blogger whose insights are so valuable to the human condition that his URL denotes his charitable status for giving them away: greg.org. Kind of like... this site. Oh, yeah. Sorry.

Anyway, greg dot org came to Reston, hoping to experience what he calls the "perfect modernist suburb." You can guess how that turned out:

Reston looks like this, freakin' shoeboxes with room for a dinette set and ceilings no taller than the 8' patio door that is the only source of light.

No disagreement here!

Fortunately, the grandeur of Middle Earth sparked this helpful rumination on all things Reston:

I've since visited Lake Anne, as the original core of Reston is known, and have learned that Hickory Cluster is actually a series of Goodman-designed townhouse neighborhoods on the other side of the ring road from the town square, which architect James Rossant designed to emulate--what else?--Portofino.

In at least one respect, he succeeded: apparently, the pedestrian-oriented center is dead in the non-summer, and businesses on the plaza can't survive. Which is one factor driving a current government/development push for "revitalization." The other most immediately obvious characteristic of Lake Anne is its Latino-ness. It's like Reston Town Center for Mexicans, and visiting it makes me realize how overwhelmingly non-Latino the RTC crowds and target demographics are.

The only larger concentration of Latino Reston/Herndon residents I'd seen was in the parking lot at KMart, which serves as a kind of impromptu zocalo con coches. Rather than providing an idealized escape from the "problems" of the "inner cities," such as density and a heterogeneous racial, cultural, and socio-economic population, Reston turns out to have [at least] two cultures and economic strata superimposed on each other, equal on the parkways, but separate on the town plazas. I wonder if anyone's asked a Mexican about the Lake Anne "revitalization," or is he the problem to be solved?

No, no -- that's Herndon's thing.

From the comments...

Following the Herndon's shutdown of the day laborer center, a reader noticed this:

If you drive into Herndon on West Ox Road from Loudoun County, you'll see a flashing electronic message sign reading "Day Labor Center CLOSED." Guess they're driving to discourage folks from Ashburn from trolling for folks to hang drywall in their particleboard houses.

Now if they can just point a flashing electronic arrow in the general direction of Panama, we'll be all set!

Meanwhile, in the Anti-Reston: Dept. of Obvious Consequences

Turns out shutting down the day laborer center didn't make all those swarthy types shuffling around Herndon magically disappear to Panama. Instead, they've moved to an open-air location at a public park near downtown in hopes of continuing to make a living for their families. Who'd have thunk it? As one sharp-witted local passerby pointed out:

They will be here every day? This is what the town didn't want to happen."

Fortunately, the once-jammed 7-11 parking lot that initially sparked the entire controversy has remained clear, giving Herndonians unfettered access to their precious bodily fluids (chemical breakdown: 73.7% Super Big Gulp, 26.3% Banana Slurpee).