This post was contributed by a community member. The views expressed here are the author's own.

Health & Fitness

Thinking About Community

Reston is a special place - because of its people. I hope to stimulate a positive conversation on how we prepare for the second 50 years of Reston growth as a community.

Springtime always brings very positive feelings about community for me.  Perhaps it’s that warmer weather gets us all outdoors where we get to see our neighbors face-to-face instead of waving through frosted car windows (thou not so many frosted windows this winter).  It is certainly the sense of renewal and energy that comes with the technicolor display of Spring flowers and the multiple shades of green as trees burst into leaf and winter’s browns fade away.

But here in Reston, the arrival of Spring also means two events that really highlight what community means – our annual Founder’s Day and the Best of Reston awards and dinner.  Both of these events get me thinking again about why our community is such a special place and why we must all work hard to preserve and expand those special qualities. 

Certainly, one aspect of community that receives broad attention is sustainability – but that is often closely focused on a set of environmental and energy issues that do not resonate so deeply for me.  Sustainability is about people as much or more than about BTUs, carbon footprints or curly light bulbs.   If we are to pursue a sustainable community in Reston we must pay attention to and nourish our people and continue to find ways and means to promote the values of diversity, access and respect that make Reston an idea, not just a place.

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Bob Simon’s original goals describe the distinctive aspirational character of Reston as a community and provide a good staring point to understand the dimensions of community that continue to be the foundations of our quest.  Those seven goals focus quite sharply on the essential drivers of the quality of life - a wide range of opportunity for all our neighbors to enjoy their lives and grow with dignity in a diverse community.

In the creation of Reston, Virginia, these are the major goals:

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1.  That the widest choice of opportunities be made available for the full use of leisure time. This means that the New Town should provide a wide range of cultural and recreational facilities as well as an environment for privacy.

2.  That it be possible for anyone to remain in a single neighborhood throughout his life, uprooting being neither inevitable nor always desirable. By providing the fullest range of housing styles and prices – from high-rise efficiencies to 6-bedroom townhouses and detached houses – housing needs can be met at a variety of income levels and at different stages of family life. This kind of mixture permits residents to remain rooted in the community if they so choose – as their particular housing needs change. As a by-product, this also results in the heterogeneity that spells a lively and varied community.

3.  That the importance and dignity of each individual be the focal point for all planning, and take precedence for large-scale concepts.

4.  That the people be able to live and work in the same community.

5.  That commercial, cultural and recreational facilities be made available to the residents from the outset of the development – not years later.

6.  That beauty – structural and natural – is a necessity of the good life and should be fostered.

7.  Since Reston is being developed from private enterprise, in order to be completed as conceived it must also, of course, be a financial success.

An ongoing study funded by the Knight Foundation  (Soul of the Community) in 26 US cities has found solid empirical evidence that the factors that create emotional bonds between people and their community are consistent in virtually every city and can be reduced to just a few categories.

They conclude: "Community attachment is an emotional connection to a place that transcends satisfaction, loyalty, and even passion. A community’s most attached residents have strong pride in it, a positive outlook on the community’s future, and a sense that it is the perfect place for them. They are less likely to want to leave than residents without this emotional connection. They feel a bond to their community that is stronger than just being happy about where they live."

Interestingly, the usual suspects — jobs, the economy, and safety — are not among the top drivers of community. Rather, people consistently give higher ratings for elements that relate directly to their daily quality of life: an area’s physical beauty, opportunities for socializing, and a community’s openness to all people.  Note the close parallel with Reston’s founding principles.

In truth, we cannot expect to recreate the pioneering spirit of the first Restonians – those were different times and challenges. But we must do what we can to preserve that legacy and update it as an energizing organizing principle for our own future.  And we must work very hard to make “our vision for Reston” relevant to a broader range of our neighbors – especially newer residents from other cultural traditions and those who will join us in the future.

One important piece of our sustainability endeavor must, therefore, focus on all of the people of Reston.  To do that, and as we begin the process of rebuilding our community’s physical infrastructure with Metro and redevelopment, we need to build a human capital infrastructure that will enable us to create the basis for a reinvigoration of the Reston idea as we approach the 50th year.  We must learn more about who we are and what we value so that we will, as a community, be better positioned to develop strategies, programs and opportunities to enhance the experience of living in Reston and to increase the human values and interactions that make our community distinctive.

The Global Ecovillage Network (www.gaia.org) has pioneered a Community Sustainability Assessment that helps assess community accomplishments and opportunities.  The Assessment has three major dimensions:

  • Ecological – including physical infrastructure, water and energy use, and sense of place.
  • Social – including openness, trust, communications, networking, education, health care, economics, diversity and tolerance, conflict resolution.
  • Spiritual - including cultural, arts and leisure, community glue and resilience.

These key categories map nicely to the initial Reston principles as well as to the Knight Foundation findings.

What these studies (and others) point to is the need to incorporate these “softer” concerns into the ongoing comprehensive planning, sustainability and redevelopment conversations now going on in the community.  If we are to be successful, we need to have a lot more data and a broader conversation than we have managed to have so far. 

And to do that we need to be prepared to speak quietly, listen more and not prejudge the opinions of people we have not yet met or have not taken the time to understand.  We need to set aside fear of change and embrace the faith that our common goals and values are more powerful than the interests that threaten to divide us. 

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