Reston's Legacy


View excerpts from 
Steve Resz's documentary 
"RESTON - Past, Present & Future"
(requires QuickTime plugin)
Read reveiw

Reston's Founding Principles (as expressed by Robert Simon)
Listen to an Interview with Bob Simon (08/06)

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

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.