Lake Anne in Reston: Designed For Walking
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 11.10.06
Lake Anne is a neighborhood in Reston, Virginia, that is built around a picturesque man-made lake. Lake Anne Village Center is completely separated from roads. There are several adjacent parking areas — but these are not visible from the plaza. The are also several walking trails that connect Lake Anne to the other parts of Reston. The trails incorporate tunnels and bridges, so that the residents can actually walk or bike to town and not have to cross busy roads. Not surprisingly, there is a relaxed, social atmosphere at Lake Anne. People can interact in the public spaces, and visit the post office, bank, bookstore and convenience stores.
There are condos and apartments located atop stores and restaurants in the plaza, and they all encircle the lake itself. The plaza was modeled on the “new towns” concept that emerged in western England and Scandinavia in the 1960s. Reston was itself created in 1963 to be a green, walkable community, that integrated urban areas with the original rural surroundings. Reston is a suburb of Washington, DC, not too far from the Washington-Dulles Airport. The sprawl from DC has now reached Reston and surrounds it completely.
Since it's inception, Lake Anne has maintained a diversity of housing sizes, styles, and prices in the area. The community is also one of the most ethnically diverse I've encountered.
For non-Virginian readers: Reston is a suburb of Washington, DC, not too far from the Washington-Dulles Airport.
These days the sprawl that's been spreading out from DC since Reston was created has reached and basically encloses Reston.
Google map showing Reston, Dulles and Washington DC
i lived near here for a while. It's also right across from the Reston Town Center (the big mall). great little spot. the bike/jogging/paved path rolls by very close to here - about 1/2 mile or less. you can take the trail from downtown DC (Georgetown area) all the way out to Purcellville, VA - 40 or so miles west. pretty dope.
I work in Herndon/Reston with people who have lived in the area for twenty years, and they consider it one of the nicer failures of urban design, but still a failure. Businesses have opened and gone out of business at a fantastic rate, because nobody knew they were there. The center is tucked away from the main road, and you could drive by every day for years and never know it was there.
Yet another restaurant has opened in the space of a previously failed one, and the new one serves tasty tapas. I can recommend it in the hopes that it will stay alive, but these are not strong hopes.
The major flaw in the system was that Reston forbid the business owners from putting up signs along the main road to tell people about their presence. Since the vast majority of the population is incurious by nature, walk-in traffic has always been limited. You can't see the shopping for the trees.
The Reston Town Center, on the other hand, is a variation on the stacked zoning approach which you can see from the road, and the near-urban density of it is, in my opinion, a greater success, more akin to what we should be looking at than the struggling Lake Anne experiment.
We really miss the boat here in the US with regard to understanding urban living. For me, Reston is horrid; lifeless, ugly and unappealing; I have to go there on business 2 or 3 times a year. Compare this to a "real" city like Paris, Boston (especially Cambridge), and Chicago and you'll get my drift. Cities where the streets are textured and lively, and anything you need is at most a 10 or 15 minute walk, and public transportation is down the block. Saying Reston is a nice city is like saying a Big Mac is fine dining. Better than the typical suburb perhaps, but not a desirable city experience.
The Reston Town center is not pedestrian-friendly. If made the Center streets car free that would help.
I remember when I was little we visited it one time. I don't remember much but I have pictures and I remember how pretty it was and fun walking around.=D
I lived in Reston (Hickory Cluster) for one year with my family in '77/'78, and although I was only five years old, the place has left a permanent mark on my being. I'm actually currently in the process of writing a song about my wonderful memories of the area. I hope to see it again soon and maybe even live there again someday.
I've been living in Reston for 3 years, and have found it to be a very desirable place to live. Thank goodness it's nothing like Boston, Paris, or heaven forbid, Chicago. Reston was designed specifically so it would never become such a high-density, busy, congested place. It's a perfect place to raise a family--safe, clean, peaceful, yet close to any kind of shopping or any other convenience.
I used to live in Reston for 4 years. I lived in Breton Court, not too far from Hunters Woods Elementary School and about a 15 minute drive from the center. Every single time I went to the center, it took my breath away. During the holidays, I'm pretty sure they had a big tree in the middle. They had little twinkling deer set up in places. The part that I adored the most about the center was the water fountain near the entrance. I loved gazing at it. You could spend hours at thw town center and never be bored.