In Praise of Northern Virginia
Thoughts on putting down roots in a "placeless place"
Last month I was in Spectator World, with praise for Northern Virginia. I was inspired to write this because of a piece by Casey Chalk. I’d describe him as a young Old Virginian who writes from a conservative Catholic perspective. He’s also a Spectator World contributor.
His piece, “Til Hazel’s Virginia,” was about developer John T. “Til” Hazel Jr., responsible in the 1980s for much of suburban Fairfax County’s look and feel. I had never heard of him, somehow, so I read the piece with interest. As a Yankee transplant, I must confess that whatever Northern Virginia was before my time doesn’t mean much to me; heck, coming from central New Jersey, I’m right at home.
I can understand a certain sense of loss if you saw all of the change unfold yourself. Nonetheless, you can go too far; Chalk’s piece was over at the Abbeville Institute, which also has material on the alleged constitutionality of secession.
But Chalk is fair and circumspect; here’s an important bit of his piece:
Much of my life, and that of my extended family, revolves around the decisions made by Mr. Hazel. I was born in Arlington, was raised on the boundary of Fairfax Station and Lorton, had my first job in Burke Centre, and bought my first house in Fair Lakes. For ten years I have attended a church right next to Franklin Farm. One of my grandfathers moved from southern Maryland to Northern Virginia in the 1960’s, started his own dental supply business, and did much work in Burke and Fairfax. One of my uncles (his elder son) worked for many years in Tysons, and like the now deceased Hazel, lives in one of the few remaining rural parts of neighboring Loudoun County — he also attended one of Hazel’s daughter’s weddings.
I must confess that as a lifelong resident of Northern Virginia, I have very mixed feelings about Mr. Hazel and the broader social and economic trends his life represents. I cannot imagine a life apart from the one that he helped create. I was baptized at a Catholic parish in Burke, and two of my children were born in Fair Lakes.
Yet the things I love most about my native Northern Virginia are the things Hazel most adamantly sought to destroy in his attempts to fashion a new “identity” for the region. Growing up in one of the last rural parts of Fairfax County, our house was still in walking distance to multiple working farms. My friend and I would regularly walk through the woods to feed carrots to a neighbor’s horses, and I remember local farmers selling their crops on the side of the road. Those days are gone. On land where once stood old farms are now gaudy Mcmansions.
I agree with that last bit! But you cannot bemoan the suburbanization of Fairfax County—and now Loudoun, Prince William, and beyond—without addressing why it actually happened. It wasn’t about taking the old Virginia identity away. People want to live in this region, and the areas already built out, where it makes the most sense to add more density, largely resist it. If you can’t go up, you go out. That’s the missing piece in so much commentary about the loss of agricultural land or rural life at the fringes of this metro area, and others that are similarly growing.
A conservative should be able to arrive at this conclusion, as well as a liberal. Anyone should, because I think it’s basically just true as a matter of analysis. I wrote:
If we wanted Fairfax County to be dairy farms, we needed to build a lot more in Arlington County. And if we want Loudoun and Prince William Counties to stay rural, we’ll need to build a lot more in Fairfax County.
Housing policy might seem wonky, and it’s easy to say “move somewhere else.” But if that’s our only answer — if traffic is unacceptable and density is intolerable — what we’re really saying is that there are too many people. A conservative, let alone a social or religious one, can never believe that the problem is too many people. One day, babies turn into neighbors.
Also in Chalk’s piece is the common idea that Northern Virginia lacks a real identity or sense of place; yes, it’s diverse, but the argument goes that various ethnic or immigrant groups don’t necessarily interface with each other, and that there isn’t really a coherent whole. Plus, among the professionals class, it’s very transient.
But I don’t see it that way. I’ve come to deeply appreciate the broad and unselfconscious diversity in this region. It’s the sort of thing my mother talked about growing up in New York City. It’s an embodiment of America. The melting pot used to be in urban cores, and that’s the image we still have of it, but the same thing is happening in American suburbs today. I hate the idea that there are conservatives who will look askance at actual, genuine diversity because they dislike what they see as left-wing hectoring about it. Forget that, if you want; keep your mind and eyes on the ground.
I wrote:
I have no idea whether we’ll retire in Northern Virginia — I’m not that old or rich — but it absolutely possesses a “cultural identity worth preserving.” In fact, I’ve become proud of living here. You can go thrifting or shop at the Tysons Galleria. You can visit Annandale, a suburban Koreatown, or Eden Center, a strip mall that doubles as a Vietnamese cultural center. You can raise kids to go apple picking one day and eat pho the next. Virginia’s burgeoning wine industry is a point of local pride. The region’s traffic and heavily suburban form disguise its richness.
What it really comes down to, for me at least, is that you can share a few hundred square miles of land between the nation’s capital and the Virginia countryside with people from almost 150 countries, and it just works. It’s genuine and unselfconscious. Say what you will about capital-D “Diversity,” but there’s nothing “politically correct,” or politically tinged at all, about having Ethiopian food for dinner or sharing the checkout line with people from Bangladesh.
Maybe I’m in the minority in my feeling that I’ve actually put down roots here—or even in feeling that it can be done. But I don’t think so. High home prices here mean two things: first, people really want to live here; second, many who would like to move here, or stay here, cannot afford it. The answer to transience and “placelessness” is more homes, and more people.
I concluded:
So much of [the Northern Virginia suburbs’] awkward, empty suburban spaces could host homes and businesses. So much underutilized land could be filled in. So much more enterprise and energy could fit in here and join the fray.
Being an urbanist is about being positive sum. It’s about seeing people as a resource, opening up opportunity, and yes, accommodating change. The old rural Virginia, at least in Fairfax County, is gone. But it’s not coming back, not here anyway. If we can get our housing policy right, and build where people want to live, we can keep some old Virginia further out, and keep crafting real places right here.
Related Reading:
Northern Virginia Is a Real Place
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