Q: What is the biggest change you have seen in Reston during your time here?
A: Without question it would be the number of jobs. In the beginning Reston was slated for one job per household, which would mean 22,000 jobs. Now there are close to three jobs per household.
From an interview with a guy who's been in Reston longer than I. Robert Simon thought Reston should be a place where people lived and worked, a source neither of jobs for outside commuters nor of commuters for outside jobs. That vision was flawed, perhaps because he didn't allow for the impact of Dulles airport and the access road to the Beltway. That allowed the development of the parallel toll road and made the area attractive for businesses with lots of air traffic. Another omission was the development of the military-industrial complex. And finally, he missed the development of the government-contractor complex. Both complexes meant big outfits developed which needed easy access to both federal offices mostly in DC and to the nation. So jobs developed along the Dulles corridor.
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