Fairfax county is a "growing" community.
Folks are moving there, building there and business are generally growing there...fed by the local business and of course the folks who live in DC. There are loads of folks both rich and poor who would benefit from better mass transit there...companies who can draw upon more labor resources...etcWell, it didn’t start out that way. In fact, prior to all those businesses moving there and the ensuing development, it looked exactly like Venango, Elk or Potter Counties.
The land that Tysons Corner I and II are built on was owned by a man named Marcus Bleis (pronounced “bliss”). Mr. Bleis moved to Northern Virginia in the early 1940s from Missouri. My maternal grandmother, my mother and my aunt, who all knew the Bleis family, told me that Mr. and Mrs. Bleis, as well as their two sons, were so poor they would pick up soda bottles along the main thoroughfares and cash them in. Mr. Bleis put aside some money he made from doing odd jobs, and eventually purchased farmland for pennies on the dollar. In the late 1950s, just before the Virginia leg of the D.C. Beltway was built, Mr. Bleis sold the land to the Lerner Corporation. It literally made him a millionaire many times over. A true rags-to-riches story!
There are two other factors that were instrumental in Fairfax County’s growth. The first were the 1968 riots that occurred after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King. They cost the city millions and millions of trade, industry and tourism dollars, and literally destroyed D.C.’s economy. In the aftermath of the riots, then-Mayor Walter Washington pleaded with proprietors to come back into the city and start over. The consensus amongst them was “Why should we come back and risk getting burned out again?” So, rather than set up shop in D.C., those business owners stayed in the Maryland and Virginia suburbs. (The public official who encouraged them to return is former Mayor Marion Berry.)
Secondly, the most prominent figure in FC's development was the late Jack Herrity – a man beloved by developers, and hated by just about everybody else. He was elected Chairman of the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in November 1975, after a stint as Supervisor of Springfield District in the southern part of the county. Herrity rolled out the welcome mat and courted every “Beltway Bandit” that showed up at his front door, be they residential or business developer, or defense contractor. The joke going around was that Jack Herrity was in bed with so many developers he could’ve given birth to their children. About two years before his death, Herrity had an epiphany. The dream he had nurtured and the prosperity he brought to the county had turned into his personal Frankenstein, and he became a staunch advocate of slow-growth policies. The current supervisor, Gerry Connolly (a Dem), isn’t much better. Metro out to Dulles is his brainchild, seemingly to appease
his developer buddies and employer (SAIC).
Those who forget the past truly are condemned to repeat it.
As much as I detested Jack Herrity, he deserves credit for one particular aspect of his tenure: Herrity knew how to work with the state legislature. He was one "good ole boy" dealing with an assembly comprised of like-minded individuals. Gerry Connolly (a Bostonian who's lived here twenty years), doesn't have that ability. He can't connect with Richmond, and doesn't understand that fighting them is futile.
Yes, Fairfax County is affluent and flourishing, but a hell of a price was paid for it. The quality of life that people like me (a native with multi-generational roots here) enjoyed no longer exists. This jurisdiction was never zoned to hold over a million people, and it looks like a slum. The air stinks – roll down your car window, and you inhale gas fumes. There is trash along side the highways. The housing is cheaply built, and looks like something built when Russia was still the USSR (and I can tell you for a fact that much of it was built over cemeteries and trash dumps). Puppets of developers control the Board of Supervisors. Who wants to live that way?
”I-80 in PA is a transit route for truckers and locals...and PA is not a state that is growing economically speaking. The region I-80 runs through is an agricultural area...there aren't going to be a lot of donations to candidates from the folks living in the I-80 stretch...There aren't a lot of companies clamboring to start a business there...and sadly...that is why the tax paying folks in PA get shit.
Pittsburgh could do with a state of the art metro system....they don't have it either...Hell Pittsburgh has been waiting 50+ years for their subway...and it won't happen...hell we couldn't even get the Feds to give us Maglev...when I think of the money wasted on that project...and all for nothing... we get the big fat nothing...and part of it for good reason...Pittsburgh has been mismanaged ...we let sports teams owners run amok, we do shit to fix the schools and help the folks who live there, we also have politicians who give commercial developers of retail space (not housing) all kinds of breaks...thinking that "if we build a store...people will move here"....it is just so insane...and it isn't just Pittsburgh...local governments are run like little fiefdoms with little forward thinking...”If there is to be growth in the Northern Tier, then it will depend upon whether or not (1) growers want to sell off all or part of their farms to development, and (2) each county’s Department of Economic Development, in conjunction with the State DED, actively pursues and convinces businesses to relocate there. If not, then that area will remain largely agrarian. The fact that I-80 is a major east-west thoroughfare for the trucking industry would certainly be a very attractive selling point. (If the PA Turnpike isn’t being promoted to businesses, that would be an incredibly foolish and unfortunate oversight by the state DED.)
What a boon both a new subway system and the Maglev would be for “da Burgh” – and let’s not forget the completion of the Mon Expressway! Why hasn’t Federal funding been made available? Is it the fault of the Western PA’s Congressional delegation? If so, it seems as if a major housecleaning may be in order. The region of the state that gave America the Whiskey Rebellion needs to do a major ass-kicking again, starting from your state and Congressional representatives to City Hall. (Bob Regola in particular is useless, particularly at this stage of his life.) A change in the status quo will come from public servants with fresh ideas, and from the local Dems recruiting candidates of this caliber.
If the respective county governments in the Pittsburgh metro area developed a comprehensive set of proffer laws regarding business development coupled with an aggressive provincial marketing, it would go a long way towards enticing builders to focus their efforts on creating office parks and commercial buildings – and not just islands of retail space. Giving tax breaks for improvement of blighted urban areas and create housing would also be a smart incentive. The new arena and casino were both excellent ideas, IMHO. Anything that’s legal and is a revenue-generator is beneficial (and a significant portion of the proceeds is recycled back into the local economy).
In regards to the plethora of local governments: Agree with you 100% BF It’s extremely complicated to create a sense of area unanimity when there are thousands of municipalities that are islands unto themselves. There must be a sensible alternative that everyone can agree upon. (FYI, here are the latest Pennsylvanis job growth details:
http://www.papolicyblog.com/pablog/2007/07/pennsylvania_an.html)
BTW, for anyone reading my post wanting to relocate and do business in PA: www.teampa.com
Anyway, that’s just my .02, and I apologize for my on-line verbosity. You made some outstanding points, bleedingheart!
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