Death of Til Hazel, King of Northern Virginia's Suburban Growth Machine

When I first got involved in these issues more than 20 years ago, of course suburban sprawl was a big issue--I lived in it from 1973 to 1978 and a couple of summers afterwards.  In the DC area, one of the key examples was sprawl in places like Fairfax County, and of course I was derisive of the quality of land use planning.  (Below: Tysons "Corner" Virginia.  In the last 15 years, "Corner" was dropped from business district branding.)

Imagine my surprise a few years later to come across a Fairfax County planning department report, The Vanishing Land: Proposals for Open Space Preservation, c. 1962, about the problems of sprawl, land use development, hopscotching of land plots furthering sprawl outwards, and recommendations for change.

From page 20, Increase of Land Consumption for Suburban Development 

"The rapid urbanization and population increase in Fairfax County, as in urban counties all over the country, are causing logical concern over the growing lack of efficient use of land necessary of efficient servicing of these lands. The mass exodus of middle and upper income families from the metropolitan center to "cheap, open, rural land, in the country," has resulted in hundreds of large-lot subdivisions which have skipped over previously serviced areas and are demanding equal services and schools further and further out." 

Page 7, the Introduction starts out with the question "Is it Too Late To Save Open Space?" 

"Fairfax County is nearing a crisis in the supply of remaining open land due to the fantastically swift, uncoordinated development in the County's urban fringe over the past two decades. This urbanization is leapfrogging its way across the entire County, replacing the cherished rural atmosphere. 

If the present rate of consumption of open land occurs for two more decades (160-200 acres per 1,000 new residents), the entire County will have been eaten up in urban sprawl, and all of the desirable tracts of open land will have vanished." 

The publication is well designed, with great images, fold-out maps, die-cut effects, a mail-in "Business Reply Card" postage-paid four question survey, etc.

Of course, those recommendations for change were never enacted, because of the power of land use interests.  And we know what happened with the land.

New Metrorail station for Tysons.  VDOT photo by Trever Wrayton.

Painting by Bradley Stevens.

One of those powerful interests was John "Til" Hazel, a lawyer and developer key to the growth and sprawl of Fairfax County and elsewhere in Suburban Virginia.  The Washington Post reports on his death ("John ‘Til’ Hazel Jr., lawyer and developer who transformed Virginia suburbs, dies at 91").

From the Washington City Paper article "The Economics of Stephen Fuller":

“Basically, the political world is controlled by the anti-growth people,” said Hazel at the press conference. “We can’t let the ‘antis’ control the world.”

From the Washingtonian article "Secrets of Success: Five Washington Business Leaders Who Went After Opportunities to Work Their Way to the Top":

Hazel's law firm had been hired to acquire the land to build the Washington Beltway. He became an expert on zoning, acquisition, and eminent domain. Later Hazel steered Ted Lerner through the legal maze so the developer could build Tysons Corner Center and the Tysons II shopping, office, and hotel complex. 

In 1961 Hazel left the law firm. He soon became a county judge and, in his spare time, practiced zoning law. Hazel realized that Northern Virginia was changing, and he wanted to be a player, not an observer. 

"A blind man could see the potential," Hazel says. "Fairfax was the frontier. It was open to ideas." But 

Hazel saw possibilities that others couldn't and–more important–was able to turn them into bricks and mortar. In 1972 he linked up with Milton V. Peterson and began developing communities like Burke Centre and Franklin Farm. By 1989 it was estimated that one of every six Fairfax residents lived on land that Hazel/Peterson developed. The company also built Fair Lakes, a 35-building office complex.

(These quotes remind me of the now defunct Regardie's Magazine, which focused on local industry, especially real estate, and the Washington Business Journal, which is devoted to real estate development coverage as well.  Bisnow a web platform on the real estate industry, grew out of WBJ in a way, as one of their writers left to create it.)

-- Capital Beltway history website

The Growth Machine thesis argues that land use intensification is the primary goal of political and economic elites, because real estate development is the primary local industry and the source of tax revenue supporting local government.

While the thesis focuses on center cities, it's fully applicable to the suburbs, as land development is the number one industry in the U.S.  And post-war growth was essential to the US in terms of economic development, GDP growth, population expansion and accommodation, etc.  

There is some academic writing that addresses these issues in terms of Fairfax County:

-- "The Growth Machine Stops? Urban Politics and the Making and Remaking of an Edge City," Urban Affairs Review (2012).
-- The Fight for Fairfax: A Struggle for a Great American County, by Russ Banham
-- "Visions of the Future as Spaces of Engagement: The Political Economy of Transit-Oriented Redevelopment in Tysons Corner, VA," Cities in the 21st Century, v. 2 (2010)
-- "Happy to Grow: Development and Planning in Fairfax County, Virginia," Harvard University

And the Post certainly covered it, such as "TIL HAZEL, KING OF THE NEW FRONTIER," which led to the publication of the book Edge City, by former Post writer Joel Garreau ("An Overview of the Edge City Theory," Thoughtco).