Why America stopped building public pools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blah blah blah. For some people everything is about racism. Whatever.

Baltimore has public pools. City has been dominated by black politicians and leaders since the 70s. But doesn't prevent the city from keeping pools closed. Let's still blame it on racism.

No one is talking about Baltimore except for you. We’re mostly talking about Virginia. You know, the state where the Confederacy had its Capitol? Come on. When I moved here from a different part of the country the whole private pool club thing was new to me! We had community pools and beaches. We also had a lot of gated communities with their own pools. Never really thought about it until moving here and learning about all of the public pools that closed in the south after legal segregation ended.

Most of NOVA didn’t even exist during segregation.

That said there wasn’t a large black community within 30 miles of where I grew up and there were never any public pools, let alone private pool clubs.

[Anonymous]

I do see the legacy of racism all around me in NoVA. The private pool thing is sad to consider, given how much we love our local pool club. Interestingly our pool is one of the few in the area that doesn’t have a geographical limitation on who can join … so maybe the founders were a little more progressive, or maybe one of the successor boards was. Back in the 50’s, neighborhoods were way more segregated due to redlining etc. It is just a fact that public pools closed after segregation, and people created private clubs to keep others out. It’s not allowed now but there’s definitely a legacy to overcome and institutional norms need review to make sure they aren’t perpetuating old biases, like pool bylaws and swim league policies. It seems like these are insignificant things, but they can have big impacts in your very local community. These are the best kinds of things to care about in my opinion.

All of the people saying, oh, well I grew up in a 100% white area and had no public pools are proving the point.

No, your pool is not one of the "few" that has no geographical limitation. Maybe it is where you are? Arlington? I live in an old Springfield development (1960s) where there is no private neighborhood pool. I was able to buy membership in various pools throughout the years . . . it was never a problem. If you live in Burke there are 5 pools you can access through your HOA. This is true in many areas in Fairfax (Centreville has something similar). So if you move there it doesn't matter what race you are. You are in the "pool club". If this situation didn't exist, I am sure that Fairfax County would have put in more public pools.

All that said, as the population ages we will have more seniors around. I think any pool that starts to cater to seniors (arthritis water exercise classes for example) will be able to stay in business. The rec centers have all of that and they are real community assets here. Pools are not just for young people. I think Fairfax County is constantly assessing the pool situation. As private pools age and people don't want to pay for them, public pools will come in. The county is doing a good job of maintaining and upgrading the rec center pools. Some, like Cub Run, have more than one pool on the premises.

[Anonymous]

^Burke allows people outside the neighborhood to buy into their pools (and you can go to any of the 5).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blah blah blah. For some people everything is about racism. Whatever.

Baltimore has public pools. City has been dominated by black politicians and leaders since the 70s. But doesn't prevent the city from keeping pools closed. Let's still blame it on racism.

No one is talking about Baltimore except for you. We’re mostly talking about Virginia. You know, the state where the Confederacy had its Capitol? Come on. When I moved here from a different part of the country the whole private pool club thing was new to me! We had community pools and beaches. We also had a lot of gated communities with their own pools. Never really thought about it until moving here and learning about all of the public pools that closed in the south after legal segregation ended.

So why the gated communities in your part of the country that was oh so inclusive?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I grew up in a town in NJ that was mostly white and there weren’t any community pools. First time I ever heard of such a thing was when I moved to VA. Nobody cared at all. Why would there be shared pools?

Name the town.

Lol. There are hundreds of towns in the NE that do not have community pools. It just isn’t as much of a thing. I grew up in western NY (Rochester area) and we certainly didn’t have them. In newer (post-70s) suburban housing developments with larger lots, people often put in an (commonly above ground) pool in their backyard.

I think it’s pretty hard to construct new pools these days in densely populated areas, due to space, cost, and liability issues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blah blah blah. For some people everything is about racism. Whatever.

Baltimore has public pools. City has been dominated by black politicians and leaders since the 70s. But doesn't prevent the city from keeping pools closed. Let's still blame it on racism.

No one is talking about Baltimore except for you. We’re mostly talking about Virginia. You know, the state where the Confederacy had its Capitol? Come on. When I moved here from a different part of the country the whole private pool club thing was new to me! We had community pools and beaches. We also had a lot of gated communities with their own pools. Never really thought about it until moving here and learning about all of the public pools that closed in the south after legal segregation ended.

So why the gated communities in your part of the country that was oh so inclusive?

Yeah that was my point! I hadn’t thought about it before I moved here because there really wasn’t much of a history of legal segregation where I grew up. Plenty of racism, but we did have a lot of public pools and swim programs too. Not like here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blah blah blah. For some people everything is about racism. Whatever.

Baltimore has public pools. City has been dominated by black politicians and leaders since the 70s. But doesn't prevent the city from keeping pools closed. Let's still blame it on racism.

No one is talking about Baltimore except for you. We’re mostly talking about Virginia. You know, the state where the Confederacy had its Capitol? Come on. When I moved here from a different part of the country the whole private pool club thing was new to me! We had community pools and beaches. We also had a lot of gated communities with their own pools. Never really thought about it until moving here and learning about all of the public pools that closed in the south after legal segregation ended.

Most of NOVA didn’t even exist during segregation.

That said there wasn’t a large black community within 30 miles of where I grew up and there were never any public pools, let alone private pool clubs.

Yeah, it was white flight from DC that created the suburbs and private pool culture in NoVA. Last time I checked DC was within 30 miles of most of what we call NoVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I do see the legacy of racism all around me in NoVA. The private pool thing is sad to consider, given how much we love our local pool club. Interestingly our pool is one of the few in the area that doesn’t have a geographical limitation on who can join … so maybe the founders were a little more progressive, or maybe one of the successor boards was. Back in the 50’s, neighborhoods were way more segregated due to redlining etc. It is just a fact that public pools closed after segregation, and people created private clubs to keep others out. It’s not allowed now but there’s definitely a legacy to overcome and institutional norms need review to make sure they aren’t perpetuating old biases, like pool bylaws and swim league policies. It seems like these are insignificant things, but they can have big impacts in your very local community. These are the best kinds of things to care about in my opinion.

All of the people saying, oh, well I grew up in a 100% white area and had no public pools are proving the point.

No, your pool is not one of the "few" that has no geographical limitation. Maybe it is where you are? Arlington? I live in an old Springfield development (1960s) where there is no private neighborhood pool. I was able to buy membership in various pools throughout the years . . . it was never a problem. If you live in Burke there are 5 pools you can access through your HOA. This is true in many areas in Fairfax (Centreville has something similar). So if you move there it doesn't matter what race you are. You are in the "pool club". If this situation didn't exist, I am sure that Fairfax County would have put in more public pools.

All that said, as the population ages we will have more seniors around. I think any pool that starts to cater to seniors (arthritis water exercise classes for example) will be able to stay in business. The rec centers have all of that and they are real community assets here. Pools are not just for young people. I think Fairfax County is constantly assessing the pool situation. As private pools age and people don't want to pay for them, public pools will come in. The county is doing a good job of maintaining and upgrading the rec center pools. Some, like Cub Run, have more than one pool on the premises.

I’m in FFX county, and I said one of the few in my area. The neighborhoods here were built in the 50s and 60s. There was a history of redlining here. I have no idea about Springfield and centerville. Geographical limits where I am appear to vestiges of a time when white flight created the close in burbs and black people were not welcome. The schools near me were segregated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

I do see the legacy of racism all around me in NoVA. The private pool thing is sad to consider, given how much we love our local pool club. Interestingly our pool is one of the few in the area that doesn’t have a geographical limitation on who can join … so maybe the founders were a little more progressive, or maybe one of the successor boards was. Back in the 50’s, neighborhoods were way more segregated due to redlining etc. It is just a fact that public pools closed after segregation, and people created private clubs to keep others out. It’s not allowed now but there’s definitely a legacy to overcome and institutional norms need review to make sure they aren’t perpetuating old biases, like pool bylaws and swim league policies. It seems like these are insignificant things, but they can have big impacts in your very local community. These are the best kinds of things to care about in my opinion.

All of the people saying, oh, well I grew up in a 100% white area and had no public pools are proving the point.

No, your pool is not one of the "few" that has no geographical limitation. Maybe it is where you are? Arlington? I live in an old Springfield development (1960s) where there is no private neighborhood pool. I was able to buy membership in various pools throughout the years . . . it was never a problem. If you live in Burke there are 5 pools you can access through your HOA. This is true in many areas in Fairfax (Centreville has something similar). So if you move there it doesn't matter what race you are. You are in the "pool club". If this situation didn't exist, I am sure that Fairfax County would have put in more public pools.

All that said, as the population ages we will have more seniors around. I think any pool that starts to cater to seniors (arthritis water exercise classes for example) will be able to stay in business. The rec centers have all of that and they are real community assets here. Pools are not just for young people. I think Fairfax County is constantly assessing the pool situation. As private pools age and people don't want to pay for them, public pools will come in. The county is doing a good job of maintaining and upgrading the rec center pools. Some, like Cub Run, have more than one pool on the premises.

Please educate yourself about redliningz. Also, you just described geographical limits on pool membership. You do not need to live in our area to join our pool. It’s a really popular nice pool too. But it’s rare. Most other pools in our area are limited to specific zipcodes or boundary lines.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was recently in CA- every school there had an outdoor pool- most had 2 or even 3. In NoVa, there was an agreement that the pools would be in the Rec centers. Anyone can go there to swim. Anyone can join NCAP.

I lived in NE - we didn’t have public pools, I learned to swim in a lake. We could join a swim team, like here in Fairfax, we just had to pay $ to join the team and get to practice.

I would not crow about NoVA.

DC has 23 outdoor pools and 12 Aquatic Centers, serving 712,000 people. Fairfax County has 0 outdoor pools and 10 aquatic centers, serving 1.1 million people.

That is the legacy of racism. Clearly FFX only built the pools necessary for lap sports, with no recreational pools included. They see no need because the historically white communities built their private pools. Same is true of Arlington. They have 3 high school pools built in the 70s, and only recently did they build the first aquatics center. No recreational pools, but a bunch of private pools that I'm pretty sure were mostly built in the mid-50s.

Thank you for putting this so succinctly. I can't tell if some of the posters genuinely don't understand/know the history or if they refuse to believe it.

It's totally ok now to know or understand history. I sure didn't understand this part of US history until I was well into adulthood. I certainly was never taught about all the various racially discriminatory practices at play in the US, or their after-effects, in school. The article someone just posted is from 2004. I didn't live here in 2004. I learned this year that Luther Jackson Middle School used to be the black high school when I Googled it after my kid's sports practice. I didn't know when I was bussed across town in grade school in the 70's and 80's it was because my hometown school district was under a consent decree from a civil rights lawsuit for failure to integrate. Just because no one talked to you about this when you were growing up doesn't mean it's not real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was recently in CA- every school there had an outdoor pool- most had 2 or even 3. In NoVa, there was an agreement that the pools would be in the Rec centers. Anyone can go there to swim. Anyone can join NCAP.

I lived in NE - we didn’t have public pools, I learned to swim in a lake. We could join a swim team, like here in Fairfax, we just had to pay $ to join the team and get to practice.

I would not crow about NoVA.

DC has 23 outdoor pools and 12 Aquatic Centers, serving 712,000 people. Fairfax County has 0 outdoor pools and 10 aquatic centers, serving 1.1 million people.

That is the legacy of racism. Clearly FFX only built the pools necessary for lap sports, with no recreational pools included. They see no need because the historically white communities built their private pools. Same is true of Arlington. They have 3 high school pools built in the 70s, and only recently did they build the first aquatics center. No recreational pools, but a bunch of private pools that I'm pretty sure were mostly built in the mid-50s.

Thank you for putting this so succinctly. I can't tell if some of the posters genuinely don't understand/know the history or if they refuse to believe it.

It's totally ok now to know or understand history. I sure didn't understand this part of US history until I was well into adulthood. I certainly was never taught about all the various racially discriminatory practices at play in the US, or their after-effects, in school. The article someone just posted is from 2004. I didn't live here in 2004. I learned this year that Luther Jackson Middle School used to be the black high school when I Googled it after my kid's sports practice. I didn't know when I was bussed across town in grade school in the 70's and 80's it was because my hometown school district was under a consent decree from a civil rights lawsuit for failure to integrate. Just because no one talked to you about this when you were growing up doesn't mean it's not real.

Amen. History is just history. We are always learning more. It’s nothing to be afraid of. The denial people are displaying in here would be funny if it weren’t so strange.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I do see the legacy of racism all around me in NoVA. The private pool thing is sad to consider, given how much we love our local pool club. Interestingly our pool is one of the few in the area that doesn’t have a geographical limitation on who can join … so maybe the founders were a little more progressive, or maybe one of the successor boards was. Back in the 50’s, neighborhoods were way more segregated due to redlining etc. It is just a fact that public pools closed after segregation, and people created private clubs to keep others out. It’s not allowed now but there’s definitely a legacy to overcome and institutional norms need review to make sure they aren’t perpetuating old biases, like pool bylaws and swim league policies. It seems like these are insignificant things, but they can have big impacts in your very local community. These are the best kinds of things to care about in my opinion.

All of the people saying, oh, well I grew up in a 100% white area and had no public pools are proving the point.

Neighborhoods were also segregated because of deed restrictions - literally the deed to your house would require you to not sell to a black family.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do see the legacy of racism all around me in NoVA. The private pool thing is sad to consider, given how much we love our local pool club. Interestingly our pool is one of the few in the area that doesn’t have a geographical limitation on who can join … so maybe the founders were a little more progressive, or maybe one of the successor boards was. Back in the 50’s, neighborhoods were way more segregated due to redlining etc. It is just a fact that public pools closed after segregation, and people created private clubs to keep others out. It’s not allowed now but there’s definitely a legacy to overcome and institutional norms need review to make sure they aren’t perpetuating old biases, like pool bylaws and swim league policies. It seems like these are insignificant things, but they can have big impacts in your very local community. These are the best kinds of things to care about in my opinion.

All of the people saying, oh, well I grew up in a 100% white area and had no public pools are proving the point.

Neighborhoods were also segregated because of deed restrictions - literally the deed to your house would require you to not sell to a black family.

Yes! Thank you for adding this. People really don’t understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was recently in CA- every school there had an outdoor pool- most had 2 or even 3. In NoVa, there was an agreement that the pools would be in the Rec centers. Anyone can go there to swim. Anyone can join NCAP.

I lived in NE - we didn’t have public pools, I learned to swim in a lake. We could join a swim team, like here in Fairfax, we just had to pay $ to join the team and get to practice.

I would not crow about NoVA.

DC has 23 outdoor pools and 12 Aquatic Centers, serving 712,000 people. Fairfax County has 0 outdoor pools and 10 aquatic centers, serving 1.1 million people.

That is the legacy of racism. Clearly FFX only built the pools necessary for lap sports, with no recreational pools included. They see no need because the historically white communities built their private pools. Same is true of Arlington. They have 3 high school pools built in the 70s, and only recently did they build the first aquatics center. No recreational pools, but a bunch of private pools that I'm pretty sure were mostly built in the mid-50s.

Thank you for putting this so succinctly. I can't tell if some of the posters genuinely don't understand/know the history or if they refuse to believe it.

It's totally ok now to know or understand history. I sure didn't understand this part of US history until I was well into adulthood. I certainly was never taught about all the various racially discriminatory practices at play in the US, or their after-effects, in school. The article someone just posted is from 2004. I didn't live here in 2004. I learned this year that Luther Jackson Middle School used to be the black high school when I Googled it after my kid's sports practice. I didn't know when I was bussed across town in grade school in the 70's and 80's it was because my hometown school district was under a consent decree from a civil rights lawsuit for failure to integrate. Just because no one talked to you about this when you were growing up doesn't mean it's not real.

I don't know where you went to school, but we were all taught about civil rights issues in history class like busing, redlining, etc. Not a single thing you or anyone else has noted in this thread is anything new.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do see the legacy of racism all around me in NoVA. The private pool thing is sad to consider, given how much we love our local pool club. Interestingly our pool is one of the few in the area that doesn’t have a geographical limitation on who can join … so maybe the founders were a little more progressive, or maybe one of the successor boards was. Back in the 50’s, neighborhoods were way more segregated due to redlining etc. It is just a fact that public pools closed after segregation, and people created private clubs to keep others out. It’s not allowed now but there’s definitely a legacy to overcome and institutional norms need review to make sure they aren’t perpetuating old biases, like pool bylaws and swim league policies. It seems like these are insignificant things, but they can have big impacts in your very local community. These are the best kinds of things to care about in my opinion.

All of the people saying, oh, well I grew up in a 100% white area and had no public pools are proving the point.

Why should I pay for other people’s pools? Why should yet another thing that has no relevance to me or anyone I know be paid for by me?

Did anyone say you should?

The article simply gives an explanation about why people stopped wanting to pay for them when they used to have no problem with it. After desegregation, white people moved out of DC into NoVA, and built neighborhoods and pool clubs that excluded black people. It’s interesting history and something to consider if you belong to a pool built around that time. If the county had invested in public pools they would have had to be integrated, and the white people here at the time were NOT on board with that. So we have what we have. Worth looking at any policies your HOA, pool or swim programs might have that seem to create any barriers for people of color in any event. They could be leftovers from that time.

I realize this is way too thoughtful and reflective for most people here though who prefer to bury their heads in the sand on these issues.