Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the info!

I’ll take a look at all the info posted

One question I do have. I came from an area where cities/villages had public pools and most summer teams swam/competed out of those pools. I was shocked to see all the small outdoor pools littered throughout Annandale. Most with teams as well. Can anyone shed light on this? Why/how this came about?

White people did not want to swim in desegregated pools. I grew up in the south and often the answer to “why is this the way it is?” is often Jim Crowe.

https://www.npr.org/2008/05/06/90213675/racial-history-of-american-swimming-pools

Do yourself a favor and go to the job boards at USA swimming and swimswam. This is an anonymous board of swim parents.

This article is a wonderful national trend, but really not relevant to the hyper-local reason for the large number of pools that developers built as the chief amenity of so many Fairfax neighborhoods in the 60s and 70s.

I'm at one of those tiny pools in Annandale, and this. If you look at the NVSL map for Annandale just outside the Beltway (along with Springfield, Burke, and eastern Fairfax), you'll find lots of tiny '60s and '70s neighborhoods with their own pools. It's so crazy that a little over a decade ago Royal Pool in Kings Park shut down because KP could no longer support 2 pools. Some other area pools are definitely at risk.

Just curious. Why is that crazy?

Not OP, but I think he/she meant it's crazy to build many pools in a subdivision. Kings Park is a big subdivision, and it is capable of supporting two pools. However, about 20 years ago, when Royal Pool got shut down, all the kids had grown up, there were no incentive for (older) parents in their forever homes to sign up for pool memberships.

Anyway, the remaining pool (Parliament) is crowded, I wish Royal Pool was still there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not denying this didn’t happen. This simply didn’t happen in many of these neighborhoods because these neighborhoods were’t neighborhoods, they were farms. There weren’t people, there weren’t public pools.

The county rec centers with pools opened in the late 70s/ early 80s.

In the 1950’s, there weren’t many pools in general, but it was not an oversight that Arlington did not build community pools, when their older neighboring communities did have them. In dc, when the public pools were desegregated, Black kids were bussed in, there was conflict at the anacostia pool, and sentiments were heated about desegregation.

https://rediscovering-black-history.blogs.archives.gov/2020/08/05/washington-dc-public-pools/

There is no way that the founders of the nova private pools were not influenced by current events and general sentiment against desegregation. DC pools were the first pools to undergo federally mandated desegregation and it was very contentious. Dc was the first place in the country to have desegregated pools and just happens to have the highest density of private pool clubs.

https://www.fcnp.com/2015/07/29/our-man-in-arlington-137/

https://library.arlingtonva.us/2024/07/24/swimming-away-the-dog-days/

Annandale is not Arlington. Annandale and the immediate area has 5x the pools of Arlington. Most of Annandale was built 20-30 years after Arlington. You’ve spent a lot of time finding and citing sources that don’t support your theory.

At the time these neighborhoods were built, developers lured buyers with things buyers wanted like linoleum flooring in the kitchens and full, unfinished basements. The desirable, and cheap way to build a social hub was to have a pool at the center of the development.

Why are there so many pools? So the developers could sell houses. The answer is money, not racism in this instance.

Honestly the answer is ‘all of the above’, incentives from builders and developers to buy in their new neighborhoods, the incentive though mostly came from racist sentiments. People don’t want to use desegregated public pools so builders used that sentiment to encourage folks to purchase in their neighborhoods by providing private neighborhood pools.
That said…today the pools are definitely hubs of social activities for the neighborhood and a huge value-added and whatever racist undertones drove those decisions in the 60s and 70s are gone (at least in FFX)

Check out GMU Makos! 10 minute drive from Annandale, great bunch of kids and some very strong swimmers among them.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not denying this didn’t happen. This simply didn’t happen in many of these neighborhoods because these neighborhoods were’t neighborhoods, they were farms. There weren’t people, there weren’t public pools.

The county rec centers with pools opened in the late 70s/ early 80s.

In the 1950’s, there weren’t many pools in general, but it was not an oversight that Arlington did not build community pools, when their older neighboring communities did have them. In dc, when the public pools were desegregated, Black kids were bussed in, there was conflict at the anacostia pool, and sentiments were heated about desegregation.

https://rediscovering-black-history.blogs.archives.gov/2020/08/05/washington-dc-public-pools/

There is no way that the founders of the nova private pools were not influenced by current events and general sentiment against desegregation. DC pools were the first pools to undergo federally mandated desegregation and it was very contentious. Dc was the first place in the country to have desegregated pools and just happens to have the highest density of private pool clubs.

https://www.fcnp.com/2015/07/29/our-man-in-arlington-137/

https://library.arlingtonva.us/2024/07/24/swimming-away-the-dog-days/

Annandale is not Arlington. Annandale and the immediate area has 5x the pools of Arlington. Most of Annandale was built 20-30 years after Arlington. You’ve spent a lot of time finding and citing sources that don’t support your theory.

At the time these neighborhoods were built, developers lured buyers with things buyers wanted like linoleum flooring in the kitchens and full, unfinished basements. The desirable, and cheap way to build a social hub was to have a pool at the center of the development.

Why are there so many pools? So the developers could sell houses. The answer is money, not racism in this instance.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the info!

I’ll take a look at all the info posted

One question I do have. I came from an area where cities/villages had public pools and most summer teams swam/competed out of those pools. I was shocked to see all the small outdoor pools littered throughout Annandale. Most with teams as well. Can anyone shed light on this? Why/how this came about?

Others have done a good job discussing the reason so many private swim clubs popped up post-desegregation. At this point in time, however, NVSL is the second largest swim league in the entire U.S., and there are 4-5 other northern Virginia-based smaller swim leagues as well. Swimming is really, really popular here! (Atlanta Swimming Association is slightly larger than NVSL, but it’s so negligible that’s it’s not worth a side debate or argument. Suffice it to say: Kids swim in northern Virginia and Maryland and there are loads and loads of pools/teams, some with long waitlists and some that are struggling because of demographic changes.)

DC Wave is hiring.

None of the little Annandale pools are paying real coaching money, though. They usually are hiding college kids or recent college grads. Sometimes even a HS kid as head coach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the info!

I’ll take a look at all the info posted

One question I do have. I came from an area where cities/villages had public pools and most summer teams swam/competed out of those pools. I was shocked to see all the small outdoor pools littered throughout Annandale. Most with teams as well. Can anyone shed light on this? Why/how this came about?

White people did not want to swim in desegregated pools. I grew up in the south and often the answer to “why is this the way it is?” is often Jim Crowe.

https://www.npr.org/2008/05/06/90213675/racial-history-of-american-swimming-pools

Do yourself a favor and go to the job boards at USA swimming and swimswam. This is an anonymous board of swim parents.

This article is a wonderful national trend, but really not relevant to the hyper-local reason for the large number of pools that developers built as the chief amenity of so many Fairfax neighborhoods in the 60s and 70s.

I'm at one of those tiny pools in Annandale, and this. If you look at the NVSL map for Annandale just outside the Beltway (along with Springfield, Burke, and eastern Fairfax), you'll find lots of tiny '60s and '70s neighborhoods with their own pools. It's so crazy that a little over a decade ago Royal Pool in Kings Park shut down because KP could no longer support 2 pools. Some other area pools are definitely at risk.

Just curious. Why is that crazy?

Anonymous wrote:I’m not denying this didn’t happen. This simply didn’t happen in many of these neighborhoods because these neighborhoods were’t neighborhoods, they were farms. There weren’t people, there weren’t public pools.

The county rec centers with pools opened in the late 70s/ early 80s.

In the 1950’s, there weren’t many pools in general, but it was not an oversight that Arlington did not build community pools, when their older neighboring communities did have them. In dc, when the public pools were desegregated, Black kids were bussed in, there was conflict at the anacostia pool, and sentiments were heated about desegregation.

https://rediscovering-black-history.blogs.archives.gov/2020/08/05/washington-dc-public-pools/

There is no way that the founders of the nova private pools were not influenced by current events and general sentiment against desegregation. DC pools were the first pools to undergo federally mandated desegregation and it was very contentious. Dc was the first place in the country to have desegregated pools and just happens to have the highest density of private pool clubs.

https://www.fcnp.com/2015/07/29/our-man-in-arlington-137/

https://library.arlingtonva.us/2024/07/24/swimming-away-the-dog-days/

I’m not denying this didn’t happen. This simply didn’t happen in many of these neighborhoods because these neighborhoods were’t neighborhoods, they were farms. There weren’t people, there weren’t public pools.

The county rec centers with pools opened in the late 70s/ early 80s.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the info!

I’ll take a look at all the info posted

One question I do have. I came from an area where cities/villages had public pools and most summer teams swam/competed out of those pools. I was shocked to see all the small outdoor pools littered throughout Annandale. Most with teams as well. Can anyone shed light on this? Why/how this came about?

White people did not want to swim in desegregated pools. I grew up in the south and often the answer to “why is this the way it is?” is often Jim Crowe.

https://www.npr.org/2008/05/06/90213675/racial-history-of-american-swimming-pools

Do yourself a favor and go to the job boards at USA swimming and swimswam. This is an anonymous board of swim parents.

This article is a wonderful national trend, but really not relevant to the hyper-local reason for the large number of pools that developers built as the chief amenity of so many Fairfax neighborhoods in the 60s and 70s.

It’s not just a coincidence that private pool clubs opened just as the Supreme Court ordered public pools to desegregate. Public pools were often closed, like the Leesburg pool, rather than allow it to become desegregated. With fewer public pools and a population of wealthy White people who wanted to enjoy the pool, private pool clubs was the logical next step. Neighborhoods opened their own pool, much like the private schools that were opened when schools were desegregated. It happened all over the U.S., not just in the south.

https://theconversation.com/the-forgotten-history-of-segregated-swimming-pools-and-amusement-parks-119586

https://southerneducation.org/publications/history-of-private-schools-and-race-in-the-american-south/

There’s an instinct to deny history because it seems to imply the institutions are sullied in some way. It doesn’t mean that the private pool clubs are racist today or should be shut down or anything. It’s just the way it happened, and it’s worthwhile to be aware of it. Places like Princeton and Harvard were directly involved in the slave trade. Many universities and colleges in the early 20th century had quotas for Catholics and other Protestants. Forest hills tennis club in queens, host of the U.S. open, didn’t allow a Black member until 1978. Saying that racism shaped our present institutions doesn’t mean that they are racist today. But we shouldn’t deny that the past happened.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the info!

I’ll take a look at all the info posted

One question I do have. I came from an area where cities/villages had public pools and most summer teams swam/competed out of those pools. I was shocked to see all the small outdoor pools littered throughout Annandale. Most with teams as well. Can anyone shed light on this? Why/how this came about?

White people did not want to swim in desegregated pools. I grew up in the south and often the answer to “why is this the way it is?” is often Jim Crowe.

https://www.npr.org/2008/05/06/90213675/racial-history-of-american-swimming-pools

Do yourself a favor and go to the job boards at USA swimming and swimswam. This is an anonymous board of swim parents.

This article is a wonderful national trend, but really not relevant to the hyper-local reason for the large number of pools that developers built as the chief amenity of so many Fairfax neighborhoods in the 60s and 70s.

I'm at one of those tiny pools in Annandale, and this. If you look at the NVSL map for Annandale just outside the Beltway (along with Springfield, Burke, and eastern Fairfax), you'll find lots of tiny '60s and '70s neighborhoods with their own pools. It's so crazy that a little over a decade ago Royal Pool in Kings Park shut down because KP could no longer support 2 pools. Some other area pools are definitely at risk.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the info!

I’ll take a look at all the info posted

One question I do have. I came from an area where cities/villages had public pools and most summer teams swam/competed out of those pools. I was shocked to see all the small outdoor pools littered throughout Annandale. Most with teams as well. Can anyone shed light on this? Why/how this came about?

White people did not want to swim in desegregated pools. I grew up in the south and often the answer to “why is this the way it is?” is often Jim Crowe.

https://www.npr.org/2008/05/06/90213675/racial-history-of-american-swimming-pools

Do yourself a favor and go to the job boards at USA swimming and swimswam. This is an anonymous board of swim parents.

This article is a wonderful national trend, but really not relevant to the hyper-local reason for the large number of pools that developers built as the chief amenity of so many Fairfax neighborhoods in the 60s and 70s.

Anonymous wrote:Thanks for the info!

I’ll take a look at all the info posted

One question I do have. I came from an area where cities/villages had public pools and most summer teams swam/competed out of those pools. I was shocked to see all the small outdoor pools littered throughout Annandale. Most with teams as well. Can anyone shed light on this? Why/how this came about?

White people did not want to swim in desegregated pools. I grew up in the south and often the answer to “why is this the way it is?” is often Jim Crowe.

https://www.npr.org/2008/05/06/90213675/racial-history-of-american-swimming-pools

Do yourself a favor and go to the job boards at USA swimming and swimswam. This is an anonymous board of swim parents.

When all of these neighborhoods were being built from 1950-1975 or so, there were few public pools operated by towns or counties, so the developers commonly built pools as a neighborhood amenity.