Unlearning continues at a furious pace

1. Stuart Sirota has coined the term "inward suburbanization" to describe the process of suburbanizing urban places. This relates to the transect idea from New Urbanism, that you put the right kind of building form in the appropriate place.

Illustration from The House Book by Keith DuQuette

2. The current issue of Dupont Current (not available on line) has a story about Commerce Bank building a suburban styled branch in Tenleytown.

See "Commerce Bank breaks ground on Washington branches" and "Banking on branches," from the Washington Business Journal and "Area Gets An All-Day Bank Fight" from the Post about Commerce Bank's expansion strategy. The founder of the company still owns Burger King franchises and it shaped his approach to the banking business.

But the fast food sensibility also shaped their focus on design. And while a Commerce Bank official likens their approach to Starbucks, the latter company is fine with historic buildings, whereas Commerce Bank doesn't seem to be similarly minded.

3. This is frustrating because this problem keeps happening around the city--it happened in Georgetown, except that Georgetown has an extra level of and stronger design review process than regular DC historic districts.

4. And I wrote about this problem in Brooklyn, with Commerce Bank, a couple years ago. See "YIMBYs from Brooklyn to DC -- Thinking about Community Participation in Shaping Development." (Actually, I am gonna reprint this entry next.)

Why don't we learn that design review is important everywhere? And that urban forms are the appropriate building forms for a city like Washington, DC.

5. Also see "A Retailer's Lament: Influx of Bank Branches," a 2005 blog entry.

6. This is a book I want to read...