Arlington (VA) hopes to build a 39-story office building in Rosslyn, right across the Potomac from Georgetown. The building would be nearly as tall as the 555-foot Washington Monument on the D.C. Mall. Naturally, the artsy fartsy types in D.C. are in a panic, reports the Washington Post.

On the other side are federal planning officials and architects devoted to the vision of Pierre L'Enfant and the preservation of the 555-foot-tall Washington Monument as the area's focal point. Tall buildings in Rosslyn, they say, would further encroach on L'Enfant's historic plan for a city of low structures dominated by tree-lined promenades and the Capitol dome.

Any increase in building height is likely to be vigorously opposed by the U.S. Commission of Fine Arts and the National Capital Planning Commission, which together guard the capital's cityscape.

Of course none of these committees can do anything about it. Even the FAA, who is worried about the flight path to Ronald Reagan National Airport couldn't stop the building's construction. And that has detractors lamenting Washington D.C.'s 160 year old decision to return Arlington to the Commonwealth of Virginia.

L'Enfant and the founders "would be distressed at the sight of Rosslyn today . . . rising like the Tower of Babel on the far side of the Potomac," said Steven W. Hurtt, a former dean of the University of Maryland's school of architecture.

Returning that part of the capital city to Virginia in 1846 was "clearly a mistake," Hurtt said. "Were it still part of D.C., maybe we wouldn't have this problem."

Nope. Instead we'd have rampant crime and parking problems.