Thanks to our friends at Fast Company for helping allay the sky-is-falling hysteria by commissioning artists to illustrate what D.C.’s skyline would not look like if the Height Act were amended or repealed. OK, so maybe that’s not exactly how they billed it. But given the dismay caused by the modeling studies showing hypothetical beige blocks built up to various new height limits, it’s useful to have more colorful imagery of what we are and aren’t actually talking about.

And here are four for the “aren’t” column. No, taller buildings in D.C. wouldn’t be a collection of capsizing Space Needles. No, they wouldn’t be built to 3,000 feet, consuming multiple city blocks. No, they wouldn’t take over the National Mall. And no, they wouldn’t surround the Capitol.

As Congress weighs changes to the 1910 law restricting D.C. building heights, I’d encourage our federal overlords to keep these illustrations handy as a reminder of just how minor that changes under consideration are: buildings downtown growing by perhaps 30 or 40 feet, and buildings elsewhere staying exactly the same, with the future possibility of similarly small increases. Here, Mr. Issa, is the link.

Illustration collage via Fast Company under fair use