Aging Baby Boomers will remember the joys of banking…from their car. Banks had drive-through-teller service and customers could conduct their business with convenience and speed. Today, that type of banking has moved mobile phones and out of aging suburbia. Finding younger Millennials would be a rare siting in the drive-through-lines.
A recent Boston Globe article explains that the drive-through-tellers, introduced in the 1930s, were a symbol of a nation that was getting behind the wheel. Banks prided themselves on their drive-through-teller services; some even built 10 to 15 bays at a branch.
Today, the drive-through banks are a throwback and they are being torn out. Other parts of our hardscape are also being torn out and changed, as the age of motoring is preempted by the Digital Age.
What does this have to do with housing? Quite a lot. Modern suburbs were designed around the car….but the need for travel, the way of doing things, and our needs are changing. See the standalone chapter, Chapter Seven, in Aging (well) in Suburbia.
Note in the picture- Wachovia, the bank, is no longer in existence. Starbuck’s drive throughs next?