Last week, I wrote about our frustrating inability to build new places that are as nice as old ones.  It’s been studied and quantified. Pedestrians tend to hurry past new buildings. And all things being equal, they pay more to live in old neighbourhoods. Why are new developments often unpopular? I wrote that differing aesthetic tastes between architects and the public is probably a factor. Architects tend to like buildings that are clean, sculptural, and innovative. Ordinary people like traditional forms, and neighbourhoods made up of variations within an overall pattern.  But it’s unfair to pin all the blame on…

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