While I've long been very critical of the bland and often repetitive designs that appeared during the condo boom, I'll also say that for most of the last century, most growth in NA was in the form of soulless, generic cookie-cutter houses in endless suburban subdivisions. That deserves far more criticism than housing that adds density to the central city, puts less strain regional infrastructure, wastes fewer resources, and destroyed less natural environment and agricultural land. It can be tempting to compare low to mid-range residential towers with landmark office buildings, hotels, and luxury towers, but the choice was never between those things. While I'm sure there are designs that would have looked better, middle class housing was never going to add to a city's aesthetics the way other highrise booms have. So some of the disappointment is down to inappropriate expectations.
While some worry that the unit sizes are too small, the overly large suburban houses that tend to be the alternative would be too far, too car dependent, and in too ugly of landscapes making them even worse.
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"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." - George Bernard Shaw
Don't ask people not to debate a topic. Just stop making debatable assertions. Problem solved.
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