Cheap accommodations built quick-and-dirty for waves of newcomers:
Don't even worry about the cornices and brickwork. The only issue is scale.
Look at that middle building and imagine it clad in whatever red or blue material the Waterloo builders are using. It wouldn't make a difference, really. You don't need brownstone and trees.
Build them four windows wide, seven windows high and right up to the lot line. Clad them however you like. 3-D print a cornice or some decoration if you're feeling fancy: that's a city. That's Manhattan and that's Naples. The rules are old and they are simple.
There is nothing that says we have to live in these pitiful landscapes except legacy 20th-century thinking.