>I find it inappropriate and offensive that this author decides to be the sole authority on aesthetics of PRIVATE properties, appealing to some sort of an unassailable, celestial authority that mainstream architecture is and promoting boring, utilitarian designs. Just how far down the slippery slope of the rabbit hole do you want to go? Why not box people in grey Soviet apartment buildings?
This is a straw man. The author isn't against interesting designs, just careless ones. And interpreting this article as a advocating authoritarianism is reading a lot into it.
Exploring the wider picture and integrating the issues at hand isn't a straw man argument, it's called thinking as well as not being naive to the ominous specter of slowly creeping authoritarianism.
People find "careless" designs interesting. Who is he to dictate how private property should look? He is utterly intolerant of personal freedom and promotes sterile, totalitarian looking architecture.
In another post, the author states outright that she likes many styles [0], so the idea she promotes "sterile, totalitarian looking architecture" is off the mark. The original post itself includes a diversity of good examples, so I'm not sure where that came from.
I guess I find it hard to take your claims seriously until you explain why you've concluded the author wants to enact her tastes into law rather than just discuss them.
>People find "careless" designs interesting.
I didn't mean to suggest otherwise. It just that in some (many?) cases, careless designs are less likely to be widely appealing or stand up to scrutiny.
This is a straw man. The author isn't against interesting designs, just careless ones. And interpreting this article as a advocating authoritarianism is reading a lot into it.